Anyone who knows me well will tell you that besides beer and writing, sports are one of my life's greatest obsession. I remember as a kid organizing a large box full of baseball cards into neat little piles with my brothers, a game we called "team by team". As a ten year old boy, I was reading sports almanacs and memorizing Sir Charles Barkley's stats for the 1992-93 season (25.6 pts per game, 12.2 rebounds per game, 5.1 assists per game). To this day, my obsession has ebbed slighly, only because if I devoted the amount of time to following the sporting world as I did when I was a boy, I'd have to quit my job, drop out of college and spend seven hours a day glued to ESPN. (wait a minute, that doesn't sound half bad. I may have to reevaluate a few things in my life...).
From my days of sports fanaticism, I've come across what I consider to be some of the world's most interesting nicknames for sporting teams. The litany of absurd team nicknames stretches almost a mile long, but below I've compiled a list of some of my favorites throughout the years.
10. Butte Pirates: A high school team from Butte, Montana. It's nice to see a high school team flouting the notions of political correctness, and making fun of the name of their city the way that the rest of America does. Well done.
9. Webster University Gorloks: What the hell is a Gorlok anyway?
8. Utah Jazz: Jazz is pretty much the wussiest music ever. If they were the Utah Metalheads maybe they would sound a little tougher.
7. Indianapolis Colts: A colt is a baby horse. You might as well call your team the Kittens.
6. Tampa Bay Mutiny: A defunct MLS soccer team. Looks like all the fans jumped ship
5. Miami Fusion: Another defunct MLS team. It's bad enough that we're trying to Americanize the world's most global game by giving the teams official nicknames, but why can't they go with something completely lame like the "fusion". What exactly is being fused? By the way, contrary to popular belief, the Ian Bishop who formerly played for Miami Fusion F.C. is not me, but a different dude with the same name. Small world I guess.
4. New York/New Jersey Hitmen: There's a lot of stereotyped team nicknames out there, but this one just seems to be in really bad taste. Sure "Hitmen" was supposed to be a reference to the hits this short lived XFL team was supposed to have dished out on the field, but no one was fooled. I have a bit of a problem with a national sporting team condoning murder, but maybe that's just me.
3. Whittier College Poets: .... seriously? Because no one could think of anything tougher or more fearsome than Edgar Allan Poe and William Butler Yeats?
2.University of Northern Colorado Fightin' Whities: Sure they may have only been an intramural basketball team, but you gotta love the moxy of a team that takes a stand against racially insensitive nicknames like the Redskins or Fighting Illini. Unfortunately for the Fightin' Whities, we honkies were far from being offended. Hell, I love this team name so much that I bought one of their shirts.
And the number one worst, most absurd, completely ridiculous team nickname in the history of sports.....
1. UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. Hmmmmm.... there are so many ways to go with this one, I don't even know where to start. Santa Cruz has long been a haven for hippies and other kinds of people who don't exactly embrace the conventions of middle America. Most teams opt for a fierce nickname that inspires fear in their opponents; something like the bears, lions, hawks, eagles or giants. It only makes sense that UC Santa Cruz would reject adopting such nomenclature and choose a nickname that is both ludicrous and repulsive to most people. That's just the kind of place that Santa Cruz is. It's really a whole little world unto itself, and things are done a bit differently there.
Tonight's beer is Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA, which comes from that same little college town by the sea. Santa Cruz is a funky little town that marches to the beat of it's own drummer, and just nickname "Banana Slugs", Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA is this community's unique take on the traditional IPA. India pale ales are really hot in the American beer market right now, especially from craft breweries like Santa Cruz Ale Works. It's hard for a beer like this to set itself apart from the myriad of competitors out there, but Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA has done a great job creating a modest and distinctive IPA. When it comes to India pale ales, the name of the game is large amounts of quality hops, and the strong scent of roses in Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA is proof that this beers has got the chops. The taste of this beer is understandably really hoppy, but there are also some interesting hints of toasted bread and flowers in this ale. To be honest, I found Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA to be much weaker than the average IPA in terms of hoppiness, which was an absolute plus for me because a lot of the IPA's out there today are way too strong even for me. If you're a fan of a more popular IPA like Sierra Nevada, try switching over to Santa Cruz Ale Works IPA and you'll appreciate the difference.
Cheers,
Ian
http://www.santacruzaleworks.com/
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