What's the worst

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

This is almost entirely thanks to Matt Young in the hockey thread.

 

The Ducks can't be the worst. Mighty Ducks was probably sillier. I don't know what a Clipper is, or if they have them in L.A., but there's surely worse.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

I hated the "Wild" name for a long time. But I guess it grew on me. It is just fucking dumb to look at though.

 

 

[Star Ocean 3 0]

A clipper's a boat.

 

What do you say if you join Minnesota? "I'm now a Wild?" And Kings changes too easily into Queens to be respectable.

[MFer 0]

I think Czech covered the whole "Wild" thing by going on on a rant about singular pronoun teams before (specifcally the NBA's Heat, Magic, Jazz, and now Thunder).

[Smartly Pretty 0]

Someone might as well get the Rhode Island School of Design joke out of the way early.

 

 

You could make the case though that that's actually the best team nickname.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

But you get the greatness that is the "Lets go Wild" chant.

 

...

 

I do like their jerseys though.

[Just John 0]

Mighty Ducks was an awesome team name. They never should've changed it.

 

What about Real Salt Lake of MLS? Is that so bush league that it's funny, or just really sad?

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Nickname or just name? As one who likes to keep team names, some of them just make no sense at all once a franchise has been traded.

 

As soon as the Lakers moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles there was no need to keep the name.

[RepoMan 0]

 

Rochester RazorSharks of the Premier Basketball League.

 

The prototypical minor league name formula.

 

1. It's one of the many "noun+animal" team names. See River Rats, Albany, Railhawks, Carolina, Sound Tigers, Bridgport. Yes, I'm sure their are many Tigers swiming around Bridgport Sound.

 

2. Alliteration! See, "Ragin" Rhinos, Rochester, Phantoms, Philadelphia, Jammers, Jamestown.

 

3. Uniquness. The owners of the Razorsharks originally wanted the team to be called the Razorbaks. But Arkansas already has the Razorbacks! So they had to go out and pick a unique nickname featuring a fake animal.

 

My least favorite name in all of sports however is:

 

 

The Syracuse Crunch. Another singular pronoun, and it's just a noise.

 

Plus the logo sucks big time. I guess "Crunch" is somehow represented by an albino gorilla. Yet it's still a step up from their old logo:

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Must be a lot of albino gorillas up in Syracuse. Makes me escared of their hockey team, for sure.

[Maztinho 0]

Mighty Ducks was an awesome team name. They never should've changed it.

 

What about Real Salt Lake of MLS? Is that so bush league that it's funny, or just really sad?

 

The Salt Lake name is actually kind of classic in that it just sounds like an actual club that someone started up and then made it to the professional ranks, a lot of Brazilian soccer clubs are simply (Town Name) Athletic Club. I'd rather cheer for the "Rey-awl" than the OKC Thunder.

 

Whooo Thunder.

 

 

[Just John 0]

The thing is, that's obviously not the case for Salt Lake City. And tacking a Spanish word on to SLC of all places? Maybe I could get behind Real San Antonio or something, but Real Salt Lake is just weird.

 

However, I will take that and FC Dallas over the LA Galaxy. Now, that's just straight bad.

[Maztinho 0]

Does it really matter that Salt Lake isn't a Spanish sounding town? It's just a club name with a classic flair to it. Believe me, Real is the best option that could have come out of letting Utahn's name a sports team.

 

Pioneerzz? Yeah, that's a local minor league baseball team.

 

One of the serious suggestions for the WNBA team when we had one was the Utah Seagulls. THE UTAH SEAGULLS!

 

I trust no one around me's ability to name things.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Nickname or just name?

 

I could be wrong, but I always thought 'nickname' was the noun. For example, "Avalanche" is Colorado's nickname. The "Avs" is slang.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

Anyway, you have to go to the old school names. Trolley Dodgers. Knickerbockers.

[Red Baron 0]

Utah Jazz

Washington Wizards

Toronto Marlies

[Matt Young 0]

This is almost entirely thanks to Matt Young in the hockey thread.

 

The Ducks can't be the worst. Mighty Ducks was probably sillier. I don't know what a Clipper is, or if they have them in L.A., but there's surely worse.

 

Worst in the NHL, not in all of sports.

 

The Charlotte Bobcats name is pretty terrible. The worst is likely a college program.

[Kinetic 0]

The minor league baseball team in Asheville is known as "the Tourists." Their logo is a bear with a suitcase and maps. I believe he's also wearing a Hawaiin shirt.

 

We had the D-League "Asheville Altitude" up there for a while, too.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

D-league basketball team in Ft. Wayne is The Mad Ants, but that's a play on Mad Anthony Wayne, so it's not so horrible. Their baseball team went from The Wizards to The Tin Caps, which is a nod to Johnny Appleseed.

[Skywarp! 0]

I don't know if there's any deeper significance, but the Philadelphia Phillies sounds redundant.

 

Also, the minor league Staten Island Yankees. Do they have to have the same name and logo just because they're owned by the major league Yankees?

 

 

 

[the max 0]

The Houston Texans just sounds stupid to me.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The Buffalo Bills is pretty sad. Apparently they are named after a Barbershop Quartet from the 50s. No wonder they choose to use a bison as the logo.

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

FUN THREAD.

 

Massito, quit swinging from the state of Utah's sack: "Real Salt Lake" is a completely fucking retarded name. It does matter than Salt Lake City has no Spanish heritage, because the team is trying to presuppose a connection to the Spanish monarchy. As I understand it, "Real Madrid" got its start as a national team, the royal football club of Spain, based in Madrid. These Utah dopes probably thought it was "Real" as in "not fake," as opposed to ray-AHL. There's no king of Utah, other than Gordon Hinckley, I suppose. The fact that I could even make that joke and not have it be a completely ridiculous stretch is why it's a dicey proposition for Salt Lake City to think it has a royal team. I'm not into soccer, and by extension I'm not into MLS, but it seems like trying to rip off the European nomenclature formula doesn't really work. They have their way, we have ours, which is Location Nickname. "DC United" sounds okay, but it doesn't mean anything, because it's not a merger of two Washington clubs, like "Manchester United." "FC Dallas" is just posturing.

 

I like the old nicknames, the ones that aren't overly aggressive. Aggressive nicknames look bad when you suck, like a kid in a No Fear shirt crying because he sprained his ankle.

 

Also fun are the tertiary nicknames that baseball teams have: the North Siders, the South Siders, the Bums, the Halos, the White Elephants, the Crew, the Tribe, the Bombers, the Amazins, and the Carmines. These are good changes of pace.

[Nightwing 0]

D-league basketball team in Ft. Wayne is The Mad Ants, but that's a play on Mad Anthony Wayne, so it's not so horrible. Their baseball team went from The Wizards to The Tin Caps, which is a nod to Johnny Appleseed.

 

See, I like those because they're both unique and have a local/regional origin to them. It's one of the reasons I like the Columbus Blue Jackets.

 

Generally speaking, all WNBA franchises are horrible, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards pretty bad, too. Generic animal names for young/expansion franchises are pretty irritating, too (Detroit Tigers is good, but if a franchise sprung up in the NBA called the ____ Tigers, that's crap). I agree with Czech that most of the singular pronoun teams (though I think Avalanche has worked very well).

[garfieldsnose 0]

Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. Come on.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

I think the Washington Bullets were a horrible name. I'm not too fond of the Portland Trailblazers. It doesn't sound right.

[Kinetic 0]

 

Here's the Asheville Tourists logo I was referring to earlier. I always thought this was one of the sillier, least-imposing nicknames in all of American sports.

[Nightwing 0]

 

Here's the Asheville Tourists logo I was referring to earlier. I always thought this was one of the sillier, least-imposing nicknames in all of American sports.

 

... Wow. That's awesome and completely lame at the same time.

[The Niggardly King 0]

how so? it's a bear on a nationwide tour of fucking shit up

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

I think the Washington Bullets were a horrible name. I'm not too fond of the Portland Trailblazers. It doesn't sound right.

Bullets was bad because you had the Bulls and the Bullets, and yet "Wizards" manages to be even worse. Trail Blazers, two words, is a great name. You're high. Shut up.

 

That Tourists logo is good for minor league baseball. The minors are supposed to be whimsy, dopey, and kind of cheap. A teddy bear in a Hawaiian shirt is perfect for AA ball.

 

"Lehigh Valley IronPigs" is an abject failure on so many levels.

1) That horrible camelcase word+animal nickname, like that one guy pointed out upthread

2) It involves an animal that is filthy, slow, slovenly, and not particularly scary, beyond trychanosis. (Just as bad: the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL.) This is not to mention the vague regional location name in lieu of just using "Allentown."

3) The logo uses pretty much the same lettering style as the Pittsburgh Pirates, which isn't bad because I love the Pirates' lettering, but they're an affiliate of the OTHER Pennsylvania team. D'oh.

4) Camelcase be damned, it's a four-word name with seven syllables. Even "Tampa Bay Devil Rays" was shorter, and at least "Carolina Hurricanes" has sort of a pleasant cadence to it. "Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs" is, like, lacking consonants, or lacking the right ones. That "lee-eye-yern" part in the middle is troublesome and prone to slurring. At least those hard Cs in the C.H.s provide some timely stops.

 

Okay, it's settled, "Lehigh Valley IronPigs" is the worst.