Proposed name for CFL Halifax club draws ire

HALIFAX A group supporting a proposed CFL team in Halifax touched off a fiery debate online when it suggested naming the team after the country’s worst maritime disaster.

On Twitter, CFL in Halifax pitched the idea of calling the football team the Halifax Explosions — a reference to the explosion in Halifax Harbour in 1917 that killed about 2,000 people.

A similar name, the Halifax Xplosion, is used by the city’s Maritime Women’s Football League team.

CFL in Halifax is a creative group that makes fan art to generate discussion, and clarified Monday: “We are NOT the same people who are bidding for an official Halifax CFL team. That is a different group of business people.”

CFL in Halifax promoted the Explosion moniker, saying 100 years ago “a force was unleashed that made this city stronger, bigger, and more united than ever before. Now we channel that force onto the football field as we flatten all that stands in our way.”

It didn’t take long for people to register their rebukes.

“You want to profit off the deaths of 2,000 people? It’s in really poor taste,” said one person, while another tweeted, “I grew up in Dartmouth and this is an absolutely asinine idea.”

Others were more creative with their disapproval.

“The Hiroshima Atoms, the Nagasaki Fallout, The California Embers, the Port-au-Prince Quakes,” wrote thenormalperson. “I hear the CFL is expanding to the U.S. with the New York 9-11s.”

Halifax was devastated on Dec. 6, 1917, when two ships collided in the city’s harbour and set off an explosion that levelled the city’s north end. It’s estimated 2,000 people were killed, another 9,000 maimed or blinded.

The group has suggested several other names for the proposed team, including the Atlantic Fog, East Coast Kraken, the Halifax Privateers, and the Atlantic Schooners.