Reason I Love Hockey #4

NHL Team Names

Okay, so I live in a city whose football team is proof that there are some lame team names out there in sports (the fact that it can stand for "Boy I Love Losing Superbowls" is really it's only relevance), but no one does lame like the NHL. I mean, look at this list. The only names that seem not particularly out of place in the world of sports are the Devils, the Panthers, the Kings, and possibly the Avalanche. The rest of them range from the obviously regional: Islanders, Canadiens, Senators, Capitals. To the oddly irrelevant: Sabres, Rangers, Flyers, Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Stars, Red Wings, Oilers, Wild, Blues. To the downright silly: Hurricanes, Flames and Lightning may sound impressive, but they have no place on the ice. NHL teams even managed to choose the least threatening, least majestic, least recognizable of animal names, the can't-go-wrong area for most sports teams. Who's afraid of a Penguin, or a Coyote, or a Duck? What the hell is a Thrasher? A Bruin? Predators? Way to be vague. Even the team logo knows there's no way for a Shark to hold a hockey stick. And I haven't even gotten to the worst of it. To top it all off, there are teams named after an ethnic slur (although wikipedia suggests the Canucks are pretty much equivalent to the Yankees), and grammatically-incorrect foliage!

Now, I know you're frantically checking the header of this post all "Didn't she say this was a reason she loves hockey?" It is! I swear! Even though the NHL managed to squish the most random and unimpressive names in all of sports into one league, I can't help but love them all for their lameness. Because they didn't give in to the pressure of re-using Lions, and Tigers, and Bears (must...resist...dumb...joke) just to sound imposing. They weren't afraid to be different and, well, lame. And as long as the team wears the name well and proudly, the lame-factor is not readily apparent and becomes unimportant. In hockey, even a duck can seem deadly. Also, it means no team is safe from name-ridicule. So if I say to a Toronto fan "No wonder everyone hates your team, you can't even spell "Leaves" right!" s/he can come back with "Yeah, well your team is named after a stupid sword, what's that all about?" To which I am only able to say "Touche," with every last bit of pun intended.