THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702220611
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: 65 lines
``Hampton Roads'' stinks, and not just because the NHL thinks so.
``Tidewater'' stunk, too, before that arcane name retreated from popular usage.
History, Virginia tradition and provincial sensitivities be damned. If this area still wants to chase a big-league sports franchise into the 21st century, it's time to start pitching itself as the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area, period.
Maybe it won't get our leaders and some other millionaire in the door any farther than George Shinn got this time. By any name, the area has so much fence-mending and growing up to do it's pitiful. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman ran away from the chaos about as fast as he could.
But the next time a sports presentation is made in a New York office, at least our Don Quixotes, if they are carrying a Norfolk-Virginia Beach flag, won't have to waste breath explaining to blank faces what the heck a Hampton Roads is.
Is this logical or am I missing something? Norfolk is a real city, with an identifiable name. Virginia Beach has the land mass and the most people. Any enterprise that comes to Norfolk-Virginia Beach helps the entire region.
And answer me this: When someone asks where you live, do you say, ``Hampton Roads, Va.?'' Is ``Hampton Roads'' the printed destination of any train, plane or bus? Does a New Jersey kid return to school and report on his summer vacation at ``Hampton Roads'' beach?
The country is full of twice-named areas that evoke no confusion, get along and, oddly enough, thrive. I don't know much, but I know that Tampa-St. Petersburg officials don't need to explain which state they're in, for God's sake. Ditto Minneapolis-St. Paul, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Raleigh-Durham.
There is a berth in that clubhouse for Norfolk-Virginia Beach, not that I anticipate a knock on the door.
``I travel all over the world and generally speaking people know where Norfolk and Virginia Beach are,'' says Bob Smithwick, Norfolk's former economic development director, now a consultant who supports the major league sports effort but not ``Hampton Roads.''
``They may even know where Portsmouth and Chesapeake are. I haven't met very many people who know where Hampton Roads is.''
That's not new, just more evidence from a guy in the trenches that the radar doesn't pick up Hampton Roads. And it never will, despite the optimism of those who say this NHL experience put us on the map, and now the movers and shakers know who we are, and blah blah blah ...
Bettman essentially said, ``Get real.'' Shinn said those exact words to the region just last week, discussing its fractured loyalties and ceaseless bickering.
Shinn's instincts told him to put ``Norfolk'' on his hockey bid, but he caved to the politically correct. A lot of good it did him.
The best thing the Tides did was ditch ``Tidewater,'' which even Mets fans thought was in Florida, for ``Norfolk'' a few years ago.
The Mariners will change ``Hampton Roads'' to ``Virginia Beach'' when a soccer stadium is built in that city. Well they should.
Regardless if the Admirals sign a new lease at Scope or move into a new building in Chesapeake, ``Norfolk'' or ``Virginia Beach'' should be their first name. As it is, people around the ECHL constantly refer to them as ``Hampton'' anyway.
Face it. In sports, at least, ``Hampton Roads'' is a woeful underachiever outside the area and should be permanently benched.
If Virginia can retire an ugly and useless state song, the area can do the same for an awkward and aimless name.