An editor took strong exception to my request for sources for "popular culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One of these items was:
"The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for Pete's sake."
I replied that if it was all that obvious it shouldn't be that hard to paste in a link from the team's website. Since I try to play fair, I proceeded to go to the team's website myself to get the link.
Well, whaddaya know.
The team's mascot is, in fact, NOT the Statue of Liberty, but a dog named Maddie, for Madison Square Garden.
According to the source, http://www.wnba.com/liberty/news/ maddie.html , Maddie is a "loveable dog... known for a unique personality among the Liberty faithful." Now, to be honest, Maddie does wear a verdigris-colored crown, but you will have to judge for yourself whether it resembles the statue's; it looks to me much less spiky, like a green version of the Burger King's crown. In any case, my opinion is Maddie is quite canine, and not at all statuesque. Statue-of-Libertyesque? Statue-of-Libertarian?
(The statue is indeed depicted in the team's _logo_, which probably is why everyone assumes that it must also be the team's _mascot._)