What's the worst

[Maztinho 0]

The Houston Texans just sounds stupid to me.

There's precedent though, as there was an AFL team known as the Dallas Texans, who became the Chiefs. Plus there's plenty of people down there that would say that they're Texan first, American second.

 

With respect to Real Salt Lake, just under 18% of the population in SLC are Hispanic, so using "Real" in the name is an obvious attempt to cater to them. Probably a better club to ridicule are Houston Dynamo since there isn't exactly a large Russian population there.

 

And I agree with Tsar - Raptors is a horrible nickname which was accompanied by some garish colours, but I think that the team has done a lot to downplay that aspect of it and play up their status as "Canada's NBA Team".

 

I don't have the stats on hand, but throw in the number of white guys who served LDS missions to Hispanic countries who have some attachment to the Latin culture and that factors a huge deal as well. (See my unholy attachment to all things Brazilian).

 

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Toronto Raptors.

 

The gay ass dinosaur dribbling a basketball is so bush league.

 

That's what they get for letting the fans decide the team name the same summer Jurassic Park came out.

[Steviekick 0]

I'm kind of with starvenger on the Raptors. It's kind of grown on me, since they've made the whole raptor much more subtle in the jersey and logo design. They could have done much worse.

[RepoMan 0]

Toronto Raptors.

 

The gay ass dinosaur dribbling a basketball is so bush league.

 

That's what they get for letting the fans decide the team name the same summer Jurassic Park came out.

 

They wanted to sell merchandies to kids, and mission accomplished. I bought (or more accuratly had my parents buy) me a couple of Raptors t-shirts.

 

[Broward83 0]

Hey, Dynamo wasn't the first choice. We went with Houston 1836 and the Latin community got all up in arms and said it was racist and how it drug up memories of how the White man stole their land and bitch and bitch and bitch until the team backers (AEG I think) went with Dynamo. Partially due to the link to Russian clubs and the other part due to Houston being one of the top cities for energy and all that dumb shit.

 

..and Star's pretty much right on about the Texans.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Except that the Dallas Texans were the worst NFL team in the history of the league, that's not something you should really name your franchise after. The Dallas Texans won one game in the existence of their franchise, which was limited to one year.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

Weren't the other Texans, the ones that became the Chiefs, pretty good? There were two.

 

Someone mentioned the Clippers as a bad nickname. I disagree. Clipper ships are swift. Not Stromile Swift. That's different. The reason it's terrible now, leading the poster to ask "what's a clipper?", is that there's no tie-in to clipper ships anywhere in the identity. The current primary logo is a ripoff of the Lakers' logo (and the old silver/black L.A. Kings logo ripped off the streaking letters of the Lakers and the colors of the L.A. Raiders: Los Angeles sports branding was pretty incestuous in the late '80s.) When they were the San Diego Clippers, back in the Bill Walton days, the logo was kind of a geometric sketch of a clipper by the sunset, and--how's this for cool?--their shorts spelled out "CLIPPERS" in signal flags.

 

Pretty inspired. If the Clippers went back to really pushing some sort of seafaring identity, rather than this drab Anyone Anywhere set they have now, they could be one of the best in the league. But go figure: in the one case where using dark blue against light blue actually would make sense, looking out on the horizon at sea, it's off-limits because it's already being used by the Mavericks, the Jazz, the Grizzlies, the Nuggets, the Thunder, and the Hornets. D'oh.

[alfdogg 0]

In high school, we had/have a conference rival named the Logansport Berries. Does that count?

[Angel_Grace_Blue 0]

Another food-based name: Montgomery Biscuits

 

[Red Baron 0]

Back in high school we played against a rival school called Holy Cross Raiders. This was a catholic school with the logo and colours of the Oakland Raiders.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

In high school, we had/have a conference rival named the Logansport Berries. Does that count?

 

Did you guys ever have to play Jay County at anything? Literally every time my school had to wrestle there, somebody on our team caught ringworm.

[alfdogg 0]

I never went there, no. My only sports was one year of shot put & discus.

[Agent_Bond34 0]

This was a catholic school with the logo and colours of the Oakland Raiders.

 

Sounds an awful lot like my high school, with the name, logo, and colors of the Atlanta Falcons. (Sans Atlanta being in the name, obviously)

[starvenger 0]

I think the point was that Catholic pirates seems a bit unusual...

[Cran Da Maniac 0]

There used to be a team in minor league baseball from NC that was named The Piedmont Boll Weevils. It's wrong for the fact that the Piedmont is just a region in the middle of the counties, and a boll weevil is basically a small insect.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

Boll weevils devastated the cotton crop.

 

Here's a crappy name from a small fascination of mine, Canadian junior hockey:

 

The Owen Sound Attack. Now right out of the gate, this is a crappy name, because it is a singular. I am an Attack. Worse yet, it denotes only one aspect of hockey, which can be broken down to offense, defense, and goaltending. Great defense by the Attack? The Attack is weathering a storm? If they're not scoring, they're not Attacking. The logo, like fellow horseshit name Minnesota Wild, is some vague conceptual bear. (Anyone is free to use "Vague Conceptual Bear" as a display name.) I guess a bears can Attack you, but it's still a little iffy to me. Furthermore, Owen Sound is a serene little town on the shores of Lake Huron, and the name "Owen Sound" is pleasant and euphonic. Say it! Ohhhhh winnnnn sssssssssssoooounnnd. It makes me want to walk down a cobblestone Main Street, buy a heavy winter coat from a friendly mom-and-pop outfitter, and then go trout fishing. Even the arena is pleasantly nestled on the picturesque lakefront!

 

I guess the Attack were originally the Owen Sound Platers, and before that, the Guelph Platers, because of Guelph's great electroplating industry, of course. They now host the Guelph Storm. I say bring back the Guelph Platers, and then call Owen Sound the...Waves?

[Red Baron 0]

I prefer the Guelph Storm over the Niagara Ice Dogs.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

I'm going to become a Windsor Spitfires fan. They're the only OHL team that I can listen to over the air; "Spitfires" is by far the best name in a league of Attack, Storm, IceDogs, Brampton Battalion, or Saginaw Spirit; and they seem to have a pretty hardcore fanbase, rather than just being a cheap entertainment option for GTA families. So there it is. Go Spits. You're goin' down tomorrow night, Ottawa 67s, and I'll be listening.

[CanadianChris 0]

I'm going to become a Windsor Spitfires fan. They're the only OHL team that I can listen to over the air; "Spitfires" is by far the best name in a league of Attack, Storm, IceDogs, Brampton Battalion, or Saginaw Spirit; and they seem to have a pretty hardcore fanbase, rather than just being a cheap entertainment option for GTA families. So there it is. Go Spits. You're goin' down tomorrow night, Ottawa 67s, and I'll be listening.

You picked a good year to jump on the bandwagon, given that they're the number 1 ranked team in the entire CHL.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

What's the whole deal with the CHL? As I understand it, the OHL is well-rounded, the Q spits out speedsters and goaltenders, and the WHL develops a lot of power forwards and defensemen. Is that close to being accurate? I know goaltenders have long been one of Quebec's prime natural resources, so I guess it stands to reason that that sort of environment will foster the best of the best when it comes to skaters trying to score against these great Quebecois goalies. Crosby came out of the Q. I think my favorite Q team will be the Baie-Comeau DRAKKAR. DRAKKAR! Drakkar Drakkar Drakkar Drakkar! I love it!

[the max 0]

My gal got me a bunch of WHL/CHL hats from her work. I have a Giants, Rockets, Frontenacs, Hitmen, Oil Kings and one other I can't remember.

 

 

The Rockets are my new favorite.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Where does she work where she would acquire WHL hats?

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

Isn't CanadianChick the pride of Kelowna, B.C.?

 

Those look like they were designed in 1993 and never updated. The Oil Kings sounds and looks like a local chain of oil change places, and where it says "EDMONTON" is where you put the city in which each store is located. I thought the Calgary Hitmen wore hot pink like Bret Hart.

[Maztinho 0]

The shoulderpads into the bottom of the logo still look like a heart. Did he sell the franchise and then they changed the color scheme?

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

The shoulderpads into the bottom of the logo still look like a heart. Did he sell the franchise and then they changed the color scheme?

 

I don't know if they made any changes when it happened, but the Flames bought the team from Hart earlier this decade. I had no idea myself until reading Bret's autobiography earlier in the year.

[CanadianChris 0]

I remember when the Frontenacs' logo used to look like the Bruins logo, with the yellow and black spoked "K":

 

 

Before that, they were the Kingston Canadians, with this very imaginative logo:

 

[treble 0]

I think they have a 3rd jersey now with the spoked-K. And I think that logo is painted at centre ice in their new arena.

[the max 0]

Where does she work where she would acquire WHL hats?

 

She's a store manager at Lids.

[Red Baron 0]

 

This is my local hockey team. The logo looks and resembles the Portland Pirates of the AHL.

 

[Dandy 0]

For high school teams, Poca, WV has the Dots. That's right...the Poca Dots. Mick Foley mentioned this in his book but remembered it as Polka.