WHAT'S IN A NAME, AND AMERICANS LOVE HOCKEY FIGHTS

Spent the last few days in eastern Virginia, out on the eastern shore and down around Williamsburg and Norfolk-Hampton Roads-Newport. Some weird stuff down here. They've got a street named Rip Rap Road and another named Jack Frost Road (probably near "Nipping at Your Nose" Boulevard, but I didn't see that one). There also was a Robin Hood Drive.

In Richmond, they have a street called Boulevard. Not Richmond Boulevard or Robert E. Lee Boulevard or "The South really won the Civil War but y'all don't know it Boulevard," but Boulevard. Okay, technically there's a north and a south Boulevard, but still funky. Not that anyone who lives in a city with a street called Avenue Road should talk.

Richmond also has a Cary Street, which is quite a nice stretch of shops. But a woman who works at a store there called Murphie's says that west of her shop it becomes "Cary Street Road."

"That really bothers me," she said.

She's a lovely young lady, actually, name of Courtney La Fond. Her grandparents were French Canadian and she LOVES hockey.

"I shouldn't say this but I rooted for Canada to beat the U.S. at the Olympics in 2002," she said with a smile. "I love hockey. But I don't like it as much on TV."

La Fond was asked if she believes it when Americans are quoted as saying they don't like the sport because of the fighting.

"Not at all," she said. "They LOVE the fights. Are you kidding? My brother always wants to see a hockey fight. He used to be a goalie."

So there you go.

More later but gotta run and have dinner with a tourism person from Richmond, which is a pretty funky city and seems to rising up the charts of relatively undiscovered American towns.