I love the smell of napalm and soccer in the morning
Terry Cooke of the Colorado Rapids
The Colorado Rapids open the soccer season at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (known as The Dick) in Northfield Stapleton this Saturday. As usual, expectations are high that the team will contend for the MLS Cup—something the Rapids have never won. That outcome has yet to be determined, but another daunting task remains for the club: The Rapids have one of the dumbest names in professional sports, and it needs to be changed. Now.
Soccer will never make inroads with the meatheads that lap up American football unless there’s an explosion or two to keep their interest. Soccer has a purely European and/or Latin American quality that will never be fully embraced by mainstream U.S. sports culture. That’s okay, though, because Major League Soccer is banking on this country’s burgeoning Latino population and scads of ex-pat Europeans to fill the seats at the many new, state-of-the-art facilities built just for soccer. And let’s not forget the scores of Americans who love the sport as well. I like soccer, and the Rapids provide a good product, but I can’t fully support a team with a name as lame as the Rapids.
Already, we’ve seen teams given names that fit in with global soccer culture: Chivas USA is a nod to Mexican team Club Deportivo Guadalajara while D.C. United is an awkward stab at sounding like worldwide phenomenon Manchester United. Dallas mercifully changed its stupid name from the Burn to simply FC Dallas. The Rapids, however, are clueless to how bad its name sounds. Owned by Kroenke Sports, which also boasts the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, the Rapids were unfortunately named along that same Colorado theme: mountains, outdoors, and snow. Why they didn’t wind up with the name Snowboard Mountain Bike must be pure luck.
The word "rapids" makes you think of a treacherous stretch of water on a rafting trip, but after negotiating them, you paddle your way home with a Coors Light between your knees. Rapids don’t instill fear in opposing teams—just a little anxiety. So here’s my suggestion: call the team Rocky Mountain Arsenal. The Dick is built on the old site of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, which was a chemical weapon manufacturing facility until it closed in 1992. What's a better way to honor that horrific factory of death than by making opposing teams think they might get napalmed?
The Rapids is also a partner club with famed English soccer team Arsenal FC; not only do they share Arsenal’s training ground once a year, but the teams are marketing and promotion partners as well. Arsenal is a world famous soccer club, and having the Rapids incorporate part of that name into theirs would not only add instant credibility, but it would be smart. Who wants to wear a shirt or jersey that suggests rushing water when you can wear one that suggests chemical warfare and drunk Englishmen beating the shit out of people?
Whatever the change winds up being, the Rapids undeniably need a new name. This should have happened—and was rumored to—when the team switched its colors and moved into its brand new facility last year. The trend of naming teams after vague weather phenomenon and abstract concepts (Minnesota Wild?) is from a bygone era. Soccer teams should be named for the city the team is from. And since the Northfield Stapleton Rapids doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, Rocky Mountain Arsenal fits perfectly. Smells like victory to me.
