Announcing The Bold New BHGP Re-Brand

Friends, we've tried to turn the other cheek.

We've tried to turn a deaf ear to their angry shouts and their boisterous chants.

We've tried to ignore them and go about our business.

But we can do it no longer.

We must re-fortify ourselves for a new era of open hostility. We must wrap ourselves in new linguistic armor to better fight back. We must embrace a new identity to better deal with their persistent nattering.

I speak, of course, of the Minnesota Golden Gophers, our dear friends to the north. The lutefisk-lugging barbarians at our gates. The stadium-destroying scoundrels clawing at our door. (You'd think, as the rightful owners of Kinnick North -- on-field ownage equals possession under the tenets of sports law, right? -- they would have asked us before blowing up the dome.)

For too long we have ignored their war cry. "WHO HATES IOWA?" they scream and chant. It is both their battle cry and their safety blanket (for when things go bad for them on the field -- or court or rink -- of play, they can always fall back on their hatred of Iowa). It summarizes their entire existence, their whole way of life.

Who do they hate? Iowa.

What do they hate? Iowa.

Where do they hate? Iowa.

When do they hate? Iowa.

How do they hate? Iowa.

They yell it at Iowa games. They yell it at non-Iowa games. They yell it at random. If -- when? -- the Gophers win the NCAA hockey championship this weekend, their fans will yell "SKI-U-MAH!" And in the next breath they'll probably yell "WHO HATES IOWA?"

So we at BHGP decided that we must fight fire with fire. We must re-brand ourselves to let the Gophers know that we have fought this battle already -- and we have triumphed decisively. We must let them know that they can hate Iowa all they like, that we welcome their hate... because we have already scored a bigger victory over them.

And yet there was some concern in BHGP headquarters when we chose to go forward with this plan of action. We have a lot of brand equity built up in "BHGP" -- that abbreviation is known far and wide in Blogfrica (to say nothing of our Twitter handle and our podcast and our merchandise). Could we really abandon it for a brand-new identity? And, lo, then inspiration hit us like a Bob Sanders tackle on a punt return. We could compromise on our re-brand. We could keep "BHGP" as our abbreviation and tweak what it stood for.

Black Heart Gold Pants is dead.

Long live Brazenly Hoisting Goal Posts!

Because you can hate all you want, Minnesota... this still happened.

Welcome to the future, Friends of the Posts.