McGill Redbirds

[Campy]

The McGill Redbirds: new name for a new era to wear, and cheer for with pride

McGill University men's athletics teams will be known as the Redbirds

Click to read more...

 

[JMCx4]

I guess that'll be more suitable than a footless mythical bird as a mascot.

 

[Drummer]

Not my first choice and a bit odd.

Redhawks, Red Alerions or Redpassers

I guess UNB beat them to 'Reds' and kind of made 'Varsity Reds' unusable as well.

 

[MiamiHockey]

If they had chosen "Reds", those concerned with the issue would still consider it essentially the same as Redmen. Redbirds is a terrible nickname, but it's tough to get angry about a bird, and it means the Martlets will have essentially the same nickname as the men.

What's interesting about the history of the nickname "Redmen" is that it was originally adopted by three separate universities (McGill, RMC, St John's) because their athletes wore red.

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the nickname was associated with RMC Cadets wearing Scarlet Red as their dress uniform. RMC dropped Redmen (over a two-year period from 1995-1997) NOT because it was deemed racist (it clearly wasn't), but because it was not bilingual. Cadets had a vote: the final three options were Paladins, Phoenix, and Sabres. Thank heaven Paladins won the vote.

McGill and St John's started using some Native American imagery over time (mascots, logos), which turned it from an innocent nickname to a racist one. McGill dropped all of its Native imagery sometime in the 1980s, I believe, but it's tough to argue the nickname was innocent when the Redmen logo included the head of a Native American warrior in full headdress.

 

[Hollywood3]

Redmen was in the running for the University of Winnipeg nickname.

 

[57special]

Wiki say the Redmen name was originally meant to honour McGill's Scottish ancestry and hair coloring. Redbirds is lame. My son is on a varsity team and was hoping for Red Hawks.

 

[goalsforeveryone]

Gee, I wonder how many Martlets they polled on how they would feel about sharing their name before they determined it would "be unfair or disrespectful to" or "infringe upon" the women's teams/legacy. My money is on none.