Spokane arena football team settles on name, but not ready to reveal it

Spokane’s arena football team has settled on a new name but is probably 10 days from making an official announcement.

Team officials are still working through details on a logo, colors and uniform and helmet design.

“We’re very close, hopefully by the end of next week,” director of operations Ryan Eucker said. “We feel like we have a good one. It’s unique and has historical and geographical ties to the area.”

Spokane is rebranding after leaving the Arena Football League following the 2015 season for the Indoor Football League. The team wasn’t able to reach an agreement with the AFL, which retained Shock trademarks and logos.

The organization received nearly 500 suggestions in its “Name the Team” contest. The team had hoped to announce a new name in early November, but it’s taken considerably longer to sort through the suggestions and vet the list of finalists through legal counsel for trademark considerations.

“We broke it down to a top 50 and then a top 10 or 15,” Eucker said. “We got it down to a top three. Of those three, one wasn’t completely available in all of the trademark realms so we put that one to the side. Another was being used by a lacrosse team and it would have worked but we wanted to go the route of one that hasn’t been used.”

The Shock’s main colors were blue and orange and thousands of fans often wore orange for home games at the arena. Orange will remain as a primary or accent color while no decision has been made on blue, Eucker said.

“It’s a good opportunity to refresh with the new league, new coach and new look with something people can get behind,” Eucker said.