Story Behind The New Name + Logo For Minnesota’s Championship PWHL Hockey Team

When the Professional Women's Hockey League, or PWHL, launched its inaugural season in 2023, none of the league's 6 teams had a nickname or mascot. Minnesota's PWHL team, for example, just went by "PWHL Minnesota" for the first season.

Minnesota and the five other teams participating in the inaugural season of the league operated under similar names, with Minnesota's team eventually going on to win the league's first-ever championship, hoisting the Walter Cup in May.

With the first season in the rearview mirror and season two ahead, the league announced the names and logos for all six of the hockey teams, including Minnesota's PWHL team. Here's the story behind the name and logo.

Naming Minnesota's PWHL team

Going into the future, PWHL Minnesota will now be known as the "Frost". The league explains the name Frost "embodies the State of Hockey's deep-rooted love for the ice" and the "timeless tradition" of hockey in the state.

The team's website explains "When the first frost covers the land and lakes in crystal, the unique magic of Minnesota winter begins."

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Minnesota Frost Senior Vice President for Business Operations Amy Scheer explained "Minnesota seizes the cold. It’s more than lifestyle, it’s identity. In name, tone, and spirit, Frost does it all."

Designing the Minnesota Frost logo

While the team didn't have a name for season one, they did have a color scheme that involved purple and white, which were incorporated into the logo for their new brand.

The league's description for the new logo explains the stylized F in the standalone letter logo and the stylized font for the full name logo as being "reminiscent of icicles, while the overall design conveys a sense of competitive intensity and fierceness."

The team says while the name might pay homage to Minnesota's signature cold climate, "The Frost logo is anything but chilled out".

They call the (literally) sharp logo something that looks speedy and fierce, "evoking the team's championship-level play". They describe it as something that embodies "the harsh beauty of Minnesota's winters".

Alastair Merry, the co-founder of the company that designed the logo, jokes in a press release about the sharp edges of the logo, saying the edges are "kind that might slice people in half".

The team shared a video you can watch below, unveiling the new logo and name in a brief highlight video that looks back at last season's highlights and ahead to the years to come for the team.