Haha. It's actually pretty close, the Hornets. The original LDS state was Deseret, which was derived from the Book of Mormon's mention of bees, or something. The beehive is still the official emblem of the state, I believe. Hornets are not the same as honeybees, of course, but it'd still make some sense Ed O.
The Salt Lake Ciy AAA baseball team, which was formerly the Portland Beavers before they were stolen back in 1994, is called the bees.
They were first the "buzz", then "stingers". Strange to think that the franchise has been in SLC longer than it was in Portland AND Portland had a single A team and a AAA team and lost both in the timespan.
I like the idea of a three-way name trade. Salt Lake City sends "Jazz" to New Orleans. New Orleans sends "Hornets" to Memphis. Memphis sends "Grizzlies" to Salt Lake City. The only problem (ok, probably not the only problem) with that trade is this: http://www.utahgrizzlies.com/ - hockey team.
How about they get bought and move to the NW. I don't know, maybe the Seattle Supersonics? It would be awesome because they can hang their championship banner and all the Western Conference Champions banners too. They get to take all the history away from the OKC Thunder.
Someone buying the Kings is a more likely option. The owner of the Saints would not buy the Hornets, just to move the team (or sell it). I'm sure the Saints are a cash cow and the bad PR would kill them if he tried to do either of those.
I guess I don't understand why it's a problem if a city has two teams in different sports that have the same name. It's not like there's no precedent for it. New York had football and baseball Giants before the latter moved to San Francisco; St. Louis had football and baseball Cardinals before the former moved to Arizona. However, to avoid that, another three-way trade option could be Jazz back to NO, Hornets back to Charlotte, and Bobcats to Utah. This makes more sense than the Grizzlies anyway, since bobcats actually live in Utah, whereas no grizzly bears have been seen there for 90 years.
Ha. But I'm with you on someone moving a team to Seattle. The Kings seem like a likely choice, but I'd rather see the a team with less history like the Grizzlies or maybe Bobacats move to there. But back on topic, they need to trade names with SLC, but since that won't happen I vote for the Blues.
need to just trade with utah. Utah is nicknamed the beehive state, and it's state logo includes a picture of a beehive. But no chance it would happen. too much history with the Jazz name.
