The Colorado Denvers

Did I say 12 and 4? What was I thinking? Make it 11 and 5. The Wild Horses That Can’t Be Tamed were butt butted by The Rams.

And speaking of lame team monikers it’s hard to beat the Utah Jazz, - “Ladies and Gentlemen let’s give it up for The Morman Tabernacle Choir as they cover the best of Louie Armstrong!” – but Colorado’s pro teams, as a group, should receive some sort of dumbness trophy. I’ve already mentioned the Broncos and they are possibly the best of the lot. Consider now the Nuggets, Rockies, Avalanche and Rapids.

The Denver Nuggets. Let’s just assume the average jamoke from Iowa knows that we’re talking gold and not chicken Mac. He’d still have to wonder what the team’s logo looked like. A pile of shiny rocks would be a good guess. Rocks of a certain size can be intimidating in a snowball fight, but apart from that not much help against the Hawks or the Warriors. I’ll bet if I called the front office to explain, they would tell me that you take the Nuggets to an assayer’s office, determine their value, swap them for cash, trot on down to Gart Brothers Sporting Goods, buy a gun and shoot the Memphis Grizzlies. Get a little bug spray for the Hornets while you are at it. Nuggets, jeez. Their mascot is a guy dressed up like a cougar. You can see the connection there right? Little pile of shiny rocks…cougar? Colorado Cougars! It should have happened.

Colorado Rockies. This might make sense if other states had Rockies as their team name as well. The Utah Rockies, the Wyoming Rockies, etc. We tack on the Colorado part so you know which Rockies we’re talking about. It’s not like the Rockies are exclusive to Colorado and here I am already assuming the average bear knows that Rockies is short for the Rocky Mountains and not, as I’ve noted somewhere before, people who are unsteady on their feet. Average Bears, by the way, would be a great name for this franchise. It would give them something to aspire to. The logo here is a mountain peak sitting majestically around doing nothing in particular to look menacing to the day’s opposition. Sort of like the team’s player lineup. And the mascot? I know, you’re thinking a guy dressed as a mountain. Nope, it’s a guy in a purple dinosaur costume. Fat and cuddly. Eat your heart out Diamondbacks. This is a team that should have been the Denver Bears, a named used by an earlier minor league team that played there and kept baseball in the public eye. There would be a nice historical connection in that. Instead we get Rockies which was the name of a former hockey team that played in Denver. Sheesh.

I kind of like Avalanche. The more I think about it, the more I like it. I like their colors, their logo and avalanches are intimidating and fear inducing. Our team will bury yours kind of image. I don’t know what their mascot is. Can’t be a guy dressed as snow, can it? Considering Colorado’s other choices it’s probably something with a nice avalanche tie in like, you know, a guy in a squirrel suit.

Then we have the soccer team which is the Rapids. I’m guessing that means their players are fast and their logo looks like the guy on the street light when it turns green. I’m afraid though, they just mean fast moving water. Doesn’t matter. This is soccer I'm talking about. Nobody is watching anyway.