Goofy sports team names

What's the deal with singular nouns as sports team names? It leads to all kinds of unnatural mixing of words. What do you call a member of the "Shock"? A "Shocker"; a "Shockite"; a "Shockette"? (It is a women's team.) How about a member of the "Avalanche" -- what on earth do you call him? That's kooky talk!

Fortunately, the mainstream sports seem to have avoided this silliness, and I don't follow soccer, WNBA, hockey, or other sports prone to such naming.