The Crimsion Chin? SchaefDaddy? The Finnish Fettuccine? Nickname Court is in session

Hockey nicknames are terrible.

We all know this. But some of us might be too young to know that it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when hockey nicknames ranged from decent to outright cool, back in a distant time before we just started putting “-y” or “-er” at the end of a guy’s name and calling it a day.

Why did this happen? I got into that in this column from a few years back, but I’m not sure it matters. The point is that the hockey nickname world is a mess right now, and the bigger question is: Can it be fixed?

I think it can, and there are two paths to that. One is to just let the weirdos at hockey-reference take over, because those guys will take absolutely anything and call it a nickname. The second option is to turn it over to you, the readers. That’s what we’re going to try today. Welcome to the first, and very possibly the last, edition of Nickname Court.

A few days ago, I put out a call for submissions, and you responded with lots of entries. Were they good entries? Eh… we’ll get to that. But the idea was that you could submit any nickname you wanted us to pass judgement on – already existing ones you weren’t sure about, or ones you had made up on your own. I’ve tagged in Peter Baugh and Scott Powers to help me pass judgement on a dozen of your most interesting ideas.

Convince at least two out of three judges, and your nickname becomes official and legally binding gets the stamp of approval.

Modern hockey nicknames are terrible. Let’s see if your ideas are any better.

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1980s Alberta vs. 2020s Florida: Which two-team dynasty was more impressive?

At the start of 2025, I worked with Eric Stephens on a post that asked the question: Which state has been the NHL’s best of the cap era, California or Florida? It was a fun debate, and at the end we let you have your say in a reader survey that came out almost exactly 50/50.

Then the Panthers rolled to yet another Stanley Cup, and kind of ruined the bit. Finally, a valid reason to dislike that team.

But it’s fine, because now it’s Slow News Summer and we can get a little more eccentric. So today, I’m going to tackle a question originally posted by a Puck Soup listener a few weeks ago: Has the 2020s state of Florida passed the 1980s Alberta dynasty?

It’s a tough one. It’s also, you could argue, four years early, which is a fair point in Florida’s favor. Still, you never know what the future will bring. And it’s not like our arbitrary end points don’t hurt Alberta too, since they lose the 1990 Cup by a few months, the Flames were still in Atlanta until the summer of 1980, and the decade’s first few years are basically a write off.

So let’s do this. It’s basically a battle of Old School Canada vs. New Era Southern Markets, which means everyone should be very chill and reasonable about it. Off we go…

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I'm looking for your submissions to Nickname Court

I'm thinking of trying a new mailbag-type feature over the summer that I would call Nickname Court. As we know, modern NHL nicknames are terrible, with most of them either just being a player's name with an -er or -y ending tacked on, or something based on player initials that features zero creativity. Let's fix that.

Basically, readers would send in nicknames for players (or lines or pairings or whatever), and a small group of us would rule on whether they were good or not.

I think we'd be looking for either of two kinds of submissions: - Brand new nicknames that you came up with, or that are percolating in a fan base but haven't fully caught on yet - Actually nicknames that are in use but need a ruling on whether they work or not

I'd love to get some entries to mull over. Please be clear on where the nickname came from, if anywhere, and who it would apply to. Send your submissions to dgbmailbag@gmail.com and let's see where this goes.

Which team makes the best lineup with no repeated initials? Slow news summer returns

It’s summer and nothing is happening. Let’s play some weird roster games.

This one comes from reader Darryl F., who tweeted it at me five years ago. Yes, the “weird ideas” list goes back that far. Much further, actually. Look, you probably don’t want to know some of the stuff that’s been sitting there for going on a decade, but I can’t guarantee you won’t find out by mid-August.

For now, the game is simple: Make the best six-man starting lineup possible for your favorite team, without repeating any initials. So if you want to use Joe Smith, that’s your J and your S spoken for, meaning you can’t also use John Williams, or Tommy Simpson.

Easy enough, right? But first, a few ground rules™:

- We want three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie. No other positional requirements.

- You get credit for whatever that player did on that team. If the Blues want to use Martin Brodeur, they get seven games, not four Vezinas.

- In cases where there’s confusion over what a player’s actual name was, we’ll go by whatever hockey-reference uses. So it’s Maurice Richard (not Rocket), but Gump Worsley (not Lorne).

As always, we’ll do about a dozen teams and then hand it over to you in the comments to fill out any others. We’ll start with the team that’s become our unofficial leadoff hitter for these sorts of things…

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Let's get old: Five things I miss about how the NHL offseason used to work

It’s mid-July. It’s too hot, my neighbor isn’t keeping his lawn in shape, they don’t make smart summer movies anymore, and all these kids who are off school should be out doing something productive instead of staring at screens all day.

In related news, I am old.

How old? Old enough to have a bunch of opinions about how things I miss from the ancient days. And you’re going to hear a few of them right now, because it’s time for the return of Let’s Get Old, the column where I (blows out entire lumbar region by sneezing wrong) ah you’ll figure it out.

To be clear, this isn’t even the typical “old man yells at cloud” thing where I think things were better back then. I’ll fully acknowledge that the NHL and the sport of hockey have improved over the decades. But that doesn’t mean I can’t miss stuff like faceoffs in random locations and officials climbing the glass, or baggy nets and big moments punctuated by flash photography. Was it better back then? Not really, but also sort of, which is the type of confusion you should expect from an old man like me.

Today, we’re going to focus on the offseason. Here are five things that my old and deteriorating sports fan brain misses about who things used to work.

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