Portland's New Hockey Team

Sadly the Portland Pirates left town in 2016 leaving Portland without a professional hockey team and no way for us to celebrate our rich local pirate history. But the recent announcement that professional hockey is returning to Portland left many(mostly business owners) celebrating. Starting in the 2018 season a new ECHL team will be playing at The Cross Insurance Arena. In case you didn't know the ECHL stands for the East Coast Hockey League and is one step above the men's 40+ league that plays on the Deering Oaks pond. No word if the new team will keep the Pirates name. If not what will this new team be called? Here are my suggestions: 

THE PORTLAND TRASH BIRDS The one thing in Portland more ubiquitous than parking meters and overpriced hotels is seagulls. From the trash dumpsters of the Porthole to every MacDonald's parking lot in town you can watch these dirty birds eat garbage and french fries (Why do they love French Fries so much? The arena should definitely serve french fries). It's about time someone honored Portland's unofficial city bird. Added marketing bonus-the team could create a guerrilla style marketing campaign where they hire street urchins to plaster their dropping shaped logo stickers all over cars through out the Old Port.

 THE PORTLAND HIPSTERS It seems like one of the top 10 things that national magazines like to do is include Portland on their meaningless lists. Awhile back some magazine listed Portland, Maine as one of the Nation's top hipster towns. Which I personally think was a typo. I think they meant Portland, Oregon but just left it for irony sake. Whatever, we have a Trader Joe's and an Urban Outfitters so let's roll with it. Added marketing ploy anybody in the crowd with a beard drinking an Allagash could be the team mascot. And when anyone asks if they're the mascot they would deny it. 

THE PORTLAND FOODIES Portland has often been said to have the most restaurants per capita in the country, even though that claims seems to be highly disputed. But in post Trump America facts don't matter. But we do definitely have a ton of restaurants. Otherwise we wouldn't have musicians or artists. Added marketing ploy- Chicago fans through an octopus on the ice for every goal during playoff games. For the Foodies fans would throw market priced charcuterie boards on the ice for every goal.

THE PORTLAND DOGMEN Since the new team would be affiliated with the Philadelphia Flyers it would be fitting to poke fun of former Philadelphia detective and Portland police chief Michael Chitwood and celebrate Portland's infamous Dave "The Dogman" Koplow. Of course to anyone born before 1988 the reference would be lost, but lets face it. No one over 40 buys tickets to hockey games. Potential down fall- The team would only be allowed to legally operate for 10 years and then would be run out of town by city officials and forced to relocate to Massachusetts.