All right, it has now been made very clear to me I completely missed the fact the name “Whitecaps” was completely excluded from Vancouver’s gala welcome-to-MLS press conference yesterday.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Seems old NASL nicknames aren’t quite so automatically welcome as tonight’s gala kick-off of the new Seattle Sounders might suggest.
A few ways I could go with this. Here’s name-the-team ballot #1:
- Whitecaps
- Whitecaps
- Whitecaps
- Whitecaps
- Whitecaps
Here’s name-the-team ballot #2 – local references:
- Gastown Glory
- Stanley Park United
- Burrard Albion
- Hey, Look At The Mountains! City
- Whitecaps
Of course, back in the old Canadian Soccer League days, Vancouver’s dynasty team was called the 86ers. That’s an outdated reference to Expo 86 – but has the delicious double-meaning that “86ing” something is military slang for utterly destroying it. Either way, it’s a non-starter now.
A whitecap is a wave, of course. Howzabout an aquatic ballot?
- Drizzle
- Drench
- Downpour
- Drain
- Whitecaps
Maybe MLS would be more comfortable with something more MLSish?
- Real Vancouver
- Vancouver Dynamo
- FC Vancouver FC
- Real FC Vancouver FC Dynamo
- Whitecaps
Animals! Kids love animals!
- Pigeons
- Seagulls
- Manta Rays
- Mangy Strays
- Whitecaps
(I think you know where I’m leaning by now.)
Soccer – hugely – is about tradition. Anytime a team goes bust in Europe, lawyers descend, assets are seized, creditors get screwed – and the team re-emerges a week later with the same colours and essentially the same name. Any slight legal modifications to the moniker are quickly forgotten, and Fiorentina sails on.
The Vancouver Whitecaps were NASL champions in 1979, and are USL-1 title-holders now. Yeah, the 86ers won a stunning number of CSL cups, but then re-adopted Whitecaps as soon as that odd little league expired.
Soccer in Vancouver – male and female – is Whitecaps soccer. I’m disappointed that MLS has not chosen to automatically acknowledge this. I’m quietly confident we fans will be more than merely able to set things straight, whenever the actual name-the-team contest is unfurled.
It would be such a giggle to see MLS commish Don Garber have to step up to a podium, and announce “One vote for Sasquatch City, eight-million votes for Whitecaps.”
Make it so.
Onward!