My wife is a much more outdoorsy type than I am. When she was little, her family often went camping, and much of her time at home was spent wandering through the woods near next to her house. I, on the other hand, lasted about six weeks in the Boy Scouts before deciding I hated it and never wanted to go back, and next to my house was a four-lane highway. As a child my wife learned what all the plants in her yard were and how to identify various kinds of wildlife. I learned how to play soccer, hockey, and softball. My wife wants to move from our suburban house into the country where the nearest neighbor is a mile away, while I want to move downtown. You get the idea. I am about as in tune with nature as William Hung is with the songs he sings.

So when my wife and I go out on walks in the neighborhood, she will occasionally warn me that I'm about to step into a nest of fire ants. Invariably, I haven't noticed them. For a long time I was very worried, because she described what it was like the time she was stung by fire ants, and it involved a trip to the emergency room and almost killed her. What it took me a while to realize is that this was because she's allergic. So for some time I was worried that there was this horrible little bug that could kill any poor sap unlucky enough to walk too close to their home, and it's all around us, and I've been oblivious to it all this time. Remember, I'm clueless about nature. This seemed perfectly plausible to me.

So I was a little surprised when I was playing around on Wikipedia and stumbled upon the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, an attempt by an entomologist with too much time on his hands to quantify how much insect stings hurt. The scale goes from 1 to 4, and fire ants rate a measly little 1.2, described as "Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch." That's it? I manage to give myself a shock like that a dozen times each day during the winter. And I've been stung by a yellowjacket (at least I think it was a yellowjacket...like I can tell the difference) before, and that rates a 2.0 ("Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.") 1.2? I'm not afraid of these little pipsqueaks anymore!

That being said, I think "Fire Ants" is still a good name for a team. Granted, there's a slight irony in using the word "Fire" in the name of an ice hockey team, but a little irony is good for the soul. Since fire ants are insects, they give a lot of people the creepy-crawlies right off the bat. The fact that they sting is also points in their favor. So even if the worst fire ants can do to you is make you feel like you've shocked yourself on the light switch "Fayetteville Fire Ants" is a good name.

"Fayetteville Fire Antz", on the other hand, is not.

What misguided line of reasoning were these people using when they decided they should spell the plural of "ant" with a Z instead of an S? All I can come up with is that they were trying to be cool. Someone involved with the team must have been hanging out on a message board for the Fayetteville Force (Fayetteville's previous hockey team) and saw some twelve-year-old skateboarding twerp write "Teh Force Rulz!" and decided it would be cool to use Leetspeak to write the team name. This was a mistake. Whoever came up with this idea should have realized it was doomed to fail. This is because attempts by people over the age of thirty to look cool by acting like teenagers always fails. I have a decent understanding of Leet, and can even translate "I pwned j00, suxx0rs!!!!!11!!!" into intelligible English, but did I name this site "Teh 8u$# L34gu3 Ph4ct0r"? No. Why not? Mostly because I think Leet is moronic, but also because I'm 37 years old. Any attempt on my part to look cool by using Leet would make me look like a complete L0s3r-- er, I mean, loser. Indeed, any attempt at all to look cool is going to make me look like a complete loser. I'm 37. It's too late for me to be cool. It is impossible for anyone over the age of 30 to be cool unless they are named Samuel L. Jackson. And do you think he'd be caught dead using Leetspeak? Hell, no. Rest assured that if Samuel L. Jackson wrote this website (and he wouldn't because he's too cool), it wouldn't be called "Teh 8u$# L34gu3 Ph4ct0r". It would be "The Motherfuckin' Bush League Factor, Motherfucker!"

As much as it pains me to admit it, the team did a decent job on the logo. Yes, it's another anthropomorphized animal playing hockey. But really, what else could you use as the logo? Just drawing a normal ant doesn't cut it. And there does have to be an ant in the logo. The only option remaining is what we have here, or perhaps something truly awful like an ant wearing a firefighter's helmet. While I admit I could have a good laugh at the latter option, it's probably best just to stick with the hopelessly cliché. As I've said before, sometimes originality is a bad thing. Also, the drawing of said antman looks stylized enough that it (barely) avoids the "Cartoon" penalty. I could have done without the blade of the hockey stick being on fire, but all in all this is quite...um...tolerable. Yes, that's a left-handed compliment, but I'm left-handed, so I'm allowed. Besides, that's probably the nicest thing I've ever said about a logo that involved an anthropomorphized animal playing hockey. So they shouldn't complain. Or, as Samuel L. Jackson would say, "Don't bitch, motherfucker!"

Final Score: 50 points.
Penalties: Misspell, 11 pts; Alliteration, 2 pts; Anthropomorphization, 10 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-logo (quadruply egregious), 25 pts.
Bonuses: None.