Group C ideas:
Chicago Butchers-Pays homage to the historic Stockyards on the South Side. Embraces an aggressive image.
Colorado Blast-References both the mining industry, but also to the Air Force Academy.
Nova Scotia Claymores-Didn't want to ape the Citadel name, wanted to tie in to the Province's Scottish roots.
Seattle Fleet-The term works for planes just as well as it does for ships.

Group D ideas:
New York Burros-Yeah, it's wired but it is a reference to the five boroughs of the city.
Vancouver Lumberjacks-Honors Johnny Canuck, but without mentioning his name.
Portland Skates-Could work well if Nike gets involved with the league's uniforms.
Québec Nationale-Nothing really special about this choice.

Seattle Stags:  I was going to go with Jets, since one of Seattle's many nicknames is "Jet City".  However, I'm pretty sure it'd be ineligible, so I'll go with a safer pick of Stags.

Chicago Tigers:  I know, I know.  There aren't really Tigers in Chicago.   The thing is, I wanted to do a theme that hadn't been done yet (Windy City, Cold, or Mafia themes).   Plus, Bears, Cubs, and Bulls don't appear in the natural wild in Chi-Town anyway, so why not a great animal with Tigers?

Halifax Kingfishers: I'm seconding this one as it does tie in with the city itself and we could use more bird theme teams anyway.  Plus, they look cool as heck!

Denver Dinosaurs:  Also a reference to the fact Colorado has a state fossil.  I know we had one suggestion of Stegos, but I thought this could be a nice alternative as Dinosaurs (or Dinos for short if you'd like) gets an alliteration bonus.

Vancouver Bears:  I know we already had a Vancouver Kodiaks and in the past, there was a Vancouver Grizzlies, but Bears is just being used as another option to consider if you don't like Kodiaks, as I like the bear theme.

Portland Thorns:  I like the idea of this one.  Thorns isn't by any means the toughest name out there, but it certainly fits the City of Roses theme.

New York Mastodons/Mammoths: My first pick is Mammoths.  I know it's used in IceHL.  However, I just want to be clear on if just having the same team name as them is completely ineligible.  Or would it be fine because it's not a New York based team?  If it is ineligible, my pick will be Mastodons.  New York is the biggest city in North America, so I wanted a name that fits that theme.   Mastodons (pre-historic elephants) were big themselves, so I liked the idea.

Quebec Diamants:  Seconding this one as it sounds really cool and otherwise, I'm drawing a blank with Quebec.

A three-way tie, that's exciting!

Rube Dali, the DodoHorse wrote:

Group C ideas:
Chicago Butchers-Pays homage to the historic Stockyards on the South Side. Embraces an aggressive image.
Colorado Blast-References both the mining industry, but also to the Air Force Academy.
Nova Scotia Claymores-Didn't want to ape the Citadel name, wanted to tie in to the Province's Scottish roots.
Seattle Fleet-The term works for planes just as well as it does for ships.

Group D ideas:
New York Burros-Yeah, it's wired but it is a reference to the five boroughs of the city.
Vancouver Lumberjacks-Honors Johnny Canuck, but without mentioning his name.
Portland Skates-Could work well if Nike gets involved with the league's uniforms.
Québec Nationale-Nothing really special about this choice.

One of these names would certainly be DQ'd, and three would be questionable.

1. The Vancouver Lumberjacks were the name of Vancouver's IceHL team (same reason the Chicago Hitmen were DQ'd), and in fact, the name survived several rebranding polls therein.
2. Chicago Butchers is the name of Chicago's AFA concept team on the CCSLC, and the Nova Scotia Claymores and Quebec Nationale were the names of their respective PHL concept teams on the CCSLC...out of respect for how these leagues inspired this forum, they might get DQ'd as well.

Hey! One of my names got in!