Saturday, November 10, 2007

Walleyes and 'Peckerheads'

How's that for a name for a sports team?

According to this article in today's Blade, these are two of the names being considered for a hockey team (Walleyes) and an arena football team (Peckerheads). Actually, the name for the football team would be the Woodpeckers with 'Peckers' and 'Peckerheads' as the nicknames.

"Mud Hens general manager Joe Napoli said walleye and woodpecker are on a short list of names under consideration for the franchises.

“We have the intentions of registering some other names as well,” he said.

The Hens organization submitted approval of the name for the minor league hockey team with the patent office in May, 2005. The paperwork for the arena team name began last May. All the applications are pending.

Mr. Napoli said the trademark requests will act as safeguards to protect the use of the name if they are chosen for the franchises."

I don't know about these names - 'the walleyes' sound, well, fishy.

The Walleye gets its name from the fact that its eyes, like cats, reflect light. Other for being able to see well in dim or murkey waters - and for being good to eat - they're not really known for anything. And I don't think it'd be easy to develop a walleye mascot. Besides, they're slaughtered by the thousands every year for food...and they don't even put up a good fight when you fish for them.

As for the Woodpeckers, 'peckers' or 'peckerheads' ... all I can say is that you can't be serious. Do we really want a team who's nickname is the same as part of the male anatomy? And even if you say you're not going to use such nicknames, you know your opponents will. And that's not good for any team, nor the morale of their fans. If you think the country laughed at the mayor's idea to move the deaf to the airport, wait 'til they get wind of this one!

Your thoughts on this???

p.s. Did you note the date that the Mud Hens submitted the name to patent office - May, 2005????

10 comments:

King said...

I just had to read this when I saw the title. I worked for the City of Bedford Service Dept. as summer help in high school. The Bedford Service Director, Sherm Webb refered to all of us (his kids too)as "Peckerheads" when we did something wrong, stupid, juvenile... for that matter pretty much everything.

It was all done in a loving way as Sherm was respected and loved by all that worked for him. When Sherm bellowed in his nasally way "Hey Peckerhead" everyone would stop and think he was talking to them.

Anyway - team nicknames should be cool, cute, neat, catchy, etc... Does "Peckerhead" reflect the team? But as you can see from above - I would love that name for a team. Of course, with kids it might not be appropriate for the younger ones.

As for team nicknames, have you ever heard of the 'Nads'? The crowd has to cheer - Go Nads!

http://justcallmejuice.blogspot.com/2007/01/go-nads-funniest-nicknames-in-college.html

Thanks and I read your site often.

King
who called everyone

Maggie said...

King - thanks for reading my blog and for commenting.

Obviously, you have a personal reason for liking the name ... and I can't help but be reminded of when parents pick a name for their child - everyone in the world has a comment about someone they knew with said name, good and bad.

Now I'm thinking more along the lines of what our opponents would do with such a name - and how explaining such derogatory comments to young kids could get very complicated...

Who knows, it might just draw us together in defense of the 'peckers.' LOL

love the go nads, btw.

Unknown said...

Maggie,

Have it on a good source the article is wrong. what really happened is the county had a secret meeting with a bank because they know they can't afford it. And because comm rad Gerken has promised no more tax dollars will be used to build the white elephant. So in the meeting the banker listened to them and when the brain trust was done speaking,he looked at the commissioners, and said your all pecker heads, and the only thing I will finance is a boat for all of you so you can catch walleye. That way you can live on 21 dollars a week..

That is the real story and I'm sticking to it

Maggie said...

Mike - that is just PRICELESS!!!!!!
ROFL!

Timothy W Higgins said...

Maggie,

You gotta love the creativity of these people! Since we already have the Mud Hens, other team names should be animal related.

I guess that political correctness means that since we cannot use Native American tribe names anymore, we should pick on animals. How does PETA feel about us insulting those creatures ostensibly under their protection?

I remember when the Columbus Chill played in that city, and gave way to an NHL team called the "Blue Jackets", and a really cool team name was replaced with a bug.

Let's hope that the teams that they field are better than the names.

Maggie said...

Well, if we're going to go with some sort of fish - why not a gar?

http://myfwc.com/Fishing/Fishes/gar.html

"They inhabit sluggish, sometimes poorly oxygenated water, backwaters and oxbows of medium-to-large rivers and lakes. Longnose gars as well as other gar species are able to tolerate poor water quality by breathing air through its air bladder."

Kind of sounds like Toledo...

And they have that long snout filled with teeth - pretty intimidating...They're sporty fighters and the roe is poisonous to humans, animals and birds.

Now that sounds like a good mascot!

Timothy W Higgins said...

If we are going to take suggestions for alternative fish names for the hockey team, why don't we go with one that really suits the City of Toledo:

Flounder!

... I believe that this needs no further explanation.

kck_kat said...

...or how about Crappies? Makes it easy to describe the season then!

kck_kat said...

...or how about Crappie? It makes it a no-brainer to describe the season then, just like their idea!

WL Emery said...

They have got to be kidding here. So far as I know, this is a derogatory term originating in the deep South and is a variant on Peckerwood, meaning white trash.

You know, I kind of think this is a hoax.

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