The London Knights were organized in 1965 as a Toronto Maple Leafs sponsored junior team using the name London Nationals with a logo similar in style to that used by the Maple Leafs of the time. When NHL sponsorship of junior clubs ceased in 1968 the club was sold to Howard J. Darwin of Ottawa who re-branded the club as the Knights using the colours green and gold. Possibly an homage to the recent NHL expansion team the Minnesota North Stars.
Knights was chosen as the new team name courtesy a name-the-team contest opened up to the public, an obvious play off of their shared city name with London, England. Green and gold were the main club colours throughout the first 25 years of the franchise adding only black as a trim colour in 1987. Shortly after the North Stars modernized their colour scheme the Knights did their own radical rebranding for the 1994/95 season. The club ditched the green and gold in favour of eggplant and teal, similar to the expansion Mighty Ducks of Anaheim of the NHL. The switch was not popular with locals and the team brought back the green, gold, and black as an alternate set shortly after before becoming the full primary colours once again in 2001/02.
