Be interesting to see what the team's name is gonna be. Here's the Vegas odds:

Emeralds +450
Totems +600
Rainiers +650
Evergreens +800
Kraken +800
Renegades +800
Sea Lions +800
Firebirds +950
Cougars +1000
Eagles +1000
Seals +1100
Whales +1100
Sockeyes +1500

Yes, it's great to see Seattle get an NHL team.  They definitely are a natural rival for Vancouver.  The people there supported The Totems very well for many, many years.

jp, Adam Oates, of course, was a great NHL player. I remember Darren with the Sabres and Lightning.

As a alum of RPI (aka Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and the father of alum (Jon Pirrong) who played for RPI n the mid 90's, Adam Oates is from RPI, He was on the great 1985 team that won the NCAA championship. That team had a number of players who went on to the NHL and various other pro leagues. The goalie, Darren Puppa, played for many years. D-man Ken Hammond, forward John Carter and another forward who I can't recall also had nice NHL careers.

JP05

Joe,

Yup, I remember the lyrics - at least approximately. You got them right - at least approximately. I even sang them to my kids when they were small. One of them still knows "Baseball and Ballantine (x2). All across the nation. What a combination. Baseball.....and Ballantine b..e...e...r). As for Miss Rheingold, sure I remember - posters plastered all over the subway of which I was a frequent patron as my family had no car.

I believe the same is true in all sports - for precisely the reasons you outlined (e.g. see Magic Johnson).

Robb, since you followed the WHL for years, assume you're good with Seattle getting an NHL team? Has it always been a good hockey town? Sort of a natural rival for Vancouver, no?

ABSOLUTELY!  for superstars with super skills and super "hockey sense", everything comes easy, so much so, that they often don't even know how they perform certain feats, they just do it naturally, without paying attention to how they go about doing it.  They don;t have patience with less talented players, and can't understand why they can't pick up what they are trying to teach, right away.  Wayne Gretzky was a horrible failure as an NHL coach (Phoenix).  Bobby and Brett Hull would have been terrible coaches, so would Pavel Bure and Rocket Richard, so would Federov.       

Mike, I think we "overlap" much more in baseball than hockey.

Can you really remember those beer songs. Only one I recall a few stanzas of is the Rheingold song (and I wouldn't bet my life on that). Something like "My beer is Rheingold the dry beer, think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer (or was it "try beer"). It's not bitter, not sweet, it's the extra dry treat ... Is that right?

Were you too young to recall the Miss Rheingold contest. All the grocery, candy and liqour stores had ballots with contestants' names on them. A bigger poster held the tearaway ballots with the girls' pictures on that. You marked your ballot and voted right there at the store.