The Stel Salaried Pensioners Organization wishes to
thank The Hamilton Spectator for permission to post the following article by
Jef Mahoney, published in the March 25,
2006 edition
By Jeff Mahoney
The Hamilton Spectator
(Mar 25, 2006)
In Hamilton, Stelco isn't just a name. It's the wave in our
hair, the colour of our eyes, and the 'I's in our identity, or at least the
dots on top of them. And if Hamilton ever went missing, they'd put a picture of
Stelco on the milk cartoon.
Stelco getting a new name isn't like your neighbours
changing their names. It's like your father changing his name. "Hey,"
you might think, "that's a piece of me too, you know."
But Stelco hasn't just changed its name. It has changed it
to, among other things, Hamilton Steel General Partnership Inc. That's like
Coke calling itself the Brownish Carbonated Affiliated Beverages Co.
Hamilton Steel General Partnership Inc. is the new name of
the Hilton Works, Stelco's Hamilton division. Other divisions of the steel
giant formerly known as Broke will get their own new names. One can only hope
they all have the mellifluous flow of Hamilton Steel General Partnerships Inc.
Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Yeah, like a mouthful of
marbles.
What we are now supposed to call the Stelco Tower is
anybody's guess? Faulty, perhaps?
We expected the Stelco Tower to change colour. When it first
went up, we were promised it would. Over time. From its present hue of rusty
brown to blue, as the result of a kind of patina effect.
We never expected it to change name. (By the way, the
building is still rusty brown. The company is black and blue.)
Name changes are part of life. They're what people and
corporations do when they want to blaze a new start.
And nothing, but nothing, drives one crazier than being
called by their old name, whether out of spite or neglect.
But it will be very, very hard for Hamiltonians to think of
Father Stelco as anything else. The company has gone from a clean two-syllable
spondaic bark -- Stelco (sounds like a marching order) -- to a lumbering
11-syllable Frankenstein (Hamilton Steel General Partnerships Inc.) that even
James Earl Jones couldn't say beautifully.
That tends to be the way with new names.
Prince went from a nice, simple, if somewhat presumptuous,
name to the inexplicable Artist Formerly Known As, to an unpronounceable
symbol.
Burma changed its name to Myanmar. Theatre Aquarius changed
its name to the du Maurier Ltd. Centre for ... are you still there? ... the
Performing Arts. Then they had to change it again to the Dofasco Centre for the
Arts because people came out of the plays and instantly took up smoking.
We changed the Mount Hope airport to the John C. Munro
Hamilton International Airport. And the Skyway to the James N. Allan something
or other. They changed Hanrahan's to Hamilton Strip. But all the cabbies still
call it Hanrahan's.
And everyone calls Prince Prince, and Myanmar Burma and the
airport Mount Hope.
Sometimes a name change takes. No one says Datsun anymore.
It's Nissan. And no one says the Greater Hamilton Shopping Centre any more.
It's the Centre Mall.
And if it seems as though the names in Hamilton are changing
so fast that you need a program to tell the players, then maybe that says
something about a city wanting a new start.
They still talk about selling the name of the Copps Coliseum
to the highest bidder.
But Stelco is so much more than any of that. There are burly
steelworkers out there who no doubt have the name Stelco tattooed on their
shoulders, certainly on their brains and blood. What are they supposed to do
now?
And what will a name change, a re-branding, do to stem
Stelco's sinking fortunes? Is it shifting deck chairs on the Titanic? Might
that have been a better new name -- the Titanic, or the Poseidon, or the Giant
Tiger Steel Company?
We wish the Hamilton Steel General Partnerships Inc. well.
After all, we've been through so much together. But how often can we be
changing all of our names before we forget who we really are?
jmahoney@thespec.com
905-526-3306