Calgary Flames rookie Johnny Gaudreau has filed a trademark application for the nickname "Johnny Hockey" at both the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, TSN's Rick Westhead reports.
"We were concerned that people were going to abuse the Johnny Hockey name, coming out with Johnny Hockey shirts and stuff and we wanted to make sure that did not occur," Gaudreau's agent Lewis Gross told TSN.
"We felt that Johnny was going to be a special player and if he takes off the way we felt he could, he has the potential to have endorsement opportunities that could be very valuable."
It's not uncommon for NHL players to trademark their nicknames. Gordie Howe and his wife Colleen Howe famously owned trademarks for the nicknames "Mr. Hockey" and "Mrs. Hockey," while Orca Bay - a group that used to manage the Vancouver Canucks - trademarked Pavel Bure's Russian Rocket nickname back in 1996 (the trademark has since been abandoned).
There's no news on whether or not Gaudreau and his business advisers plan to file a trademark application for the much less popular "Gawdreau" nickname.