When Toronto was selected as an NBA expansion city in 1993, there was public sentiment for naming the team Huskies, to honor the Toronto Huskies, who played one season (1946-47) in the Basketball Association of America, the progenitor of today’s NBA. There was only one problem: The Minnesota Timberwolves already had a mascot and logo that promised much look-alike confusion if Huskies was adopted. As a result, management threw open the task of finding a distinctive nickname to the public in a nationwide contest. Since the dinosaur movie “Jurassic Park” was popular at the time, the idea to call the team the Raptors, short for velociraptor, was the winning suggestion.
Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press/AP
