LSSU is not where a slurring drunk Baton Rouge student says he goes to school — no, it’s Lake Superior State University, and it makes the news once a year, when LSSU announces its of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.
On New Year’s Eve back in 1975, the late W. T. Rabe cooked up a fun list of annoying words with friends at a New Year’s Eve party. They published the list on New Year’s Day, and now the list has more than 800 entries. This year’s choices included “bae,” “polar vortex” and “-nation,” which LSSU’s site declared is “a suffering sports suffix.” Death of a nation!? Indeed, (Insert Team Here) Nation has become an (Insert Insulting Adjective Here) abomination.
Surely this will make residents of apountry gleeful, for they hate the idea of Raider Nation.
The overuse of “-nation” in sports fandom has become an epidemic. There could be a Valor Christian Nation at this point. I feel like there are only a handful of sports teams that can pull off “nation.” This lends itself to the idea that there are fans across the actual nation rooting for your team, a la the Red Sox, or at least a growing, enormous fan base. As such, when the Clippers got good, I remember them starting Clippers Nation, which seemed like a stretch and reminds me of what my pals at Mile High Report call the fan base of San Diego — Chargers cul-de-sac. (When I brought this up on Twitter on Wednesday, @ZaBlanc suggested the Jaguar Smattering).
Many teams have avoided the cliché that is using nation, such as Bills Mafia, Chiefs Kingdom or Red Sea for the Arizona Cardinals. On Twitter, a Denverite named @john_ekberg pointed out the 12s — “Going to school in Wash, I’ve had phrase ’43-8′ uttered at me several times by 12s over past year.” Also, @RS1022 talked about The Cowboys Bandwagon. And @bpratt07 suggested for nickname-less fan bases: archipelago, principality, district and fjord.
This past week, another fan base made the news, those being the fans of Kobe Bryant, “The Black Mamba.” As :
The “Meet me in Temecula” story has gotten a little bit out of control.
If you haven’t been keeping up with it, it started back on Christmas Day when Twitter users @SnottieDrippen and @MyTweetsRealAF got into a back-and-forth beef on Twitter over Kobe Bryant’s value to the Lakers. One thing led to another and @MyTweetsRealAF challenged @SnottieDrippen to a fight. @SnottieDrippen then told @MyTweetsRealAF to meet him in Temecula, Calif. And while @SnottieDrippen didn’t end up showing up to the fight, @MyTweetsRealAF did make the trip to Temecula and was ready to go, which delighted Twitter to no end.
Anyway, my man Arash Markazi, an ESPNLA reporter, told Kobe about this bonkers turn of events, and Bryant replied: “Mamba Army don’t (bleep) around.”
Chew on this
• With the year ending, here is 2014’s .
• And, if I may, here’s my favorite column I wrote — about an Avalanche player whose .
• Here’s a look at the this season, via The Washington Post.
• And here’s a list of people’s
• Finally, as we always do, happy celebrity birthday day to … and .
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
Visit each weekday near noontime for a serving of dish concerning Colorado’s sporting landscape from a Denver Post sports writer. Care for another helping? Scan .
