View across Loch Lomond, towards Ben Lomond.

Loch ( /ˈlɒx/ or /ˈlɒk/) is the Irish and Scottish Gaelic (cognate with the now obsolete Welsh word for lake, llwch) word for a lake or a sea inlet. It has been anglicised as lough, although this is pronounced the same way as loch. Some lochs could also be called a firth, fjord, estuary, strait or bay. Sea-inlet lochs are often called sea lochs or sea loughs.

Background[link]

Looking down Loch Long, which is a sea loch

Loch Lubnaig, a reservoir

The Lake of Menteith (Loch Innis MoCholmaig)

Loch Derculich in Perthshire

This name for a body of water is Goidelic^[1] in origin and is applied to most lakes in Scotland and to many sea inlets in the west and north of Scotland. The word is Indo-European in origin; cf. Latin lacus, English 'lake'.

Lowland Scots orthography, like Scottish Gaelic and Irish, represents /x/ with ch, so the word was borrowed with identical spelling.

English borrowed the word separately from a number of loughs in Northumbria and Cumbria. Earlier forms of English included the sound /x/ as gh (compare Scots bricht with English bright). This form was therefore used when the English settled Ireland. However, by the time Scotland and England joined under a single parliament, English had lost the /x/ sound, so the Scots convention of using CH remained, hence the modern Scottish English loch.

Many of the loughs in Northern England have also previously been called "meres" (a Northern English dialect word for "lake" and an archaic Standard English word meaning "a lake that is broad in relation to its depth") such as the Black Lough in Northumberland.^[2] However, reference to the latter as lochs or loughs (lower case initial), rather than as lakes, inlets and so on, is unusual.

Although there is no strict size definition, a small loch is often known as a lochan (so spelled also in Scottish Gaelic; in Irish it is spelled lochán).

Perhaps the most famous Scottish loch is Loch Ness, although there are other large examples such as Loch Awe, Loch Lomond and Loch Tay.

Examples of sea lochs in Scotland include Loch Long, Loch Fyne, Loch Linnhe, Loch Eriboll, Loch Tristan, Trisloch.

Uses of lochs[link]

Some new reservoirs for hydroelectric schemes have been given names faithful to the names for natural bodies of water - for example: the Loch Sloy scheme, and Lochs Laggan and Treig (which form part of the Lochaber hydroelectric scheme near Fort William). Other expanses are simply called reservoirs, e.g.: Blackwater Reservoir above Kinlochleven.

Scottish lakes[link]

Scotland has very few natural water bodies actually called 'lakes'. The Lake of Menteith, an Anglicisation of the Scots Laich o Menteith meaning a "low-lying bit of land in Menteith", and applied to the loch there because of the similarity of the sounds of the words laich and lake. The Lake of the Hirsel, Pressmennan Lake and Lake Louise are other bodies of water in Scotland which are called lakes and all are man-made.

The word "loch" is used as a shibboleth to identify natives of England, because the fricative [x] sound is used in Scotland whereas most English people pronounce the word like "lock".

Lochs beyond Scotland and Ireland[link]

As "loch" is a common Gaelic word, it is also found as the root of several Manx placenames.

The United States naval port of Pearl Harbor, located on the south coast of the main Hawaiian island of Oahu, is one of a complex of sea inlets. Several of these are named as lochs, viz. South East Loch, Merry Loch, East Loch, Middle Loch and West Loch.

Brenton Loch in the Falkland Islands is a sea loch, near Lafonia, East Falkland.

See also[link]

• List of lochs in Scotland
• List of loughs in Ireland
• List of loughs in England
• Lough
• Ria

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up loch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• UKLakes Online Database

Jonathan Quick
Born	(1986-01-21) January 21, 1986 (age 26) Milford, CT, USA
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight	201 lb (91 kg; 14 st 5 lb)
Position	Goaltender
Catches	Left
NHL team	Los Angeles Kings
National team	United States
NHL Draft	3rd round, 72nd overall, 2005 Los Angeles Kings
Playing career	2007–present

Medal record
Men's ice hockey
Competitor for the  United States
Olympic Games
Silver	2010 Vancouver	Tournament

Jonathan Douglas "Jon" Quick (born January 21, 1986) is an American professional ice hockey goaltender currently playing for the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Playing career[link]

Quick played at Hamden High School in Hamden, Connecticut before transferring to Avon Old Farms. While at Hamden, Quick was named to the 2002 New Haven Register All-Area Ice Hockey Team.^[1]

Quick led Avon Old Farms to two straight New England Prep Championships in his junior and senior seasons. Quick had nine shutouts during his senior year.

While playing for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Quick led the Minutemen to their first ever NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship appearance.

After losing in his first professional start, with the ECHL's Reading Royals, Quick made a statistically unlikely goal during a shutout in his second start, scoring an empty-net goal against the Pensacola Ice Pilots on October 27, 2007, at 19:25 in the third period.^[2]

Quick played his first NHL game on December 6, 2007 against the Buffalo Sabres in an 8–2 win.

On January 1, 2010 Quick was named to the United States Mens Hockey Team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia as the team's third goaltender. He received a Silver medal after USA lost to Canada 3–2 in the Gold medal game.^[3]

On April 25, 2012 Quick was nominated as a Vezina Trophy finalist, along with Henrik Lundqvist and Pekka Rinne. Quick led the league with ten shutouts (also a Kings franchise record), had the second-lowest goals-against average with 1.95, and posted a 35–21–13 record.^[4]

Personal life[link]

Jonathan is married to Jaclyn Backman and has a daughter, Madison Mychal Quick, born on March 12, 2010.^[5] Jaclyn's sister Alicia is the wife of New York Islanders forward Matt Moulson.

College career[link]

Quick played collegiately for the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As a freshman, he earned his first victory by a score of 4–2 on October 15, 2005, in his first start against Clarkson University. He also appeared in one playoff game as a freshman, which the Minutemen lost 4–1 to Boston University.

As a sophomore, Quick led UMass to its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance. In his first ever NCAA Tournament game Quick shutout Clarkson University, stopping all 33 shots he faced, in a 1–0 overtime victory. He appeared in 5 playoff games, and had an impressive .944 save percentage. Quick still now holds many records in UMass-Amherst hockey history.

Los Angeles Kings[link]

Quick began the 2008–09 season with the Kings' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs, sharing time with Jonathan Bernier. He was called up to the Kings on December 16, after goaltender Erik Ersberg suffered a groin injury.^[6] Quick earned his first career NHL shutout on December 23, defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets in Columbus, Ohio. He also received the NHL's Third Star of the Week for the week ending December 28. In three games, Quick posted a 2–1–0 record, with both victories coming via shutout, a 0.67 GAA, and a .958 save %.^[7] On February 9, 2009, Quick was given the first star of the week by the NHL by stopping 95 of 100 shots in a 3 game road win streak which launched the Kings back into the 2008–09 playoff picture. He finished the season with a 21–18–2 record, with a 2.48 goals against average and .914% save percentage.

Quick earned his first career NHL Playoff shutout on April 17, 2011 against San Jose Sharks stopping all 34 shots for a 4–0 win.

Quick gained much attention during the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With his prowess, the Kings defeated the No. 1 seed Vancouver Canucks in five games, followed by his franchise's first-ever four-game playoff series sweep against the No. 2 seed St. Louis Blues. The team qualified for the conference final for the second time in its 44-year history and first time since 1993. The L.A. Kings ended their 19 year drought and made it to the Stanley Cup Finals after knocking off the No. 3 Phoenix Coyotes in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. ^[8] With a playoff mark that included a record nine straight road wins, including Game 1 of the finals against the Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Devils, Quick is largely predicted to win the Conn Smythe Trophy if Los Angeles were to win the Stanley Cup.^[9]

On May 30, 2012 Quick set a new NHL playoff record, winning his 11th consecutive road game dating back to the 2011 post-season, breaking the old mark of 10 by Billy Smith of the New York Islanders.

Career statistics[link]

Regular season[link]

Playoffs[link]

* In progress (through May 30, 2012).

See also[link]

• List of Los Angeles Kings players

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jonathan Quick's career stats at The Internet Hockey Database
• http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=408511
• http://kings.nhl.com/