Rosie DiManno, who is an crusader for smoker’s rights and whose journalistic offerings can best be summed up by Now Magazine’s take on her (”A break, please, from the pining about the latest guy you’ve failed to bed.”) decided to delve back into the exciting world of sports journalism by penning an article bemoaning the lack of interesting nicknames that exist within hockey. According to her, hockey lacks fascinating nicknames, a sin which should be laid squarely at the feet of sportswriters throughout the world as they’re “historically been the ones to tag a player or a line, a team or a memorable incident.” She then goes on to talk about all the interesting nicknames that are out there. It’s a confusing mess and, aside from DiManno being wrong in her assertion that hockey lacks witty nicknames, I’m not sure what the hell her point was.

First, let’s take a look at hockey nicknames, something which DiManno thinks are utterly bland and lacking in imagination. Yes, there are a great deal of players who have ‘ie’ or ‘y’ tacked on to the end of their names (eg, Welly for Kyle Wellwood, Louie for Luongo, Matty for just about every single NHLer with the first name of Matthew), but it is not because of a lack of imagination on behalf of sports writers: a great deal of these nicknames come from the players themselves. For all the musings DiManno has to offer us while standing around in the Maple Leafs locker room, she apparently has never taken the time to actually listen to what is being said around her. Hell, I get enough ‘-ies’ and ‘-ys’ just watching clips on SportsCentre. Those nicknames come about as a result of familiarity with folks and are sometimes used to help facilitate on-ice communication between players: in a fast paced game like hockey, you simply don’t have enough time to exchange formal pleasantries with one another. So, yes, those nicknames are common, but you shouldn’t begrudge them.

As for the fact that hockey lacks inventive monikers for their players? I humbly disagree. For simple wordplay, you have the Bulin Wall (Nikolai Khabibulin), the Dominator (Dominik Hasek) and JovoCop (Ed Jovanovski.)

Then there’s the nicknames that honour the legends: “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky, “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe, “The Golden Jet” Bobby Hull,  Maurice “The Rocket” Richard (there was even a movie about this guy, Rosie!) All fantastic names that perfectly suit their receipients while remaining simple and elegant.

Then there are the nicknames that come about as a result of some event and stick to that players as a result. Kevin “Juice” Bieksa’s name comes as a result of the copious amounts of pineapple juice he consumed while on the Manitoba Moose. In a similar vein, backup goaltender Johan “Moose” Hedberg got his name not because he shared an uncanny resembalance to Mark “Moose” Messier (who got his nickname due to his size) but because when he was called up by the Pittsburgh Penguins he had to wear his Moose helmet, which featured a pair of Moose painted on each side of his helmet.

Andre “Red Light” Racicot earned his nickname for allowing three goals on six shots in his NHL debut and had the nickname stick, while Gary “Suitcase” Smith earned his title for being one of the league’s most well traveled goalies.

Bruins great John McKenzie was known as “Pie Face” due to a supposedly uncanny resembalance to the mascot of a chocolate bar that had the same name.

The best, though, were oldtime hockey nicknames. Georges Vezina, of whom the Vezina trophy was named after, was known as the Chicoutimi Cucumber. Why such a bizarre name? Well, Vezina hailed from Chicoutimi, Quebec and he was as cool as a cucumber while on the ice. Simple, really.

“Old Poison” Nels Stewart was a well respected and feared goal scorer. His shot was accurate and as deadly as poison. Then there were guys like Hector “Toe” Blake, who had not one, but two nicknames: “Toe” came about because of a mispronounciation his sisters had with his nickname when he was a child, and “Old Lamplighter” due to his goal scoring prowess (and ability to turn on the goal lamp!)

Other favorite player nicknames of mine include Jerry “King Kong” Korab, “Captain” Kirk McLean, “The Big Ball of Hate” Ray Ferraro and the “Little Ball of Hate” Pat Verbeek, “Chainsaw” Churla, “Terrible” Ted Lindsay and Al “Wild Thing” Iafrate.

There have been some pretty bad nicknames over the years as well, such as Andrei “Suddenly Seeking’ Zyuzin, Mike “The Ballroom” Commodore (specific to the Vancouver area and specifically to Don Taylor broadcasts) and Jim Carey “The Net Detective.”

And I haven’t even gotten into the nicknames that were given out for lines in hockey. Canucks fans would be familiar with The Mattress Line of Sedin/Sedin/King (Twins and a King) and the more well known West Coast Express with Naslund/Morrison/Bertuzzi.

The 90s had the Legion of Doom with Lindros/LeClair/Renberg, the Rangers back in the 70s had the Mafia Line (Esposito, Maloney and Murdoch: a Godfather and two Dons), Detroit had the Red Army, which was a full line and defensive pairing of all Russian players (Fedorov/Larionov/Kozlov and Konstantinov/Fetisov) while Boston had The Kraut Line, which probably takes the award for most convuluted nickname. The Kraut Line consisted of Milt Schmidt, Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer, all players who hailed from Kitchener, Ontario. Kitchener used to be known as Berlin and had a large population of German descendants and Kraut, as we all known, is a nickname for a German. Simple, really!

So, yeah, Rosie DiManno, I think I’ve made a pretty strong case that hockey nicknames are entirely boring and bland.