Oklahoma City's NBA Team Has A Nickname: Thunder

It's been leaked for about a month now, but today the Seattle, excuse me, Oklahoma City NBA franchise has a new nickname, and it's not the one we all knew it should be (the Bandits). They are now officially the Oklahoma City...Thunder. Sounds pretty lame doesn't it? Check out their website here.


There were a ton of leaks of the name along the way. There was the discovery of the website domain purchases, the NBA website screwing up and posting a schedule for the Oklahoma City Thunder, and then the news the OKC trademarked six different nicknames.

Here were the six nicknames the NBA filed trademarks for: Barons, Bison, Energy, Marshals, Thunder, and Wind. Of those six, Energy, Bison, and Wind are just ridiculously bad. Energy is a WNBA or WUSA-caliber name, Bison were hunted to near-extinction in the Old West, and Wind is just plain terrible. Barons and Marshals are actually two pretty good ideas, and I'd give my vote to Marshals, but Thunder is clearly the weakest of the top three.

The last team to go through a naming fiasco this bad was the Houston Dynamo of the MLS. The original idea was to name the team Houston 1836, after the year of Houston's founding, but the name came under fire for being linked with the Texas War for Independence, and was changed to the ridiculously lame Dynamo...or maybe I'm just bitter they took my Earthquakes out of San Jose for a few years.


Come to think of it, the people that have been doing a good job of naming teams lately are MLS teams. Names like Real Salt Lake, Chivas USA, FC Dallas, Toronto FC, and the expansion team Seattle Sounders FC are proper team names. I've always liked the idea of nicknames developing on their own through a fanbase instead of an artificial mascot propped in front for a new team. Old names in the NFL and MLB are good and traditional, but football always had the right idea about naming teams. Rumor has it the new team in Philadelphia will be named Philadelphia Athletic, which already sounds cool.


Teams in European leagues like Charlton Athletic or Atletico Madrid use the name, and I don't see any reason to burden the team with silly adjectives or nicknames from the get-go in football.

Roy Keane Making Moves at Sunderland

Right around the time I started following international club soccer seriously, Roy Keane left Manchester United to play for Celtic. I never really got to see him play, but man did I read a lot of his fiery comments on Manchester United and the game of football. He and Eric Cantona are the two most important commentators on football to me, and Cantona's "Joga Bonita" ad campaign remains one of my favorite commercials of all time.

Since taking charge of Sunderland two years ago, he's brought the team to the English Premier League and kept them from relegation in their first season. This summer he made an extensive effort to sign a lot of new talent. In the past two months alone he's brought Djibril Cisse on loan from Marseille, striker El Hadji Diouf from Bolton Wanderers, three players from Tottenham(midfielder Teemu Tainio, right back Pascal Chimbonda, and winger Steed Malbranque), and today landed West Ham's Anton Ferdinand.

Keane has a history of ripping players to shreds, and one of his more infamous tirades was against Anton's older brother Rio at Manchester United. It seems that Keane has some respect for the players he lambasted at Man U and Celtic, though, because he's brough a lot of cast off players from those teams into his squads in his first two years in charge.

I like the challenging personality Keane had against Sir Alex Ferguson at Man U, mainly because SAF likes to believe everything he says, does, and thinks is right. Keane looks to be developing a nice managerial career, and they've started their first games 1-0-1, so hopefully all the transfers will pay off in the end. While I really want to see Chelsea back on top in everything this year, it would be nice for someone other than the Big Four clubs (Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool) challenge for the title, a Champions League spot, the FA cup, Carling Cup, or just something major. We're in need of a shakeup in English football, and maybe Keane's approach at Sunderland can provide it.

Chelsea @ Reading: The Return of Petr Cech

Being a soccer(called football from here on out) fan is hard in America, especially when you follow a team that has just become a world power. My best friend's Aunt and Uncle used to live in the Chelsea district of London, and he started supporting them when he was about 10. Through my friendship with him and love for football (we played together on our high school team), I became a rabid Chelsea FC supporter during the season right before Russian oil baron Roman Abramovich bought the team, and before Jose Mourinho was hired from Portugal side FC Porto as manager.



What ensued was Chelsea's meteoric rise to power in the EPL and on the European stage, competing for the first time in years with the big powers of the league and actually winning. Now, I get called a fair weather fan, or told that I'm simply jumping on the bandwagon of a team that now has a high profile, and that is certainly not the case. I'm proud of supporting Chelsea, but even more proud that I came to them when they weren't viewed in America as just another team like Manchester United.

My history of being a fan aside, last night was Chelsea @ Reading. It was Chelsea keeper Petr Cech's return to the stadium where last season he was hit so hard by a knee to the skull from Stephen Hunt that the bone actually got depressed and there was doubt over whether or not he would ever play again.


In perfect Chelsea stud form though, Cech shook off the skull fracture to come back a few months later and finish out the season.

In last night's game, however, he had one of the worst moments I've ever seen in his career, completely whiffing a punch out on a ball coming into the box and allowing Reading to take a 1-0 on what was essentially an open net touch-in for a substitute. Now, it's not that Petr Cech isn't a fantastic goalie, he is, but that was a terrible mishap, and he's lucky it didn't cost Chelsea the game.

Luckily, within a five minute span early in the second half, Lampard and Drogba scored successive goals to take a 2-1 lead, and Chelsea held on for the win. I'm glad to see Drogba get his first goal of the seaon, and I hope it's the first of even more than last year's campaign, lord known he'll need it to beat that world class diver in C. Ronaldo.

Just as a little side note, let's look at the goal scorers in the first two games for Chelsea: Pizarro, Malouda, Essien, Lampard, Drogba. Now, we've gotten some support from new signings, and the other new players are fitting in well, but Chelsea didn't spend nearly as much this past summer as they did before last year on Ballack and Sheva, but where the hell are they? Both have picked up injuries, so they are essentially the 2nd and 3rd most expensive bench warmers in the world, after David Beckham here in the U.S. I love my Blues, but those two players really need to get fit and get on the field. Ballack can play, and Sheva can feed the ball to Drogba better than anyone else in a Center Forward position with Drogba playing Striker. I just want to see the players come through on their transfer fees, that's all.

Next game is over the weekend at Liverpool. Barring a huge defensive meltdown at Anfield, I figure Lamps and Drogba will combine for something special, and we'll get at least a tie out of the fixture. Let's just see if Man U can get themselves out of their funk or not in their derby with City this weekend. Hopefully not.