The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim announced today that, next season, they'll be called the Anaheim Ducks. It also came across today that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays may drop the "Devil" from their name.

They were both stupid names to begin with. I suppose Anaheim Ducks makes the best of a bad situation, short of a complete change. Not that ducks are the most fearsome of creatures - or that they're found much on or near large bodies of ice - but it at least takes the stupid original name and tries to make something respectable out of it. Word is they're changing their unis and logo, too, probably into something less Disney.

As for the Devil Rays, one of the findings was that positive mentions of the team in media called them the "Rays," while negative mentions used the whole name most often. Given their usual level of play, you can work out how that looked.

I don't care for just using Rays. Too short. The entire name becomes this staccato mess. They should go with some other form of ocean-going predator. They could even grab some Federal League cred and go with Whales. Not that there's a lot of Federal League cred to grab, but it's better than what they've got going now.