Roaming The Rinks

Last night I tuned in to the radio broadcast for my beloved Elmira Jackals as they travelled to Trenton to take on the evil Devils.   Our radio announcer said "welcome to the Sun National Bank Center for tonights game". Wait a minute I thought.  Trenton plays in the Sovereign Bank Arena.  I am positive.  I was there last spring to see a playoff game.  The arena is featured on this site.  Furthermore I listened to the broadcast when they played in Trenton a couple weeks ago and they played in the Sovereign Bank Arena then.  I was clueless to what was going on until the first intermission when the announcer's recap went into a further explanation.  You see when the announcer was walking up to the pressbox and given his pregame notes he was advised that the Sovereign Bank Arena is now the Sun National Bank Center.  Umm, OK.   He further went on to say that the Devils had played on the road in Reading the night before, and that they didn't even know about the name change until just before this game. 

So I ask you this.  Is it really beneficial to have a bank name an arena only to have the name change without notice? If you are the arena owners (usually a city, state or county municipality) you will say yes with millions of exclamation points added on.  After all the arena owner is getting megabucks in most cases to have someone name the arena.  That is not what I am getting at though.  Look at the places with history and a long tradition.  You probably know them better as "the Aud", "the War Memorial", or even just "the Civic Center".  What I am getting as is that the souls of these places are getting sold out for a few bucks.

Don't get the idea I am against capatilism, or against corporate sponsorship.  I even get a kick out of the team names in the LNAH, which are simply named after sponsors.  The same trouble happens there though.  Are fans supposed to chear for the Thetford Mines Prolab, or is it the Thetford Mines Isothermic.  What will the team name be next year?  Are fans in Wilkes-Barre or Philly going to go to arenas named after Core States, First Union, or Wachovia Bank?  Who knows as they have been to all of the above in less than 15 years.

Don't get me wrong.  If the alternative is having no arenas at all to watch hockey, or even having the taxpayers foot more of the bill for these arenas than I will go along with the musical Bank arena names.  There must be a better way however. 

I can't wait until the Jackals play in Reading in a couple weeks.  After all their arena is the Sovereign Center, or at least I think it is.