W
hen a group in Minneapolis–
St. Paul started an Ultimate
Frisbee team, it could have
chosen a name to honor the two cities,
like the Twins. Or something about the
region’s heritage, like the Vikings. Or a
celebration of the great outdoors, like
the Timberwolves or the Wild.
Instead, the Minnesota team in the
American Ultimate Disc League is
called the Wind Chill.
It’s a curious thing, that some pro-
fessional teams choose names not
from their city’s best features but
instead, arguably, from their worst.
It doesn’t seem as if the windchill,
which regularly dips deep into nega-
tive territory in the Twin Cities, would
be a local selling point.
Ben Feldman, a team co-owner, has
an explanation: “In Minnesota, we
experience some of the most brutal
windchill temperatures in the winter
months, and we want our opponents
to feel that very same pain when they
step onto the field to play against us.”
Fair enough. But what about the
New York City affiliate of the Premier
Ultimate League? With so many great
things to choose from in the city, the
team picked the New York ... Grid-
lock. Perhaps the logic is wanting op-
ponents to feel pain similar to that of
being stuck in stop-start rush hour
traffic.
Surely these teams could have
done something nice for their tour-
ism boards by trying to sugarcoat their
names. But it’s the Miami Heat of the
NBA, not the Miami Sunshine or the
Miami Delightful Beach Weather.
And then there are the teams
named after potentially deadly natu-
ral disasters endemic to their re-
gions. The San Jose Earthquakes,
the Colorado Avalanche, the Miami
Hurricanes, and the Iowa State Cy-
clones. What attracted you to Ames?
The chance of encountering a deadly
twister!
There’s the Chicago Fire of Major
League Soccer, named after an event
that killed about 300 people. It’s not
even the first team by that name, as
there was a Chicago Fire in the old
World Football League of the 1970s.Perhaps the name refers to some-
thing else? Nope. The soccer team’s
website notes that the moniker was
revealed on the 126th anniversary of
the famous fire. But don’t worry; the
Atlanta Blaze of Major League La-
crosse assures us that its name makes
“no allusion to the burning of Atlanta
during the Civil War.”
Plenty of teams are named after
scary animals from their regions.
Few people in Florida would relish
an encounter with a gator, but theIT’S THE MIAMI HEAT
OF THE NBA, NOT THE
MIAMI DELIGHTFUL
BEACH WEATHER.rd.com 49