Wednesday, October 12, 2011

What's In A Name? The Real Smokin' Ray?


I'm sure some of you have noticed that my friends that know me outside of the Oilogosphere, call me Brent once in a while. Well that's my real name. Brent Huska.

WHAT?!?

When I started up the blog, I needed a name to use - using a real name never occurred to me for some reason- so I went with Smokin' Ray Burnt. I've been known as SRB for quite some time, long before blogging about the Edmonton Oilers.

I am a musician in my spare time and if you know the blues genre, everybody has a cool name. So I chose Smokin' Ray Burnt.

Here's how I came up with it.

Ever since I was a little gaffer I've been called Burnt by my immediate family. Brent... Burnt... I guess you can see the connection. So in reality, I didn't make Burnt up. It was given to me whether I liked it or not.

While I was in my 20's, I wore 77 for a slo-pitch team and Derek, one of my buddies from back home, started calling me Ray Burnt in reference to Ray Bourque. Not sure why, - remember this was a ball team and not a hockey team -but he did. The Ray Burnt part stuck with me after that season and beyond.

Shortly after I was called RB by Derek, I started to record some of my blues music and I was going to post it on various music sites to get my music out to the masses. Like I said above, every blues guy has a cool name and I needed to come up with something catchy. BB King isn't BB King. BB stands for Blues Boy King. That's catchy. I needed that too. I smoke, so naturally I came up with the name Smokin' Ray Burnt.

Long story short, I put out some music and the name stuck, and to be honest, I really like the name. It has staying power and people seem to remember it.

Shortly after all the music stuff happened, I started posting on the Oilers message boards and at OilersNation.com and I stayed with the Smokin' Ray name. It became my posting handle. Everybody has one.

Once I decided to go ahead and create OilersJambalaya.com, I also decided to continue to use the SRB name. I was hoping some people would recognize the name from those sites and it would draw readers to this site. I wasn't trying to hide anything, I just took a name and I ran with it. For the most part it's worked.

There is some people who have known my name for a long time like David Staples, Scott from OilFieldHockey.com and Eric Rodgers as examples. It's funny, cause even they know my real name, and they still call me Ray.

I figured at some point a fake name would get me into trouble. Like the time David invited me to a game and I had to go to the Edmonton Journal office to get my tickets. I walked up to the security office and asked them if they had any ticket pick ups for Brent Huska. Nope. Oh... I mean Smokin' Ray Burnt. He just snickered and shook his head and passed me the tickets. I'm so glad I didn't have to prove ID. Haha!

So now I'm at a crossroad. Look around the Oilogosphere and you will see that there is a small handful of people that don't use pen names and I'm thinking that maybe I should too. It's not like I'm ever going to get accredited, but if I ever did, I sure as hell couldn't use SRB.

Plus, I have nothing to hide. I write from my heart and I'm just your everyday normal guy who's slightly obsessed with the Oilers. It doesn't matter what name I use, I'll still mouth off my opinions.

MY QUESTION TO YOU: What should I do?

Should I continue on as Smokin' Ray Burnt like you know me now?

Or go by the name I was born with, Brent Huska?

Or Does it even matter at all?

Voice your opinion. Vote in the poll above or comment below. Or just tell me to shut up.

-WRITTEN BY SMOKIN' RAY BURNT OR BRENT HUSKA???-

1 comment:

  1. Not the worst idea in the world and probably easier then NHL realignment.

    Adam Z

    ReplyDelete

Keep it nice, keep it civil. GOILERS!


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Oilers Jambalaya is in no way, shape or form associated with the Edmonton Oilers or the Bakersfield Condors. This is a fans blog for fans. We happen to love those teams, so we write about them.