EDMONTON — Following the spate of American sports teams changing their names, the Canadian hockey team formerly known as the "Edmonton Oilers" has been redubbed the "Edmonton 20% Renewable Energy By 2035ers."
NHL insiders conjecture that the name-change is part of a subtle bid from the Edmonton-based team to win the hearts and upvotes of all eight American hockey fans who both care about the environment and actually know who the Edmonton Oilers are.
"As proud supporters of clean, renewable energy, our team is proud to don the name "Edmonton 20% Renewable Energy By 2035ers," said Gord Tremblay, a spokesperson for OEG Inc, which owns the team. "We hope this name will help display our commitment to completely economically infeasible renewable energy sources at some point in the indeterminate future and also hope that this change can atone, in some small way, for the unforgivably climate-phobic name ‘Oilers.' And this definitely doesn't have anything to do with the fact that OEG owns and operates OEG Petroleum, OEG Logging, and OEG Lithium Strip Mining."
When polled on the issue, most Canadians shrugged and said "Eh" in a comically overexaggerated Canadian accent. One responded "Oh, you betcha," but was later found to be from Minnesota.
At publishing time, the Winnipeg Jets had followed suit and started calling themselves the Winnipeg Wind-powered Gliders.
Citing concerns about stiff competition from Amazon and an impossible-to-please Gen Z, Santa has announced he's hanging up the hat for good.
