Bob Scene, what about the Shamrocks?
What kind of cheer could you have? “Go, Shamrocks…stain their uniforms!”
The University of Denver Pioneers. While that name is lame enough, their acutal mascot is a turkey. (Yes, that thing in the upper left-hand corner is supposed to be a turkey.
I agree it’s not tough, but it is sort of interesting though
“Athletics” makes sense: "A’s"doesn’t, to me at any rate.
We have a football (“soccer”) team near me called Brentford, whose nickname is “The Bees”…
But talking of football, what about Hamilton Academical or Accrington Stanley? Fine teams both.
The local art school’s mascot is also “The Bees”.
Is it just me or does the fact that an art school has sports teams seem a bit odd?
It’s a time and spacesaving thing, since “Athletics” would be unwieldy to put on a cap.
I would suspect it’s also related to the early days of the franchise, when “A’s” would be much easier to send via telegraph to newspapers.
The worst one in the NHL is the Mighty Ducks. That is a f-ing embarassment. I think that was the beginning of the end for the NHL, letting Disney name a team after a Kid’s movie.
As much as I love them, the Green Bay Packers isn’t exactly the most terrifying or intimidating nickname. For those that don’t know the history, the team was sponsored in it’s infancy by the Acme Meat Packing Company in Green Bay.
I concur…the name quite likely originates from real football, with the likes of Oldham Athletic, Charlton Athletic, Forfar Athletic, Dunfermline Athletic…
How about the newest MLS team, Real Salt Lake, just the siliest of a MLS trend of trying emulate traditional soccer/football names without any rhyme or reason. This would inldue D.C. United and FC Dallas.
Sorry, I forgot the link to the Akron Zips.
The school’s mascot is a kangaroo (kangaroos are native to Akron, you know) named “Zippy.” I wish I was making that up.
Don’t they have some sort of development deal with Real Madrid, though? That makes it only slightly less silly, but it offers a sliver of justification.
Chivas USA, on the other hand, makes zero sense. D.C. United would make more sense if there was also a D.C. City.
And going back to baseball teams, how about most of the South Atlantic League? Besides the aforementioned Sand Gnats and Legends, there’s the Blueclaws, the Crawdads, the Power, the Shorebirds, the Greenjackets and the RiverDogs.
Chattanooga went from the feathered-head-dress Indian thing to the…ummm…train-conducting-bird-thing?
Nope. The Athletics go back to the American Association (the name does anyway) starting in 1882.
There’s plenty of 'United’s without a ‘City’ opposition…Leeds, West Ham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Cambridge, Colchester, Oxford, Peterborough…
I actually played for another college (Grinnell) whose teams were called the Pioneers. It made sense in football, as they were so lousy that advancing the ball beyond the opposition’s 20-yard-line was a pioneering effort.
Any team name like the Storm, the Wheeze, the Vomit etc. etc. is dumb.
Oil Can Boyd is making a comeback on a low-minor-league baseball team called the Brockton Rox. If there is a justification for that name (aside from aping Boston) I can’t think of it. They just played the Worcester Tornadoes, which is silly too, sort of like having the Rapid City Hurricanes.
Oh, and if schools like St. John’s and Marquette are going to change their team names to avoid offending Native Americans, how about finding decent alternatives? “Red Storm” - blah.
D’oh! I should have figured that one out if I’d spent more than 5 seconds thinking. I know Leeds Utd, but for some reason all I could think of was Man Utd and Man City.
Shows you just how much presence the EPL has on this side of the pond.
Maybe we’re on to something with our naming system, since it’s a lot harder to confuse the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. For example, the White Sox occasionally win games.
Because if you’re a fan of said team, it means you’re an Athletic Supporter.
Futher than that: the Athletics started with the National Association in 1871.
For bad nicknames, I’ll add the Brooklyn Tip-Tops from the Federal League – named after a brand of bread.
Yeah, but I thought historically they were named United because they were formed out of two different teams many eons ago, which is defintely not the case for D.C. But I coul be totally offbase.
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