All nickname for new Las Vegas arena is awaiting is crossing of ‘The T’
When it was announced the new MGM/Anschutz Entertainment Group arena being shoehorned in between New York-New York and the Monte Carlo would be called T-Mobile Arena, hardly anybody complained.
The same couldn’t be said in Louisville, Ky., when the KFC Yum! Center opened for business.
T-Mobile Arena just sounds like a sports arena in the corporate era. It has a nice annual $2 million to $10 million ring to it.
What it doesn’t have yet is a nickname. You know one is coming.
(Hopefully, a new T-Mobile Parking Lot is coming, too.)
It won’t be the T-M, because we’ve already got one of those. We’ve got a T&M — Thomas & Mack Center — with an ampersand, rather a hyphen. To have two iterations would be confusing. Having one T&M was confusing enough. Remember when a new sign was ordered for the Thomas & Mack Center, and when it was installed, the workers placed the ampersand on its side, and it looked like a pretzel?
But what’s a stadium or a ballpark without a catchy nickname?
The Big A, The Jake, The Fens, The Swamp, The Kennel, The Dogpound, The Bob down in Phoenix (R.I.P.). The Dean Dome, Monster Mile, Brickyard, Thunderdome, Shark Tank, Theatre of Dreams. The Garden, of course. The Ralph, The Betty, The Joan. The Linc, The Igloo, The Cell, The Big House, The Stick, The Pit, The Vault, The Vet, The Slim Gym — aka Jenny Craig Pavilion at the University of San Diego.
And don’t forget the Mistake by the Lake, which is what they called the old stadium in Cleveland.
Pat Christenson, Las Vegas Events president and 1976 NCAA 167-pound national wrestling champion from the University of Wisconsin, thinks our new sports and concert hall will wind up simply being known as The T.
He’s probably right. The M and the D and the TI already are spoken for. (The Sirens of the TI are no longer spoken for.) The IP? It’s now the Linq, not to be confused with The Linc — Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
What about referring to the new building, as they say in the NHL, T-Mobe? Maybe. But T-Mobe sounds more like a one-hit wonder rock band from the 1970s. Bang a gong, get it on, hope you can find a parkng place for the BMW.
Perhaps there will be a contest to nickname the new arena. If there is, the prediction here is “House That Rice Built” won’t be among the finalists.
• WHO’S GOT OGILTHORPE? — It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who famously said that when he lost Walter Cronkite, he lost middle America. That sort of reminds one of the relationship local TV sports directors have with the UNLV athletic program.
But judging from Thursday’s 11 p.m. news, it appears UNLV basketball coach Dave Rice might be losing Channel 8 sports director Chris Maathuis.
Maathuis showed a clip of Rice trying to coach the Rebels during a crunch-time timeout in Wednesday’s inexplicable loss at Colorado State. At least until Rebels guard Jordan Cornish hijacked Rice’s huddle. You can see Rice get flustered and lose his train of thought after Cornish starts yapping about defensive stops.
Maathuis compared it to the scene in the classic hockey movie “Slapshot” in which Paul Newman is trying to give the Charlestown Chiefs a pep talk and the Hanson brothers keep interrupting.
You can watch it here: http://tinyurl.com/zh4ewd3.
• U.S. SOCCER GETS POLSTER-IZED — Matt Polster, the former Palo Verde High School soccer star and current defensive bulwark for the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer, has been called up for training camp by the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team.
The camp is set for the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., from Jan. 11 through Feb. 6. It will feature international friendlies against Iceland on Jan. 31 and Canada on Feb. 5.
“It’s an honor to receive this call-up,” Polster, 22, said in statement. “To play with the senior national team and play for this country at that level is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m excited for this opportunity to work with Jurgen Klinsmann and his staff and to play with some of the best players in the country.”
“Big boy camp — not just U23s,” Simon Keith, a former UNLV soccer star, wrote in a text message about his protege having recently played in the starting 11 in the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship. “Next step to World Cup.”
• THE KID WAS ALRIGHT — It must have been 1984 or ’85 when The Kid came charging into the press box at Ricketts Park in Farmington, N.M., home of the Connie Mack World Series. He was looking for one of the young sports writers there.
The Kid was full of … bombast. He was full of swagger. He was the center fielder for the Midland Redskins out of Cincinnati, a 15-year-old flailing at roundhouse curveballs thrown by 18-year-olds, and by young men with facial hair whose birth certificates said they were 18. Only The Kid didn’t flail like the older players.
The Kid wanted to know when the young sports writer was going to interview him. The young sports writer said “never,” or something to that effect, because the young sports writer did not appreciate bombast and swagger from a 15-year-old.
Now Ken Griffey Jr. is headed for Cooperstown.
Now the young sports writer is just an old sports writer who thinks he might have been too hasty to judge.
• THREE DOTS … — DeMarco Murray’s 2014 statistics with the Dallas Cowboys: 392 att., 1,845 yds., 13 TDs. Murray’s 2015 stats with the Philadelphia Eagles: 193 att., 702 yds., 6 TDs. I saw a picture of the former Bishop Gorman High star either shaking Eagles coach Chip Kelly’s hand after a recent game, or bidding him good riddance. … Chuck Pagano, a former UNLV assistant football coach, went from supposedly getting fired by Indianapolis last week to definitely receiving a four-year contract extension. Colts players were said to be happy. The coach’s granddaughters probably not as much: Grandpa Chuck had promised to hang out with them in Idaho if Indy sent him packing. … Kris Bryant, the National League Rookie of the Year and smacker of prodigious drives off auxiliary scoreboards, broke untold hearts when the former Bonanza High star posted a romantic picture of himself and longtime sweetheart Jessica Delp on his Twitter account. In the caption, the Cubs’ third baseman said they couldn’t wait to be married. A-w-w-w-w.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski