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The NHL’s Most Interesting Name: The 1980s Part I

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by Rick Dikeman via upload.wikimedia.org

The 1980s were a weird time, and anybody who went through it likely has a stack of pictures they hope nobody ever sees. While these unfortunate individuals expressed the odd 80s by wearing Guess jeans and sporting odd buzzcuts and combovers, the NHL decided it was prime time to have an asplosion of offence. Hell, even Hakan Loob and John Ogrodnick eclipsed 50 goals and 100 points in a season, which was about as probable as Jonathan Cheechoo’s 56-goal season in 2005-06.

Thankfully, such an unusual era lends to our contest…

Once again, our purpose:

hockey history is chock full of names that can pique a person’s interest, whether it’s because it’s unintentionally funny to the English sensibility (Petr Pohl), almost regal (Normand Rochefort), or lends itself to entertaining wordplay (Darius Kasparaitis). The criteria for our ‘most interesting names’ is a bit loose, in that the name can strike you as any one of the above descriptors, or all of them, but ultimately you are going to vote on the name that ‘strikes’ you the strongest.

Our first group of 1980s names:

  • Tim Tookey – Not to be confused with the co-founder of the Crips, Tookey was small-time, putting up big numbers in the AHL but never really getting a full-time job in the bigs.
  • Marc D’Amour – Okay, it’s a little gratuitous wordplay, but he’s so close to being the Mark of Love…
  • Petri Skriko – If you know 1980s NHL players, you knew he’d be in here. Probably the most uncomfortable name to say in the league.
  • Dwayne Lowdermilk – For some reason, the prospect of having louder milk isn’t appealing to me.
  • Cleon Daskalakis – Just a lot going on here.
  • Patrick Roy – Seems a pretty milquetoast name in this contest, but in the U.S. his name was how you determined if someone was truly a hockey fan or just a poser.
  • Normand Rochefort – A name seemingly plucked out of 18th century aristocracy, all the more appropriate since he looked he was 300 years old.
  • Jarmo Myllys – His abortive career in the NHL led him to a land where people were more likely to know how to pronounce his name: Sweden. In the bosom of Scandinavia, he became Legend.
  • Rob Ramage – Sometimes, when you’re really familiar with a player you forget how much of a porn star name they have. And we all know he looked the part.
  • Uli Hiemer – And the award for the most German name in the 1980s NHL goes to… Seriously, wasn’t he one of the Germans in The Big Lebowski?

Hit the polls, yo.

Option Votes
Tim Tookey 3
Marc D’Amour 2
Dwayne Lowdermilk 11
Cleon Daskalakis 14
Patrick Roy 3
Rob Ramage 17
Jarmo Myllys 3
Uli Hiemer 3
Normand Rochefort 7
Petri Skriko 7
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