Name game: Cast you vote for Coolest Sports Team Nickname in Central Mass.
There are dozens of sports team nicknames in Central Massachusetts. Some are routine (Rangers, Spartans), some are colorful (Red Raiders, Blue Devils) and others come with a backstory.
It's the latter that are the focus of our search for the Coolest Sports Team Nickname in Central Massachusetts.
After we put out a call for nominations last week, our readers stepped up their game and delivered a range of favorites.
We've put together a list of eight school nicknames — and now it's your turn to help us determine which one is coolest. It's a showdown of sorts — with our poll in bracket format, with two schools going head to head until the list is pared to one, the Coolest Sports Team Nickname in Central Massachusetts.
We've shaped our poll after Best Pizza, Best Ice Cream Stand and Best Breakfast Place contests we ran earlier this year. We've come up with eight nicknames, from suggestions by readers like you, and now we'll narrow down the field in a bracket format. Based on voting by readers, the field will be cut to four, then two and, finally, to the Coolest Sports Team Nickname in Central Massachusetts.
The eight schools in the running
Scroll down to vote
Clinton Gaels (1): A nod to the town's long connection to Ireland, with many from County Mayo moving to town to toil in the mills.
Millbury Woolies (2): Longtime Worcester Telegram cartoonist Al Banx was responsible for attaching creative nicknames to a handful of area high school squads. In one of his cartoons he named the Millbury teams the Woolies, recognizing spinning mills used to produce woolen clothing.
Wachusett Mountaineers (3): This one is perhaps the most obvious, with the 2,006-foot Wachusett Mountain on the horizon.
St. Bernard's Bernardians (4): The nickname is an extension of St. Bernard's Church in Fitchburg, from which the high school was founded in 1920. The Bernardian Bowl, the school's longtime football field, took shape in 1946.
North High Polar Bears (5): Said to be another Al Banx creation.
Auburn Rockets (6): Banx first named the Auburn teams the Dandies. He penned a drawing of a snappy-dressed gentleman with top hat and tails. However, by the early 1990s some Auburn athletes felt the name did not strike enough fear into their opponents. The school held a contest in 1992 for a new identity and the teams were renamed Rockets in honor of Robert H. Goddard, the father of the first liquid-fueled rocket, which was launched in 1926 on Pakachoag Hill in Auburn.
Sutton Sammies (7) and Sutton Suzies (8): It is believed the Sammies may have come from a nickname applied by Europeans to U.S. troops who fought in World War I. Sammies was a takeoff on Uncle Sam. The Sutton female teams became the Suzies.
TIME TO VOTE
Gaels vs. Suzies
Bernardians vs. Polar Bears
Mountaineers vs. Rockets
Woolies vs. Sammies
Voting for this round runs through Tuesday, Dec. 26.
Remember, as we noted with earlier contests, this is an unscientific process, intended as fun, a departure from the sometimes edgy tone of the internet.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Name game: Cast you vote for coolest sports team nickname in Central Mass.
