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.