Thursday, November 03, 2005

 

Flames Game Night

The enigmatically named Columbus Blue Jackets come to Calgary tonight. Will they bolster their frontrunner status in the League's Worst Team category? We'll see. I listened to an interview with CBJ coach Gerard Gallant yesterday, and was left with some massively arched eyebrows. He sounds, uh, how should I put this: "undercompetent".

The bigger question at the moment: again, what's with the name? From answers.com:
There are at least four possible factors that may have contributed to the selection of the name.
**At the time the name was first announced, some media reports speculated that because team owner John H. McConnell's favorite color is blue, he had directed that any name selected for the team must contain the word blue.
**The logo for the team that was initially unveiled featured "an insect with an attitude," suggesting that the name is a play on the term Yellow Jackets (a form of bee and the nickname of various other teams, including the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets). The insect logo was reduced to secondary status before the team began play and was eliminated entirely during the 2003/2004 season. The only remnants of the insect theme is the team mascot, an insect named Stinger.
**The name may have been intended to honour the Shawnee leader Blue Jacket, who lived in the region, but the team has not used any Native American symbolism in its marketing.
**The term Blue Jacket is also a reference to the uniform of the Union army in the American Civil War. The team has included some Civil War references in its marketing, but has not heavily promoted it.

So there. See you after the game. Go Flames.

Comments:

Congratulations! You managed to make exactly one mention of the Flames in a "Flames Game Night" preview.

Of course, you had a hard creative task trying to rally interest in a game between two of the conference's lousiest teams. I'm waiting for the sportswriters to start calling Columbus, Chicago, and Calgary the "C Minors".
 


[Technical note: Saying "Go Flames" may not even count semantically as a reference to the Flames, since it's an imperative exhortation taking the Flames themselves as its implied audience.]
 


Zing.

At least you weren't alone, Matt. We were forced to sit through that deadly C Minors game instead of the Oilers triumphant victory over the NHL's #1 team.
 


Whoa! Jason Chimera's back in the league??
 


Scoreboard
 


Using the "scoreboard" comeback is really only effective if:

1) You are playing the team backed by your mockers

2) You are not playing a team against which a loss would be utterly pathetic
 


Fine.

2-0!
 


You're right. There is a third rule:

3) The scoreboard to which you refer must be one that actually matters.
 


Bah. The Oilers have been pretty good about beating teams that aren't as good as them and losing to teams better than them. They had a good one last night, beating a team that was better than them for the first time. It happens.
 


The Oilers have beaten Vancouver and Nashville, so you're suggesting that the only team better than Edmonton in this conference is Detroit. Even I wouldn't go that far, but it's sure nice to hear.
 

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