Did we lose the war against “assistant” captain?

[MadArcand]

How could "alternate" captain possibly be correct? That doesn't even begin to make any sense grammatically. Maybe "alternative" captain, but "alternate?" Or is this another American English thing?

It's probably the same people as those who talk about "compete level" instead of competitiveness.

It's always been assistant in Europe. Alternate sounds demented.

Also I suppose if they're all on the same line, then the team is forbidden from talking to the refs 80% of time since none of them are on the ice. Not to mention that the only way to always have one on the ice would be one per defensive pairing & making sure they come in for eachother all the time. Makes *perfect* sense.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I wasn't aware anyone made the argument that there are players who cannot be leaders? When organizations give the 'C' and 'A's' to certain players - are there not expectations associated with those roles that are not placed upon, let's say 1st and 2nd year players? Of course there are. Which is why it makes sense that a players can 'assist' with the leadership duties in the same way that it makes sense that assistant coaches 'assist' with the coaching duties. I don't know why this is controversial.



So the alternate captain roles given to intentionally selected players by the organization have 'nothing to do with leadership'? Let's just agree not to discuss this topic with one another. Cool?

You’re bending over backwards to ignore the fact that the “C” and “A” have clearly spelled-out (literally) meanings.

Other leadership roles, which may or may not correlate directly to the guys wearing the letters, are circumstantial and up to the teams involved. They do not change the words that the letters stand for.

You can say till you’re blue in the face that the “A” somehow stands for “assistant” but you are objectively incorrect in that claim. It doesn’t mean that, as a matter of plain fact.