Georgetown Hoyas
The University admits that the precise origin of the term "Hoya" is unknown. At some point before 1893, and likely before 1891, students versed in classical languages combined the Greek "hoia" or "hoya", meaning "what" or "such", and the Latin "saxa" to form "Hoya Saxa!", or "What Rocks!" This cheer may either refer to the stalwart defense of the football team, or to the baseball team, which was nicknamed the "Stonewalls", or to the actual stone wall that surrounds the campus. Father William McFadden, S.J., campus Jesuit and the team's in-house announcer at the Capital One Arena, has disputed the Greek and Latin origin, suggesting the classical words were retroactively applied to a nonsensical cheer.
After World War I, the term "Hoya" was increasingly used on campus, including for the newspaper and the school mascot. In 1920, students began publishing the campus's first sports newspaper under the name "The Hoya", after successfully petitioning the Dean of the College to use it instead of the proposed name, "The Hilltopper". "Hilltoppers" was also a name sometimes used for the sports teams. By the fall of 1928, the newspaper had taken to referring to the sports teams as the Hoyas. This was influenced by a popular half time show at football games, where the mascot, a dog nicknamed "Hoya," would entertain fans.
List of NHL mascots
Stormy is the mascot of the Carolina Hurricanes. He is an anthropomorphic pig, who wears the number 97 (shortened for 1997- the year when the Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina to play their first game). The reason for a hog mascot is because of the abundance of hog farms in eastern North Carolina and the state's affinity for a vinegar-based pork barbeque. One of the primary figures in bringing the Hurricanes to North Carolina originally wanted to name the team the "Ice Hogs", a team name first used for a UHL team in Rockford, Illinois in 1991. While that idea was scratched, the ice hog was worked into the team through Stormy.