Last night I was watching the Boston Bruins vs. New York Islanders NHL playoff game. Midway through the third period, I realized something. Neither the Boston Bruins nor the New York Islanders own their team name .com domain name. Bruins.com is owned by GoDaddy (via its NameFind portfolio company) and Islanders.com is owned by CCIN (Michael Castello and David Castello).
It looks like all NHL teams utilize the NHL.com domain name for their websites. However, each team owns its own domain name that forwards to their NHL-based website. For instance, the Boston Bruins website can be found by navigating to BostonBruins.com and the NY Islanders website can be found by navigating to NewYorkIslanders.com.
Several years ago, I took a look at the domain names used by professional sports teams in the four major sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL). At that time, NHL teams owned the fewest number of team .com domain names at just 25.8%. I thought I would take another look at NHL team domain names to see if anything has changed with respect to team name .com domain names. Here’s what I found:
National Hockey League Teams – Do they own team name .com?
Anaheim Ducks No – AnaheimDucks.com
Arizona Coyotes No – ArizonaCoyotes.com
Boston Bruins No – BostonBruins.com
Buffalo Sabres Yes – Sabres.com
Calgary Flames No – CalgaryFlames.com
Carolina Hurricanes Yes – Hurricanes.com
Chicago Blackhawks.com – Yes – Blackhawks.com
Colorado Avalanche No – ColoradoAvalanche.com
Columbus Blue Jackets Yes – BlueJackets.com
Dallas Stars No – DallasStars.com
Detroit Red Wings No – DetroitRedWings.com
Edmonton Oilers No – EdmontonOilers.com
Florida Panthers No – FloridaPanthers.com
Los Angeles Kings No – LAKings.com
Minnesota Wild Yes – Wild.com
Montreal Canadiens Yes – Canadiens.com
Nashville Predators No – NashvillePredators.com
New Jersey Devils No – NewJerseyDevils.com
New York Islanders No – NewYorkIslanders.com
New York Rangers No – NYRangers.com and NewYorkRangers.com
Ottawa Senators Yes – Senators.com
Philadelphia Flyers No – PhiladelphiaFlyers.com
Pittsburgh Penguins No – PittsburghPenguins.com
San Jose Sharks No – SJSharks.com
St. Louis Blues No – StLouisBlues.com
Tampa Bay Lightning No – TampaBayLightning.com
Toronto Maple Leafs Yes – MapleLeafs.com
Vancouver Canucks Yes – Canucks.com
Vegas Golden Knights.com No – VegasGoldenKnights.com
Washington Capitals No – WashCaps.com
Winnipeg Jets No – WinnipegJets.com
The percentage of NHL teams with their team name .com domain name changed when the Blackhawks won a UDRP for Blackhawks.com. 29% of NHL teams now own their team .com domain name.
The percentage is going to change again in the near future, as an expansion team from Seattle will be playing in the NHL in the 2021-2022 season. The Seattle NHL team is called the Kraken, and the team does not own Kraken.com. The team’s website can be found by visiting SeattleKrakenHockey.com.
Once the Kraken begin playing, the total percentage of NHL teams that own their team name .com domain name will be 28.1% (9 of 32 NHL teams).
It’s never made sense to me why these pro sports teams don’t acquire these intuitive domain names. It’s Marketing 101. My best guess is that the final decision starts with their marketing department who defers to their IT department – which is the kiss of death. On the other hand, it would be an obvious acquisition to an owner, but they rarely make these decisions unless you happen to engage them one-on-one. It’s no secret that every six and seven figure sale we’ve ever had has been to the owner/founder of the business.