Sunday, March 2, 2014

Code Name: CHAOS

RE: The Secret Base's new hockey feature, I very much like the code name Operation AMPHION, but hesitate due to its similarity to our anniversary & holiday feature, Operation AXIOM. AMPHION, AXIOM. I then considered a number of avian names paired with "project," liking the parallels to Project OSPREY, the hockey feature's acknowledged inspiration. I dismissed code names that sounded like 1980s action movies, like Project EAGLE or Project CONDOR, & alliterative code names, like Project PUFFIN or Project PARAKEET. (Project PENGUIN was never a prospect, despite its icy appropriateness, because of my disdain for Sidney Crosby, & through him the Pittsburgh Penguins.) I thought about the osprey's aquatic diet & thus seabirds, & came upon a name laden with aural & visual quality & the delightful complexity of multiple layers of allusion & meaning. Hockey will henceforth be discussed at The Secret Base under the tile of "Project ALBATROSS."

The valiant Wolverines of the University of Michigan's men's ice hockey team will be blogged about under the joint auspices of Project ALBATROSS & "The Victors." College basketball is billed as "The Victors | Project OSPREY" & so college hockey will be billed as "The Victors | Project ALBATROSS." College football is billed simply as "The Victors" because, frankly, Michigan is a football school. We here at The Secret Base support all valiant Wolverines competing in all sports, but first & last Michigan is a football school. How so? The men's & women's basketball teams play in the Crisler Center (formerly the Crisler Arena), named after "Fritz" Crisler, a national championship-winning football coach & athletic director. The men's & women's ice hockey teams play in Yost Ice Arena (formerly Yost Fieldhouse), named after & build by Fielding Yost, the multiple national championship-winning football coach & athletic director. Yes, the basketball & hockey teams play their home games in facilities named after football coaches. Michigan is a football school, so in football "The Victors" needs no other adornment.

My sense is that the Detroit Red Wings, to the limited extent that they are discussed, will be billed under "Project ALBATROSS" alone, instead of "Project ALBATROSS | Believe" or "Project ALBATROSS | The Winged Wheel." This is because I cannot in good conscience cheer for the Red Wings as long as the monster Bertuzzi disgraces their august uniform with his vile presence. He is very much an albatross hanging around Hockeytown's neck, thank you Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I eagerly await returning to the fold as soon as he is off the Red Wings' roster, but even then the schism he caused will not soon be forgotten. It's not that I wish the Red Wings any ill will. I cheer them as I cheer all of Detroit's professional athletic clubs, because their success is good for the City of Detroit & good for the State of Michigan. But I've tried to watch the Red Wings, & I just can't. My blood runs cold as soon as the monster Bertuzzi takes the ice. That fiend should have been banned from the N.H.L. for life after he broke another player's neck in deliberate retaliation for an earlier incident; it sickens me that he not only continues to play in the N.H.L. but plays for my beloved Red Wings. ALBATROSS alone will suffice then for the Wings.

Project ALBATROSS
Coming soon, or at least sooner rather than later.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Brian Carpenter's Ghost Train Orchestra, "Mojo Strut" from Hothouse Stomp: The Music of 1920s Chicago and Harlem (T.L.A.M.)

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