8-Ball Open Team Name Contest Finalists
Team Name: A Rack No Phobia
Story Behind the Name:
It takes a combination of many things to make a good poolplayer: attained eye, skill, hard work, and determination. But the most important attribute a poolplayer can possess and give to others is confidence.
When you are confident in yourself, you approach every match stronger. When you have confidence in your teammates and show your confidence in them, you come together as a team.
We have a team of eight great friends with a love of the game and support for each other. And we know that the player to beat is the player that is confident. So, we walk to the table with confidence. Rack 'em, and have no fear: We are A Rack No Phobia.
Team Name: His Hair Was Perfect
Story Behind the Name:
Our tale begins in the Summer of 2009. Phillip Milton, our Team Captain, was playing in a MiniMania tournament while part of the team "The Usual Suspects" that qualified for the National Team Championships.
Phillip had just won a grueling match against a highly skilled and well-coiffed player from Mississippi. In a complimentary manner, Phillip stated that if he ever got matched up with him again, he'd just ask to split ahead of time. A teammate Shane chimed in, "That guy was pretty strong." Phillip replied, "Yeah, and his HAIR WAS PERFECT".
After we returned from Vegas, the Usual Suspects decided to split into two teams. The four of us that formed the new squad needed a name, and there seemed only one choice.
Of course, most folks know the line from the Warren Zevon song, and fans of pool and cinema will conjure up the image of Vince Lauria shooting to the song in the Color of Money. So the connection to the game was natural.
So come August you can tell all your friends you saw a guy (or six, and one girl) from Mobile, Alabama walking around Las Vegas with a pool cue in his hand....HIS HAIR WAS PERFECT!
AHHHHHH-OOOOOOOHH!
Team Name: It's All Tom's Fault
Story Behind the Name:
Since our team's debut to the APA, we have played out of the Viking Pub, located in Adams, Massachusetts. At the time our team was formed, it never occurred to us to create a team name; therefore, our team became "Viking Pub", named after our home location. For many years we were the only team that played out of that location. In the past two years, two additional teams have formed out of the Viking Pub, both teams containing "Viking" in their names.
For some time our team joked around about changing our team name in order to stand out from the other home teams, yet we never followed through. That is, until the perfect opportunity arose, in which our Team Captain, Tom Moore, was out of town and was not available to play. The team agreed that Tom would have our heads if we changed the team name while he was away, so that was the deciding factor, we had to mess with Tom! At the bottom of our scoresheet, we wrote a little note to Tracy, our League Manager, asking her to change our team name from "Viking Pub" to "It's All Tom's Fault." We had many laughs that night, knowing that when Tom caught wind of this, he would be in disbelief. One week later, when the paperwork was delivered for that week's match, it was official the team's name had changed. Tom was beside himself and couldn't stop laughing, knowing he couldn't even leave us alone for one week.
The name has stuck and stays true to the fact that when we have a bad night, we blame Tom and say, "It's All Tom's Fault." If you knew Tom Moore, you would know that everything has always been and always will be Tom's Fault!
Team Name: Rockers
Story Behind the Name:
Our name has a simple meaning. We represent the SNCO, Staff Non Commissioned Officer, Club at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, Calif. By definition, to be a SNCO you must have an enlisted pay grade of E-6 to E-9. The rank insignia that these service members wear have what we call stripes on top and rockers on the bottom. All SNCOs have rockers. Like I said it's not that fancy but very appropriate for who we are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_rank_insignia
Team Name: Zooperb
Story Behind the Name:
Team Zooperb plays out of Zoosters Pub-N-Pool in Broomfield, Colo. Zoosters is Dutch for sisters. The pub is operated in a family environment with Lenore Lyon the owner/operator and her other sisters assisting, along with the bar manager Kathy Kiefer. Kathy and I were trying to come up with the team name and I wanted it to represent the pub, the family environment, and what the team spirit should be. So many combinations of Zoosters had been used or were currently used - Kathy and I continued to brainstorm until we stumbled across a derivation of the pub being a superb place to play pool at and associate with both your social and physical families. Then it hit us, Superb translated into Zooperb.
Team Name: Luv & 8
Story Behind the Name:
I always found shooting pool to be an outlet for sadness and anger - I could shoot pool and those feelings would disappear as I was into the game, not the bad feelings. I also always had low self esteem but pool was something that I did pretty well at and it gave me some confidence. If everyone in the world would replace their "bad feelings" (toward self or others - some would call it "hate") with shooting pool (8-Ball), the world would be a much more beautiful place to be! The name Luv & 8 also represents our team (of mixed cultures - Turkey, Guatamala and America)that we can be brought together by a pool team and realize that we enjoy spending time with each other (if only a pool team could be a small scale for the world to follow)! In summary, The name of our team, Luv & 8, represents not only all 8 of us on the teams' love for the game, but also that shooting pool (8-Ball) could replace hate in this world if people had an outlet for their feelings (such as shooting pool) and also that we can all realize how alike people are all over the world by interacting with them. Oh, by the way we love 9-Ball too, but Luv & 8 is just our 8-Ball team name!