The ubiquitous, unimaginative headline: DYNAMO DYNASTY
HOUSTON WINS THE TITLE!! HOUSTON WINS THE TITLE!!
It feels good to say that, even though it's about a sport that I'm pretty indifferent to. That seems to be the way, though, with my geographical sports allegiances. DC and Houston have a ton of MLS titles between them, and the Hurricanes won a Stanley Cup recently, but those are sports that I can enjoy when I'm watching them, but otherwise don't think about much. Which is about the same thing I could say about, say, the Today Show.
If it wasn't for basketball and having had the joy of watching the Rockets and Tarheels win multiple titles, I'd think that God personally sets aside time to fuck with my teams.
While I have--and always will--mostly just watched for the word "Houston" in the standings of any sport, it's hard to get too excited about the Dynamo's second title in as many seasons as they've been in the city. Partly because it's a sport I don't follow very closely, but mostly, it's because they're called the fucking Dynamo. Come on, MLS: if you want to break American's association of soccer with little kid's leagues, you're going about it wrong. The Dynamo?! Seriously? As all the orange jerseys gathered to celebrate at the end of the game, I was looking down the sidelines to see who was handing out orange slices and Kool Aid.
Still, I'm going to allow myself a little glow of satisfaction that Houston won a title. And as I fall asleep tonight, in that brief moment before sleep sets in, I'm going to put the word "Oilers" behind "Houston". And just pretend.
4 comments:
We're the ..Houston Oilers Houston Oilers Houston Oilers number one!
We're the ..Houston Oilers Houston Oilers Houston Oilers number ONE!
We'll it beats Enron and Paul Wall!
Oh, that dumb, ripped-off song. Still brings back some fond memories.
I have to say that I liked "Enron Field". It had a nice ring to it, and sure as hell was better than "Minute Maid Park".
The Dynamo name has a long and proud tradition in eastern european football (soccer). Particulalry in Kiev.
Dynamo Kiev played the infamous "Death Match" during WW2. The remnants of the pre-occupation Dynamo Kiev team were forced to play against a German All-Star team who they promptly destroyed. The Germans then produced a series of stronger teams in an effort to show their Aryan superiority, each was defeated despite "directed" refereeing by SS officers. Finally unable to defeat Dynamo on the field the Germans had the team arrested and executed. The retelling of this story in soviet propaganda was one of the few allowable manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism in the soviet era. Some would argue that modern day Ukraine owes a debt to these martyrs.
We in the US have only Escape to Victory and the Houston Dynamo to thank them for.
Wow! That's a great bit of trivia, Mac. I have a good deal more respect for the name. A brief check on Wikipedia does indeed include a whole bunch of Eastern Euro Dynamo soccer teams.
I guess one of the reasons that I don't like the name is that, for a short time, they had the best name in the MLS: the Houston 1836, after the year that the city of Houston was founded. But it was changed because Mexicans objected since 1836 is also the year that Texas declared it's independence from Mexico. So they changed it. Personally, I think that they should have just changed it to say, Houston 2005, which only would have become a better name as time went on, but...
See, that's the thing about MLS. They keep passing up the chances to create a solidly American soccer personality. All they can do is constantly do things that European and Latino teams have done. The most US American team is Chivas USA. Otherwise...Real Salt Lake?! FC Dallas?! Come on. They're not exactly discouraging the feeling that you're watching a bastardized version of the sport.
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