Welcome The AHL's Newest Team: Oklahoma City Barons

It's taken forever for the new AHL franchise in Oklahoma City to officially announce their nickname. There has been a ton of speculation. Could it be the Tornadoes? The Roughnecks? The Wildcatters?  The Roughnecks again? Or perhaps the Bison or the Twisters?

As it turns out, it will be none of those possible choices. A few weeks ago, a site called Oilfield Hockey discovered a few logos for the Oklahoma City Barons by performing a search of the Patent and Trademark Office.

On Wednesday, a few hours before Prodigal Hockey, LLC -- the ownership group --  is set to officially announce the Barons as the newest member of the AHL, Oilfield Hockey discovered official proof.

This banner is from the AHL's website, and was found looking up the Team Directory information. And it was suspected that the other names were nothing more then just a smoke screen by Prodigal.

According to Derek Zona of SBN's The Copper & Blue, after the Barons logos were first discovered, Prodigal hurried to register a bunch of other copyrights to throw savvy researchers off of their game. He says the group was waiting until the NBA's Thunder were eliminated from the playoffs, so the announcement would have the full attention of the Oklahoma City sports scene.

Well, according to Zona, that backfired, and instead, most people in the area completely forgot there was an AHL team coming to town. Now, as they set to finally debut their new nickname, the secret is out.