North Dakota Nickname Submissions: UND Fans Excel At Terrible Suggestions

Dear North Dakota fans,

When we heard that UND was going to accept submissions for a new nickname, we came up with a few of our own in jest. After all, we harbor ill will towards your shooty-puck sporting collective. But in all honestly we were more excited to see if you could exceed the high expectations of boorishness and idiocy that the wider sporting public holds for you. All I can say is, BRAVO to you people of the tundra!

Let's run through your greatest hits from the list of potential nicknames the University of North Dakota released:

- Abdominal Snowmen: A fun suggestion that I wouldn't normally mock because, hey, why not right? Except whatever biology major submitted this choice wrote ABDOMINAL when he/she meant ABOMINABLE. That's right, you asked for this...

...instead of this...

Best of all, the University put this selection onto the "still under consideration" list WITHOUT CHANGING THE SPELLING. Because who wouldn't want to be the UND SUPER SEXY AB TIME ALL STARS, amirite?

- Geckos: "Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world." Warm climates...so...not North Dakota then? But yes, they share your colors (only not really) and there is a bad "COLD BLOODED" wordplay option to explore.

- 7th Calvary:

- 7th Cavalry, because it "shows history of North Dakota and shouldn't piss off any bleeding heart liberals."

Oh North Dakota historian, let's run down the reasons this is terrible:

1) This is the passive aggressive way of saying you want them to be the Fighting Sioux.

2) The 7th Calvary was never based out of North Dakota.

3) Lastly, the 7th was involved in some dicey history...someone would get upset.

The fact that this is on a consideration list should highlight the paucity of quality offerings.

- ALL OF THE GOPHER RELATED NICKNAMES:

- Exterminators ... "Death to Gophers." There were many Minnesota-related suggestions, but this one might be the best.

Because of course you'd waste all your energy trying to find cute ways to belittle Minnesota instead of, ya know, coming up with nicknames you won't hate.

- The Fighting Sioux:

- There were roughly 150 pages of people suggesting the old nickname, Fighting Sioux, or just Sioux. About 80 of those pages had the same description, "We're fighting back!" while others spelled it Soo or Sue.

Oh wait that's right...Something like 92% of your fanbase is so wed to the nickname that is no longer your nickname that they refuse to acknowledge reality, common sense, or the general principle that you don't always get what you want in life and that sometimes you just gotta move on. But you do you Whioux fans...you do you.

*NOTE: The author clearly did not catch that Sue is likely a rival fanbase (ok, probably a Minnesota fan) going for the lame sexist based slam on the Sioux. If you were one of those people I have to ask you to stop, slap yourself, and then ask yourself why you went with the "GIRLS SUCK YUCK YUCK" route instead of suggesting Goons. Goons is clearly the choice people.

To be fair, not all of the suggestions sucked. Personally I thought the Wiz Khalifa reference was awesome because I had no idea Wiz Khalifa was born in Minot. I mean, really? I also endorse Cuddly Kerpaws, though I do think the "Fighting Admiral Snugglesworths" would have been superior because of the mascot logo opportunities:

So thank you North Dakota fans for being you. I cannot wait to see you attempt to burn down your prairieland hovels in anger when the UND administration does not pick a nickname it isn't considering because it can't be part of the NCAA and use it. We'll be over here with the popcorn, laughing at you.

Cheers!

Non-UND college hockey fans everywhere