Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrent: PWHL unveils expansion team nicknames and logos

Women’s professional hockey league logos here include two new expansion team logos.

Get ready for a women’s pro hockey Torrent in Seattle and the Goldeneyes in Vancouver, as the PWHL unveiled logos and nicknames for its two expansion franchises on Thursday.

The designs and names were chosen to reflect each of the two Pacific Northwest markets. It’s a process that began in April at about the same time the professional women’s league announced it was expanding from six to eight teams for its third season.

The expansion teams will be competing on opening day, with Seattle playing at Vancouver on Nov. 21.

The Torrent nickname and S-shaped logo — with the word Torrent written across — draws from Washington’s powerful rivers and cascading waterways that have carved out the region’s landscape.

Meantime, the Goldeneyes nickname was inspired by the duck common to northern climates, including Vancouver and British Columbia. The logo features the city and nickname circling a feathery golden eye, which is tilting up to reflect it pointing northwest.

“The Seattle Torrent and Vancouver Goldeneyes are bold, distinctive and true to who we are as a league,” said Amy Scheer, PWHL executive vice president of business operations. “Each team identity is deeply connected to its home.”

PWHL marketing VP Kanan Bhatt-Shah noted how the Goldeneyes represent the PWHL’s first animal-related nickname. The league previously went with the Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Montreal Victoire, Minnesota Frost, Toronto Sceptres and New York Sirens.

“The common golden eye has these incredible attributes that feel emblematic of a PWHL hockey team: Strength, speed, fiercely protective,” said Bhatt-Shah, who led the design and name process. “It’s got to feel authentic and right and natural.”

As for the Torrent, Bhatt-Shah said, the name reflects the water imagery of Seattle’s other pro sports teams, such as the WNBA Storm, the NFL’s Seahawks, baseball’s Mariners and the NHL’s Kraken.

She then laughed when asked if the PWHL has enough teams with nicknames starting with the letter “S.”

“One could say you can never have enough S’s,” Bhatt-Shah said. “There’s such a sense of pride in this kind of iconic letter form. And it feels so emblematic of Seattle.”

The league previously revealed the teams’ color schemes. Seattle’s primary colors will be emerald green and cream, and Vancouver’s Pacific blue and cream.

Though merchandise featuring the logos and nicknames will be available for sale, they will not be incorporated on each team’s jersey for games this season. Both teams will instead have their city names printed across the front.

The decision to not include the logos on the jerseys is in part due to the branding not being available in time when PWHL jerseys were placed for order. The process of choosing a nickname and logo is lengthy in part because of patent rights and the PWHL’s desire to have full use of the name and image.

Another reason, Bhatt-Shah said, was reflecting how the league began, with the original six teams not having a nickname or logo for their inaugural season.

Hilary Knight, preparing to represent the United States in her fifth Winter Games in February, was the first member of the Torrent after being signed in free agency in June.

Vancouver is led by Canadian national team players Sarah Nurse and Claire Thompson, and includes forward Jenn Gardiner, who is from suburban Vancouver.

“This identity is a perfect reflection of who we are and where we come from,” Gardiner said. “When I think of the Goldeneyes, I think of the landscape of British Columbia, the mountains, the ocean, and the grit that comes with growing up here.”

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AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey

John Wawrow, The Associated Press