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Heard the most seizure-inducing name butchering in last night's Flames vs Isles game

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Varlamov isn't a hard name for North Americans to pronounce - I think he just got tongue-tied rather than mispronouncing it out of ignorance or lack of skill.

The Hockey-Announcerification of foreign names in general is kinda racist and announcers should be shamed for not practicing the intonation found in common Slavic/Scandanavian/French/etc names imo
 
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Sinter Klaas said:
Don Cherry used to butcher names left and right, but only the Russian and Soviet-Bloc players. Famously, he would be corrected and still would mispronounce them, many say on purpose.
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My Father is notorious for this. "That Billington is a really good goalie." I swear he's so much like Don Cherry in every way lol
 
LOL Varlamov isn't even that hard of a name to pronounce. There are like bunch of harder names in the NHL
 
He was called Va-larmov when he made his debut with the Caps in the playoffs against the Rangers
 
Siludin said:
Varlamov isn't a hard name for North Americans to pronounce - I think he just got tongue-tied rather than mispronouncing it out of ignorance or lack of skill.

The Hockey-Announcerification of foreign names in general is kinda racist and announcers should be shamed for not practicing the intonation found in common Slavic/Scandanavian/French/etc names imo
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I think names should be spelled on jerseys as the players prefer (who knows, maybe some might prefer it be spelled such that fans can say it easier. I feel like certain ‘non translated’ spellings would actually make way more casual fans mess up more often than the current spelling)


But North Americans aren’t used to saying a lot of the names and if you tried to make them try to say everything right, they’d still say most of it wrong all the time lol. I mean reasonable effort, but some legit really struggle with a number of names


Also, have you ever heard an American technically accurately pronounce guacamole or the name of any, say, Spanish city while speaking English? It always comes across so douchey, it can sound like you’re trying to be almost pretentious in that context. Even a number Spanish speakers I know will say it ‘properly’ when speaking Spanish, but say it like most of us when speaking English (if they’re American at least)

I’ve been to other countries and far as I can tell they all do it with my and my friends names too unless English is really close to their language (Allen —> Ah-Lawn.) People’s speech patterns and such are so deeply ingrained, I’d be surprised if most players weren’t understanding as long as it’s not intentionally saying their name way wrong.

I don’t view it, with my name, as disrespectful so much as almost translation.
 
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I can’t remember which crews it was but people can’t pronounce Valeri Nichushkin. *shrugs*
 
TheDawnOfANewTage said:
I still get a kick outta the fact that Tony Lydman (loodman) and Henrik Tallinder (Taleender) casually corrected the Sabres broadcast team after like 2 seasons of incorrect pronunciation. Only in hockey.

Anywho, sounds like me getting ahead of myself teaching an English class. Happens.
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Sekera waited until his 10th year in the NHL (when he came to Edmonton) to correct his pronunciation
 
Where to even get started? Swedish and Finnish names routinely are completely butchered. And it's not even that they're difficult to pronounce, it's that the commentators / Americans in general are too lazy to find out how to pronounce names of players from very prominent nations even if it's their job.

For example, "Forsberg" and others that end in berg are all pronounced wrong, as is routine. It's not said with a "g", it's closer to "Forsbari". Again, not difficult, just lazy and disrespectful.


Anything Finnish with double vocals or consonants seem completely impossible for some reason and are usually pronounced the opposite. Like if you have "Luukkonen" somehow they pronounce it "Lukoonen", I mean why would you stretch the o when there's two us not os?

And something like Kaapo Kähkönen pronounced as Kakkonen which means number two.
 
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Chad Kroeger of Nickleback’s name is prounounced like Freddy Krueger, not like the grocery store chain.
 
The idiots who still can’t pronounce Malkin right still make me :rolleyes::rolleyes:

It’s like you jackasses can pronounce the name of some random plug like “Ulysses Vladamirovichinsky” correctly, but not a simple last name like Malkin??

C’mon… :facepalm:
 
It was funny. Just one of those unfortunate things almost everyone has happen to them occasionally. Stumbled over it and made the mistake of trying to fix and finish instead of stopping and just made it worse.

But I'm laughing, that was great
 
TheDawnOfANewTage said:
I still get a kick outta the fact that Tony Lydman (loodman) and Henrik Tallinder (Taleender) casually corrected the Sabres broadcast team after like 2 seasons of incorrect pronunciation. Only in hockey.

Anywho, sounds like me getting ahead of myself teaching an English class. Happens.
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The Nuge said:
Sekera waited until his 10th year in the NHL (when he came to Edmonton) to correct his pronunciation
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Nick Grossmann waited like 6-7 years to point out that his name was spelled wrong (missing the second n).
 
ijuka said:
Where to even get started? Swedish and Finnish names routinely are completely butchered. And it's not even that they're difficult to pronounce, it's that the commentators / Americans in general are too lazy to find out how to pronounce names of players from very prominent nations even if it's their job.

For example, "Forsberg" and others that end in berg are all pronounced wrong, as is routine. It's not said with a "g", it's closer to "Forsbari". Again, not difficult, just lazy and disrespectful.
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I don't think it's that simple, honestly.
Sure, if a player actively want his name to be pronounced the "right" way (like another speaker of his native language would say it), then I suppose it's lazy on the part of announcers to disregard that.

But truth be told, many people adjust their own name to the language and sounds of where they're living or who they're talking to. Nearly all of my foreign friends do this; they'll introduce themselves to fellow Arabic, Polish, Swedish, etc. speakers with one pronunciation, but use a different one which more approximates typical English or German sounds when talking in those languages for instance. Same with me. I have a German surname and pronounce it as such when speaking that language. In English though, it sounds different. Personally, I'd find any other way a bit preposterous actually.
 
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Sinter Klaas said:
Don Cherry used to butcher names left and right, but only the Russian and Soviet-Bloc players. Famously, he would be corrected and still would mispronounce them, many say on purpose.
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Patrick Roy, Roberto Luongo, JS Giguere, and Kevin Bieksa - legendary Soviet-Bloc players :sarcasm:
 
Last year that shrill female pbp person for ESPN pronounced "TUH-TAR" like "NO-VAK" 45 times in one game. Nothing will ever beat that.
 
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