Apart from the Braves,
Atlanta
has never enjoyed much success as a sports town. In 50 seasons, the Falcons
have lost nearly 57% of their games—yielding
the fourth worst winning percentage among all 32 current NFL franchises. Reaching
the Super Bowl but once, Atlanta lost handily to the Denver Broncos in 1999. Unlike their
sharp-eyed namesake, the Falcons have possessed poor vision and rarely drafted
well. This team 250 miles from the Atlantic Ocean somehow also spent the bulk
of its existence in the same division as the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and the
San Francisco 49ers, long-time powerhouses that took turns beating up Atlanta
for three decades and left it little room for playoff hopes.
And since emigrating from St. Louis in 1968, although the
Hawks have qualified for the playoffs more often than not, their hoop dreams
have fallen achingly short season after season. Even Hall of Famers Dominique
Wilkins and Pistol Pete Maravich—freshly off NCAA superstardom—could not lead Atlanta even to the
finals. Consequently, the Hawks have perennially ranked among the worst in NBA
attendance since arriving in Georgia.
But the Falcons and Hawks largely are cases of subpar
general management and small-market struggle.
Atlanta’s original hockey
team, the Flames, is an altogether sadder story: Born in 1972, the Flames were
the first franchise to bring NHL hockey south of the
Mason-Dixon
line—no easy going for a fledgling team competing for talent with
the brashly spending World Hockey Association. But General Manager Cliff
Fletcher drafted shrewdly and acquired skilled youngsters who made the Flames
competitive almost from the get-go. Led by such gritty skaters as Tom Lysiak,
Eric Vail, Bobby Leiter, Pat Quinn, Guy Chouinard, and the exciting goaltending
tandem of Daniel Bouchard and Phil Myre,
Atlanta
reached the playoffs by its sophomore season, after which it never failed to
finish at least .500.
Unfortunately, the promising Flames contained a fatal flaw:
Owner Tom Cousins (already the owner of the NBA Hawks) named the franchise after General Sherman’s burning of
Atlanta. How Cousins—a native Atlantan—could select such a mind-blowingly inept name is beyond comprehension. Even today, the city’s torching at the hands
of Sherman’s army is a sore spot for
deep-rooted Atlantans, some of whom still refer to the Civil War as the “War of
Northern Aggression.” And if Atlanta’s
ignominy continues to be a touchy subject now, it was even more so in
pre–politically correct 1972, when Jim Crow and Civil Rights remained fresh
wounds in the Southern psyche. Why would Cousins risk alienating his fan base
by reminding them daily of their city’s ultimate humiliation?
The fact is that, for all of their success and promise, the
Flames never drew well. Attendance dwindled throughout the 1970s, and the
franchise relocated to
Calgary in 1980. But
forget the dearth of Stanley Cups and superstars—the Atlanta Flames’ failure
can be blamed solely on its name. Let’s face it: If you’re going for the
perpetually popular Civil War angle, at least name your team the Atlanta
Hydrants so as to fill potential fans with the defiant hope that their city and
their homes will be spared rather than bashing already-fragile Confederate egos
by reminding them of the cinders their ancestors’ homes became.
Sure, a logo of a hydrant isn’t as flashy and inspiring as a flaming “A”—but who cares how good a
uniform looks when traumatized spectators are too frightened to leave their
homes for fear of Blue Bellies setting torches to their town?
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