expos

so the montreal expos are done in la belle provance. and the big question out there is, should the washington group buying the team, keep the expos name? yes by god they should. they won't, but they should and heres why. for a franchise to create a history, they should keep the original name of the franchise even if it doesn't sound right to begin with. that is how a team and therefore the league, creates a visible link to their past. don't believe me? the los angeles lakers. perhaps the most storied franchise in the nba. pick out one lake that exists in that area. there are none, but when the team started in minneapolis, there were a couple (like, a 1000) and the name made sense. people, when the team moved probably thought that keeping the name was a dumb idea, but no one questions it now. staying with the nba, how about the utah jazz? a franchise with a ton of history, but the mormons aren't really the jazzy type of people. but new orleans, where the team started, yeah, they play a little jazz there.

lets move to baseball. the brooklyn dodgers were so named due to the people of brooklyn having to dodge trolley cars. so when the team moved to los angeles, there were no tolley cars. but the dodgers name stuck and a historic franchise continued.

hockey is worst one. you have the calgary flames (originally atlanta), and the dallas stars (originally minnesota north stars) and thats it. a grave injustice was down years ago when the new jersey devils changed the name of the team from the rockies (originally colorado and if you want to get technical, the colorado based team should have been called the scouts in the first place from when they were in Kansas City).

its gone downhill since then. the new colorado francise coming from quebec became the avalanche, the carolina team went from the (hartford) whalers to hurricanes and phoenix became the coyotes instead of keeping the (winnipeg) jets nickname.

so yes, in my world, we should have colorado nordiques, carolina whalers, new jersey scouts and phoenix jets hockey teams playing right now in the nhl. they names may sound strange to begin with, but you would get used to them. really, can it be any worse then the mighty ducks of anahiem?

and heres why they wont. money. marketing groups pick a name to sell the most merchandise. done and done. being in the field, i understand the concept, but being a sports fan, i would rather build the legacy of the franchise and the sport. so instead of the washington dc expos, which is who should be playing in the league next year (did i hear someone say in the al?) it will be the washington burn or thunder or some other crap like that. or if i am lucky, it will be the senators which was the name of the original washington franchise. that i could live with.