F FEATURES Geography 10-1 ee ee es tearene from sports names Kevin Welsh, | OP Fea I am By! more ew atures Ei ditor horror movies, videogames, women, poe: (I love this time of year), what my family thinks of me, and the Canucks, just to name a few. I have also spent a great deal of time studying geography (my only academic obsession) and, of all things, sports branding. In The Beginning When I was a young boy, I spent time pouring over maps of the world, but specifically Canada and the USA. I would do so with a sense of wonder-the kind most children would have felt studying a map of Tolkein's Middle Earth-with each city, river, shore, mountain, and valley sparking my imagination. What were the Appalachian Mountains like? How big is Charlotte, and what goes on there? Is New Orleans really surrounded by swamps? How do the woods in Nova Scotia differ from Golden Ears Park in BC? Originally, I became interested in geography when I opened up an atlas determined to discover the location of every National Hockey League city, and that was that. I loved it-I ate it up every chance I got. To this day, I still occasionally kick back in front of the tube with a beer and an atlas. My memory of how-I became obsessed with sports branding is more vivid. My twin brother got into hockey slightly before I did. On Saturday nights, I would try to watch hockey with him and my father, but would inevitably become bored and retreat to my room to play with my Star Wars figures. One cold, dark night, I was scurrying away from the living room when the CBC flashed a pair of hockey logos. One, the Montreal Canadiens, I had seen before and knew (but, at the time, didn't care). The other struck me-I thought it was wonderful. The shape of the “W,” the whale's fin, the way the blue and green played off each other. Instead of retreating to my room, I instead broke into my broth- er's room and hauled out his fledgling hockey card collection. I rummaged through the box, tossing cards hither and yon before finally finding one that had the logo I was looking for. I could care less about the player-it was Merlin Malinowski, if you must know-it was the team I was looking for: the Hartford Whalers. By the time that night was over, I had memorized and consid- ered NHL team names and thoroughly studied their logos. I then tormented my family by approaching them all to share my criticisms and my praises. A short time later, I delved into my first atlas. I then began making my own leagues-gatnes were played only in my imagination, but I decided were the teams would play, what they were called, and designed their logos. The. American- Canadian Hockey League featured the Indianapolis Saints, Dayton Owls, and Miami Rockets, among others. Nothing's really changed for me, either-thanks to video games. When I play Madden, I'm leading the BC Lions against the Memphis Steamwheelers, Birmingham Re or Milwaukee Mean Machine; when I play Winning El ven, I'm Pee. with the Whitecaps against the Regina Rovers, FC Quebec rakkar, or Halifax Dockers. I still make weekly visits to a pair of websites (Our Sports Central and The Society for Sports Uniform Research) to get my fill of new sports team names; That's just the type of dork I am. . F The Marriage of the Two. To say that everything I know about N Be ee at much of a etch. Sports clubs pick their names to give them an identity- 1 aoe local landmarks, industry, or heritage is fairly com- mon. Years sis, Seen fae een ments City on eee eee ee are obvious. Some cities have.such a strong ost, if not all of their sports teams play homage to a shining example of this-the CFL Stampeders is an cos od to Clg ow-own sing, ie the cos : Resigiticn om are named after the workers that fuel ' A 's burgeoning oil industry. Over the years, many Calgary teams have followed the same suit-junior hockey’s Wranglers, the World Hockey Association Cowboys, and soccer's Boomers (naling sh hocesinee tl tolpgs meres ee Edmonton's sports teams are par for the course. The NHL Oilers are a dead giveaway, as are a pair of defunct soccer teams called the Drillers. Baseball's Cracker Cats are named after the term fluid catalytic cracking (or cat cracking, for short), which refers to the process by which petroleum is refined. Dallas, Texas is another city that revels in its own stereotypical identity-the NFL Cowboys, NBA Mavericks, and the Texas Rangers (located in nearby Arlington) are now joined by arena football's Desperados in recognizing the Wild West roots of Texas. Other Dallas teams through the years have included foot- ball's Texans and indoor soccer's Sidekicks. To the south of Dallas, Houston sports teams are derived from the local aeronautics industry. The NBA Rockets, NL Astros (who were formerly called the Colt .45's), and AHL Aeros all pay their respects to the industry that fuels Houston. The old NFL Oilers, again, were named after the local oil industry. Other Houston teams from years gone include hockey's Apollos, basket- ball's Mavericks, and football's Marshals. : Nashville is best known as the country music capital of the USA, and it's little surprise that some of the local sports teams have followed suit-namely baseball's Sounds and basketball's : Rhythm. But many cities don't come-with a pre-packaged identity. Alberta, Texas, and Nashville are already so well defined, and have been for some time, that naming yet another sports team after an oilrig, cowboy, or riff seems almost like a cop-out. names have been recycled to death. These examples.are obriowt others are not, The Value of the Minor Leagues Currently, there are hundreds of North American teams play- ing in minor or smaller profile leagues. Some names ate recycled, _ but a major trend over the past 15 years has been to grab the original name-the moniker that not only is not being used by a major league team, but : also hasn't been used before by anyone. Traditional names like the Stars, Express, or any popular animal are passé. Clubs are looking for the unique name to identify _ themselves, and SS and industry-mixed with a little imag: C 1 New York-Penn iene aes fa eshely acti © name, and their logo is a spindle of yarn. Lowell was officially incorporated asa town in 1826 and officially became a city in ‘ which fuelled the local economy. By the 1850's, Lowell was shen "second largest city in New England and is still considered by , soma be the’ birthplace of the United State's industrial revolu- tio e Spinners, with their spindle of yarn, honours the city's role as an early textile pioneer. Oh, and all those canals? They rovided the inspiration for Lowell's American Hockey League y ind Wheeling Thunderbirds of the East Coast Hockey League decided it was time to re-brand their prod- uct, they came up with what some considered to be a typical minor-league name: the Nailers. The name does convey the sense that it was derived from a brainstorming session of executives: how do we convey the speed, action, and violence of hockey? ie a Sen 6 harge il factory that __ operates in the West Virginia city. Sie Costedina Lesgans of Beschall came tc Wilnington, Deleware a few years back, team officials reached into the past and adopted the name of a former minor league baseball team- the Wilmington Blue Rocks. In this case, the term “Blue Rock” ~~ refers to the strings of blue granite that were found along the — banks of the nearby Brandywine River. _ Across the country, in Iowa, are the Cedar Rapids Kernels of baseball's Midwest League. When heard spoken aloud, there seems nothing special about the nickname “Kernels”, yet most probably assume the team is the “Colonels”. If the spelling isn't a opfeature@gmail giveaway, the logo is: a kernel of corn, The name is an obvious and clever nod to Iowa's corn industry. Also in the Midwest League is the magnificently named Lansing Lugnuts. In 1897, a Lansing resident named Ransom E. Olds drove his first car down a Lansing street. Olds eventually founded Oldsmobile, which became a division of General Motors in 1908, and a major automobile assembly line was erected in the city. In 1996, when the Midwest League's Springfield Sultans relo- cated to Lansing, the name ““Lugnuts” was chosen to honour its important role in the manufacturing of cars. Lansing's assembly plant closed its doors in 2005, but the Lugnuts play on in the appropriately named Oldsmobile Park. Industry isn't the only inspiration for name, though. Local landmarks are also further immortalized when incorporated into a team's identity. The Brooklyn Cyclones play ball in the New York-Penn,League, and ate named after the famous Ferris wheel on the Coney Island boardwalk. _ Closer to home, the Tacoma Rainiers of the Pacific Coast _ League (baseball) are named after nearby Mount Rainier, while the Oregon-based Salem-Keizer Volcanoes pay homage to the Pacific Northwest's most famous, active voleano, Mount Saint Helen's. When the Las Vegas Stars decided it was time for a new identity, they adopted the “51's” as their new name-a reference to Area 51, a region in the southwest where aliens are rumoured to have been discovered, captured, and detained. Our own backyard Hete, in British Columbia, Vancouver sports teams are no dif- ferent from others across the continent. We hear these names often, and many have been in use for decades, so we take them for granted. We don't stop and ponder, “Where did they get that name from?” As an extension, we may not even associate the name with what it actually is in a literal sense-we simply accept it as our local sports teams. But there is a fair bit of heritage in our local sports teams. The Varicouver Canucks are, obviously, our best known sports team. Though the Canucks were founded as an NHL club in 1970, the club first competed in the old Pacific Coast Hockey League in 1945. Though the term “Canuck” is slang for a Canadian the same way “Yankee” is slang for an American, the name is actually a reference to “Johnny Canuck”, a 19th century ~ cartoon lumberjack. The Canucks logo throughout their tenure in the Pacific Coast and the old Western Hockey League was a toque-clad lumberjack, So, though the Canucks now wear an orca logo, the team name is a reference to British Columbia's lumber industry. Also a reference to the lumber industry is the Vancouver Giants of the current Western Hockey League. Their logo does feature a toque-clad lumberjack, and the name was chosen to honour British Columbia's clout in the lumber industry. The Vancouver Whitecaps of the United Soccer League's 1st Division were founded in 1974 as a member of the now defunct North American Soccer League. The name “Whitecaps” was cho- sen for the snow-capped mountains and white-capped waves sur- rounding our city. When the Canadian Football League came to Vancouver in 1954, the name “Lions” was chosen as the winner of a name-the- team contest, but not just because it was an appropriate name for a football team, but also for the local geographical and mytholog- ical significance. The Lions are a twin mountain peak to the north of Vancouver, named thus because the peaks resemble two lions overlooking and guarding the city. The proof is in the pudding-there is a great deal to learn about a city and its heritage, landmarks, and industry just by read- ing the sports section in your local paper. The next time you find yourself wondering, “What kind of a name is that?” take a few seconds to throw the name into a search engine and check it out. You never know what you might find.