Major Sports Team in Montana? Here’s What We Think They Should Be Called

I'm not a huge sports fan.

I'm even a little embarrassed to admit this, given I'm the daughter of an Oregon State Gymnastics coach who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022.

But slowly, I'm becoming interested in "sports balls." Here's how it happened.

My coworkers decided they wanted to start a pool for the upcoming NFL season. The fact that there was going to be free food to start and end the pool is really what caught my interest. But I'm a little competitive, so I started to do some research. That's when I learned about professional team names and I gotta say, I'm starting to get invested in something I've never cared about before.

Team Names and Mascots Are Wild

Being a book-reading-dog-petter, I had no idea the kind of history and creativity that goes into picking a team name and mascot for some of these teams. I even found one I could be on board with--the Baltimore Ravens, named for poet Edgar Allan Poe. The Jacksonville Jaguars got their name because, according to the Bleacher Report, the oldest living Jaguar in North America was at the Jacksonville Zoo. That, and there was a naming contest, and that's what Jacksonville picked. But how cool is that?

Montana's Sports Teams

While Montana has sports teams: the Paddleheads, the Mustangs, the Outlaws, it doesn't have any major professional teams. So we asked our listeners, if we did have a team, what should they be called? Here's what they said.

Billings Bison - NFL

I could really see this one. If any Montana city was home to a major professional sports team, it would be Billings, and Bison are the football players of the natural world.

Whitefish Wranglers - MLB

Of course, Whitefish is probably too small for a MLB team, but the Wranglers is such a good name.

Helena Hounds - FC

Why couldn't Helena be the next Wrexham?

Bozeman Jackalopes - NBA

Because any professional sports team from Montana might be as mythical as a jackalope.

There were certainly tongue-in-cheek answers, and we got a chuckle out of this one.

The Montana Californians

And when we asked on Facebook what the mascot would be we were told, "a Subaru Outback with a Thule topper and 2 bikes on the back." Touche.