The Washington Capitals have changed the name of their building. What used to be the Evil Telecommunications Centre, is now the We Heart Usury Arena. No word on if the "heart" will be spelled out, or if the Capital One logo of an executive eating the heart of a poor person will be used instead.
Source familiar confirms Bloomberg report: the Cap One deal is worth $100 million/10 years. That's a significant jump from the previous deal
For me, and I suspect most people, the name of the arena ceased to be something I cared about years ago when teams started selling of the naming rights of their buildings. With the constant changing and the indistinguishable corporations adorning every arena it's impossible to keep them straight.
Curiously, corporations have managed to wreck the function of naming things, since if you can't remember what a place is called, you just craft sentences to avoid using the noun.
"Tonight at the MCI Centre," becomes "The Capitals are at home tonight," since unless you're using Wikipedia at that exact moment or have a photographic memory, you can not remember at any given time what name they've decided on this week.
I live in Toronto and even though it's been the Rogers Centre for a decade, anyone not cashing a Sportsnet paycheck calls it by it's original name, the Skydome.
I guess realistically I can't begrudge the owners of their ability to sell naming rights, but as a fan, it definitely takes away some of the magic of the game. I can't be alone in thinking that arenas with real names and different quirks and idiosyncrasies were a lot better than some corporate named generic ice palace.
Before deciding to name their building after one of the most despicable corporations in the entire world , the Capitals briefly considered changing the arena name to the Chinatown Ruining Bad Ice Centre, but that was quickly shot down. And for legal reasons I should point that is not true, but it should be.
Capital One is a company that is known to prey on poor people and their need for credit cards and their low probability of paying them back. They are a litigation happy company without the slightest hint of an ethical conscience. They are known as horribly aggressive debt collectors and they make most of their profits on the backs of poor people. The information available about who they sue the most is also quite disturbing.
They are litigation happy idiots who clog the courts and prevent lawyers, judges and court personnel from pursuing actual justice. While people constantly are afraid another person will get some kind of handout they don't deserve, companies like this are doing everything they can to make sure there are more and more people who need handouts.
For the record, Consumer Affairs rates Capital One one and a half stars out of five, the same rating I give to Capitals GM Brian MacLellan for his terrible offseason.
Just so you know who your hockey team is in bed with.
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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