In previous newspaper incarnations I have written about some of my favourite sporting names, both teams and individual.
There are lots of great names in sports from female soccer player Hope Solo, to basketball player Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje (Boomshay-Boomshay), whose name is just fun to say, to Olympic skier Picabo Street.
Team sports are even funnier when you consider some well-paid people came up with names such as the University of California Santa Cruz Banana Slugs and the Tropang Talk N Text Texters of the Phillipine Basketball league. I see the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets are changing their name to the Pelicans next year. That may sound ridiculous but really is it any worse than the Pittsburgh Penguins or Toronto Maple Leafs?
Speaking of the Leafs, the squad is in the play-offs this year for the first time in about a zillion years. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Canucks are in once again and will look to build on last year’s finals loss. It won’t be easy especially if Cory Schneider is hurt for very long. Relying on Roberto “I’m still here” Luongo is risky at best. Although, he has seemed to have found his niche as an accomplished Twitterer (Tweeter?).
Over in the NBA, once-dominant franchises from Los Angeles and Boston are struggling. The Lakers are done after being swept by San Antonio, while the Celtics managed to stave off elimination at home against New York.
Canadian superstar Steve Nash has not had the desired effect the Lakers hoped for. Nash has been injured for much of the season and is looking every bit of his 39 years. Of course, it’s not all his fault - big man Dwight Howard, who was brought over from Orlando, has been awful as well.
It seems injuries are turning out to be a huge factor in these play-offs. Oklahoma Thunder star guard Russell Westbrook is out with a knee injury and probably won’t return. That should open it up for Miami, except Dwyane Wade is also struggling with injuries himself.
Kamloops big man Kelly Olynyk has declared for the NBA draft after a superb junior season at Gonzaga. I have my doubts about whether he’ll be a star or not. Olynyk has a soft touch and is athletic for a seven footer, but I don’t know if he can bang with the big boys.
Back to hockey, it looks like my old hockey teams have done very well recently.
The Castlegar Rebels won their league as did the Selkirk College Saints. Brooks Bandits of the Alberta Junior Hockey League repeated as provincial champions yet again.
So I think that should bode well for the Merritt Centennials’ chances next season. If they do well, I will take all the credit.
Of course, the WHL Kootenay Ice of Cranbrook didn’t perform too well this year, finishing out of the play-offs for the first time since they moved there.
That’s a pretty good string of 13 straight years of making the play-offs, so I think we can give them a pass.
As for other local sports, it’s great to see the Merritt Secondary School teams do well. It’s also great that they have rugby here as well as high school rodeo.
Although I do see a lack of a roller derby teams. In Castlegar, we had the Dam City Rollers and they were a lot of fun to cover. Some of the names were great like Rushin’ To Killya and Kitty Karnage.
