Random Thoughts on Naming the New CFL Franchise

Earlier this week, I received an e-invite to participate in a focus group on the name of the new Ottawa Canadian Football League (CFL) franchise.  Unfortunately, by the time I replied later that day, the focus groups were already full. What follows are the comments I would have made.

According to local media reports, five potential names are under consideration:

• the Rafstmen;
• the Voyageurs;
• the Nationals;
• the Rush; and
• the RedBlack.

While the best team name is not available (supposedly as part of the franchise arrangements, the owners were told Rough Riders was off-limits), I will try to rank these from worst to best, but, given the above choices, that may prove a tad difficult...

4b.- The Nationals.  While easily translatable (which I will take as a key quality for the new franchise name), the Nationals is a gawd-awful choice, the worst on this list.  First, and obviously, there is already a pro sports team in North America with that name, MLB's Washington Nationals.  That the name is a duplicate is bad enough, that the name is the moniker given to the Expos after MLB ripped them out of Montréal is abhorrent.  There are enough former Expos fans in the region that the Nationals name would suffer from the negative connotations associated with the bitterness caused by the 2001-2004 Loria/Selig slow dance of death of ML baseball in Montréal. Nationals is a non-starter.

In addition, on a more etymological level, I do not see Nationals as an appropriate name.  They would not be representing the nation (hence, not a national team).  The definition of 'national' as a noun is 'a citizen of a specified country' or 'a fellow countryman' (according to the Concise Oxford).  I do not see how that applies to a local team, football or otherwise.

4a.- The Rush.  I do not have any issue with using a collective, s-less name for a sports team.  All in all, names like the Miami Heat, the Colorado Avalance and the Tampa Bay Lightning are atypical but they work for me.  There's a good ring to them, they are evocative and, at least for the first two, are geographically relevant.  The Utah Jazz, in great part from being an anachronism, clearly does not pass muster.  And neither does the Ottawa Rush.  It sounds like a high school sports team, which, in the spirit of intra-school harmony, let the drama class pick the team name. It may be an attempt to get non-football fans to buy tickets with the appeal of an action-oriented name. ('Let's go see the Rush; it sounds exciting!  There must be lots of ADHD-like movement!')  That seems to be the tactic of the National Lacrosse League, which features the Rock, the Swarm and, yes, you guessed it, the Rush (the Edmonton franchise). The Rush is also the one entry which is not at all translatable in French. (Yes, some Francophones use 'rusher' as a verb, but it is not a French word; it is an 'anglicisme', and one that is born out of utter laziness at that.) I guess one option would be to give the same sounding name to the team in French, 'Les Roches d'Ottawa', but that would be piling on the ridiculousness. The only reason I ranked the Rush slightly ahead of the Nationals is that I have realized I am still very, very bitter about the Expos.

3.-/2.- (tie) The Voyageurs/The Rafstmen.  I have to guess that these two suggestions are meant to tie in to the history of the city, with the Rafstmen evoking the importance of the timber industry to the region’s development in the late 1800s/early 1900s and the Voyageurs evoking… Evoking what, in fact?  Champlain and other White explorers?  Courreurs de bois and fur traders doing business with the local Aboriginal groups?  I am really not clear on why, in particular, Voyageurs would be linked to the region’s history.  In any event, why exactly does the region’s past have to be the source of the team name?  Looking backwards builds right into the ‘small, Valley town’ view of Ottawa that too many residents/media espouse.  This is a large city, with a million-plus, diverse population, not a small logging town on the banks of the Ottawa River.  Let us remember our history, but, please, it should not cloud what kind of city we have now and in the future.  The one positive point is that both names can be used in both languages.  Raftsmen, incidentally, is part of the French vernacular, or at least it was when driving logs down the river was actually an economic activity.

1.- The RedBlacks.  My one issue with this name is that it is missing an ampersand or an apostrophe-n.  It should really be ‘The Red & Blacks’ or ‘The Red ‘n Blacks’.  I imagine that through use, that is exactly what the name would become (if it was chosen.)  I liked this choice as soon as it was leaked/floated to the local media roughly ten days ago.  It harkens back to the early days of professional sports in North America, where teams were often named for their colours (e.g., the Cincinnati Redlegs, the Chicago White Stockings, the Cleveland Browns, the Montréal Maroons and, oh, I don’t know,… the University of Ottawa Garnet and Grey…)  It is also directly translatable (‘Le Rouge et Noir’, which would no doubt be the most literary franchise nickname out there).  It is a simple, effective and available name, which would be associated with this one franchise, and no other professional team (well, no other professional teams that I can remember right now.)

The Ottawa Red ‘n Blacks.  Yup, I can cheer for that…