Lake Monsters Vs. Lock Monsters?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on June 21st, 2006
Well, not quite. The Vermont Lake Monsters lost their season opener to the Lowell Spinners.
Ironically, as Loren mentioned here on Cryptomundo, the minor league hockey team in Lowell, MA is named the Lowell Loch Monsters.
So the Lake Monsters did lose in the hometown of the Lock Monsters.
And for an even stranger cryptozoological twist, the Lock Monsters are the minor league team for the New Jersey Devils.
And they have a pretty cool logo as well. I haven’t found an outlet to purchase any team logo items as controlling ownership interest was just transferred to the Devils last month.
Anyone in Cryptomundoland know of any other cryptozoologically named sports teams out there?
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Ah, all good things must come to a close. The Lowell Lock Monsters are no more. In 2006-2007, they become the Lowell Devils.
I was going to do a “gotcha” for a misspelling, and seeing the logo it really is “Lock Monsters”! No Scots in Lowell I guess…
That is a cool logo!
I don’t get it, why are they called “Lock” Monsters? There seems to be no other explanation than mispelling. If it is an Americanization it would be spelled Lake. Wazzup? What did I miss? Is there a Lock making company in Lowell?
Not a big sports fan here (By a long shot), but this does seem the apt place to ask the question- Have you noticed how many local teams are named the Blue Devils? And why blue, seeing as devils are traditionally depicted as red? Is blue less evil, and thus, more appropriate for a little league team?
Sasquatch is close when he asked if Lowell had a lock factory. Lowell was well known as an early American textile center (Hence the Lowell Spinners team name in the opening paragraph). Like most early factories it was powered by water. The locks were part of the early American transportation grid. They were used to get around the mini-waterfalls that powered the machines.
Going from “loch” to “lake” would be more of a translation. Most Americans are unaware of the correct pronunciation of “loch” with it’s throat-clearing sound, like German “ich” (I) and can’t do it right anyway, so it becomes the closest familiar thing in American English, “lock”. Maybe there is a connection with “lock and dam” too.
As for 5, my high school mascot was a blue devil and I often wondered about that too. My Webster’s gives a definition of “Blue Devils” as 1) delerium tremens – DTs – or 2) depression, the blues. Both seem odd for a sports team association!
“Is blue less evil, and thus, more appropriate for a little league team?”
Good ask.
When I was a kid (about 20 years ago) I played for a hockey team called the Pownal Red Devils. Now my 10-year-old nephew plays for the same team and they’re still called that.
The Delerium tremens, now there’s a team name!
Hello from England,
Over here the football team Manchester United have the nickname ‘The Red Devils.’ There is a Welsh rugby team called the Dragons, and of course Brentford football team play at Griffin Park.
Also, in Scotland Aberdeen football club play at a stadium called ‘Pittodrie.’ This translates roughly from the Gaelic into ‘dunghill.’ Not crypto, but I just HAD to tell you.
How about the baseball team the DAYTON DRAGONS? I believe they are a farm team of the Cincinnati Reds.
Remind me not to wander the vomitoria of Pittodrie…
I’m going to go out on a limb and say Jabberwock is on the right track with his explanation of “Lock” coming from the locks of a dam (the little concrete rooms in a dam they bring your boat into to raise and lower the water level to get you from one side of a dam to another)