The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim will be no more when the 2006-07 season begins.
Club owners Henry and Susan Samueli, who finalized their purchase of the NHL team from the Walt Disney Co. in June, announced Thursday that the club will be known as the Anaheim Ducks beginning next season.
Possible changes to the team’s logo and uniforms are still being evaluated.
“The process is still very much under way, and we do not expect to be ready to make any further announcements until the end of the season,” Henry Samueli said in a statement. “In selecting the name the Anaheim Ducks, we are respecting the heritage of a tremendous organization that has been a very important and visible part of the community (and) Western Conference champions and a Stanley Cup finalist (in 2003).”
Disney founded the expansion club in 1993, and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner named the team after one of the company’s popular children’s movies. The name and the club’s cartoonish logo met with much ridicule, especially initially. Henry Samueli told the NHL when he was negotiating to purchase the team that he wanted to consider changing the nickname, but that Anaheim would remain in the name.
“The Mighty Ducks organization very carefully considered the question of whether to change the team name, and spent many months evaluating various options,” said David Paine, CEO of Irvine-based Paine PR, which coordinated the research for the Samuelis. “The process included both qualitative research and a formal quantitative telephone survey of Mighty Ducks season-ticket holders. While there was support for keeping the current name, the majority of those surveyed, nearly two-thirds, supported some sort of name change.”
