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SALT LAKE CITY — Three more stories from the world of sports in today's From Left Field.
1. Chargers move to Los Angeles and the internet explodes
If you haven’t heard already, the San Diego Chargers are no more as they announced their relocation to Los Angeles Thursday.
The announcement garnered plenty of interesting reactions. Sure, there was the fan who decided to egg the Chargers’ facility building, but the announcement led to plenty of funny online moments.
There was the new logo reaction, with the team apparently removing the original tweet of a bolt-inspired LA logo.
The Tampa Bay Lightning noticed it looked like a merger between its and the Los Angeles Dodgers' logo.
Others noticed how similar it was to the Dodgers logo too.
The internet was full of people — and teams — jumping in to make light of the logo.
Reports came later that the logo was just a working logo until they release their first official design.
Which came with skepticism.
While the internet had a laugh, the San Diego fans were not as pleased.
There were the jersey and other memorabilia burning ceremonies.
There’s the fans picking San Diego over the NFL, like this guy.
And there was this guy handing out free hockey tickets of the city’s AHL team to the upset Chargers fans.
2. Spurs "retire" Bonner’s “jersey”
Last week, former NBA player Matt Bonner announced he was “retiring from competitive basketball at any level above the Concord (New Hampshire) over 35 men’s division” in a retirement video for the ages.
On Thursday, his teammates made sure his legacy carried on forever — in the Spurs locker room, at least.
Spurs guard Manu Ginoboli tweeted out a picture of a flannel shirt with Bonner’s name and No. 15 taped on the back from a “very cozy and private” flannel shirt retirement ceremony.
Bonner, who has had a good sense of humor throughout his career as a role player, seemed to enjoy it.
3. NHL player becomes victim of the classic car prank
You don’t have to be a rookie to get pranked, and Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Ryan Murphy found that out the hard way Thursday.
In a series of posts by his Carolina teammate Justin Faulk, the team, or possibly Faulk by himself, got Murphy good by packing his car with styrofoam peanuts.
Faulk also posted a video of Murphy’s reaction upon finding out his car had been packed with peanuts, which to say is definitely not family-friendly. Though in the video he said he wasn’t going to pick up the mess afterward.
However, in typical polite Canadian fashion, he did.
This has happened before and even locally. For example, in 2014, the Jazz pranked then-rookie center Rudy Gobert by filling his car with buttered popcorn after Gobert forgot to bring the team doughnuts as per rookie protocol at the time.
As it has shown time and time again, it’s a solid go-to prank for teammates.
