The Sioux Falls Stampede, a low-level minor league hockey team in South Dakota, channeled their inner hockey dogs on Saturday night.
The Sioux Falls Stampede channeled their inner hockey dogs and became the Sioux Falls Fighting Weiner Dogs on Saturday night at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center.
The concept of temporarily rebranding a team for one night came from minor league baseball, though minor league hockey teams have started doing it as well recently, and the Stampede first became the Weiner Dogs for a game last season.
Those 2018-19 uniforms were white, while the 2019-20 uniforms were purple. The team announced them on their Instagram earlier in the week.
This was done to celebrate the 13th annual Sioux Nation Pet Clinic Weiner Dog Races, where a herd of Dachshunds race during the intermissions between periods, an annual tradition in Cincinnati and Indy, among many other minor league hockey cities across the US and Canada.
During the actual Weiner Dog Races themselves, a Doxie named Letty claimed victory in the championship event during the second intermission.
The Weiner Dogs took the ice for Saturday’s contest against the Des Moines Buccaneers and successfully protected their home rink with the 5-2 victory.
In other hockey dog news over the weekend, a military working dog named Grizzly dropped the puck before the LA Kings-Colorado Avalanche game on NBC at the Air Force’s Falcon Stadium, part of the NHL Stadium Series of outdoor events.
Also, Bark-Andre Furry (and Deke), Sir Winston Da Doodle (and Sir Oliver) and Ovie the Bulldog (and Saffy) met up for brunch on Sunday with a lot of their favorite bipeds ahead of the Capitals-Knights game Monday night.
The Sioux Falls Stampede play in the United States Hockey League (USHL), which is something like Single-A pro level. They won the USHL title, the Clark Cup, during the 2018-19 season, and currently sit sixth in the eight-team Western Conference with 43 points, holding a record of 19 wins, 17 losses and four overtime losses.
For more information about the team, see the Stampede website. Have you attended a sporting event with Weiner Dog Races yet?