In Belgium each national sports team has a different nickname, where the first word is usually Red, Yellow, Black or Belgian and the second word is usually an animal. There are A LOT of different nicknames:
|Sport|Nickname men’s team|Nickname women’s team|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Football|Red Devils|Red Flames|
|(3×3) Basketball|Belgian (3×3) Lions|Belgian (3×3) Cats|
|Field hockey|Red Lions|Red Panthers|
|Volleyball|Red Dragons|Yellow Tigers|
|Handball|Red Wolves|Black Arrows|
|4×400 meters relay|Belgian Tornados|Belgian Cheetahs|
|Rugby|Black Devils|The Lioness|
|American Football|Belgian Barbarians||
|Baseball|Red Hawks||
|Motocross|Red Knights||
|Bobsleigh||Belgian Bullets|
|Rowing|Belgian Sharks||
And for some mixed sports: Korfball = Belgian Diamonds, Triatlon mixed relay = Belgian Hammers, Curling mixed = Belgian Huskies. And there’s plenty more.
These names are actually used really often in the media, mainly for the more famous sports like football, basketball, hockey, volleyball and the 4×400 relay.
Do you have something similar in your country? I know that the French call their football team “Les Bleus”, but I’m wondering if they have different names for different sports.
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It’s “gli Azzurri” (male team) or “le Azzurre” in most sports. First exceptions springing to my mind are the waterpolo team (“Settebello”), Alpine sky team (“Valanga azzurra” male or “Valanga rosa” female team) and rhythmic gymnastics (“Farfalle azzurre”).
> These names are actually used really often in the media
Do note that there’ll always be a way for the viewer/listener to tell which sport is being talked about by either the radio presenter saying so or the surrounding images on the news for example. The only exception I know to this is the red devils, I can’t recall ever hearing a clarification that the red devils are our men’s national football team. Everything else I pretty much always hear or see them clarifying which sport and men or women’s.
The Slovenian ice hockey players are known as the Lynxes.
I can only think of one, for our national hockey team, Tre Kronor (three crowns), because of the three crowns on their shirts that are part of our heraldic national symbol. The junior hockey team is consequently known as Småkronorna (the small crowns).
No not for the international teams.
Domestically for Gaelic Football and Hurling, county teams can often be referred to by their nicknames.
There’s loads but some examples:
The Déise refers to Waterford. It comes from an Irish tribe called the Déisi that settle in Waterford.
The Tribesmen would refer to Galway and is a reference to the fourteen tribes of Galway who were dominant in 13th & 14th century.
The Kingdom refers to Kerry which is a name used for Kerry going back to the the 1st century.
The Lily Whites refers to Kildare because they play in all white and their jerseys being made from bags out the Lilywhite Bakery
National teams are often referred to as Oranje (Orange) and in football they can be called Oranje or Leeuwen/Leeuwinnen (Lions/Lionesses) or a combination of the two (e.g., Oranjeleeuwen, Orange Lions)
Yes. In Finland ice-hockey team is called Lions, basketball Wolves and soccer Owls. Ladies team can be diffrent. Women soccer team for example is called Boreal Owls.
In Spain we have La Roja (The Red) for the men’s national football team.
La Rojita, for the lower categories (U21, U19).
Los Hispanos (the Hispani) for the men’s national handball team.
Las Guerreras (the warriors, feminine) for the women’s handball team.
Los Hidroguerreros and las Hidroguerreras (the Hydrowarriors), for the national waterpolo teams.
El XV del León, or El VII del León (the Lion’s XV, or the Lion’s VII) for the rugby teams.
Las Sirenas (the sirens), for the synchronised swimming team.
And la Armada, for the national tennis team.
Maybe there are more, but I am not aware of them.
Oranje leeuwinnen (orange lionesses) is the only thing i can think of. Just any female Dutch sporter