Oh, not again

When Ottawa's NHL arena opened in January 1996, it had an übercool name: The Palladium.

Less than a month later, the Corel Corporation purchased the Palladium's naming rights for 20 years, and gave the arena the much less cool name: The Corel Centre. Nonetheless, the name stuck, and at least it has some nifty alliteration.

Not any more. The world descends farther into lameness.

Corel's fortunes were a lot more promising in 1996 than they are today, and the company's owners, Vector Capital, has been trying to get out of the naming deal for a while now, as it costs the cash-strapped Corel something like $1.3 million per year. It was announced today - apparently the 10th anniversary of the opening of the building - that starting on January 21, it would henceforth be known as - wait for it - Scotiabank Place.

That just stirs something up in the ol' heart, doesn't it?

It's almost as bad as "Rogers Centre," although the former name of the former SkyDome was already pretty dull.

Well, at least the Palladium the Corel Centre Scotiabank Place is still situated on Palladium Drive.