"The Hockey Song?"

Who the hell calls it "The Hockey Song?" TSN does, now. It's now official, after some hope that CBC might still be able to renegotiate a deal that would save the Hockey Night in Canada theme, CTV stepped up and "saved" the song by purchasing it from "legendary" octogenarian jingler Paul Anka, I mean, Dolores Claman. How noble.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this. I'm glad the song will survive, somewhere, but this whole process really illustrates the campiness of the product. It's a 30 second jingle, written 40 years ago. How much money should a person honestly believe that to be worth? I'm sure CBC isn't blameless in all this, considering their history of penny-pinching Canada's favorite program, but really, consider the balls on this woman, holding CBC ransom for between $2.5 and $3 million dollars after 40 years of collecting royalties for a song she was ludicrously lucky enough to have land on Canada's favorite show, and holds its inflated value as a result. What she failed to understand, as will TSN when they realize ratings haven't skyrocketed as a result of their use of the song, is that nobody gives a crap about the song itself. Oh we love the song, it is Canada's second national anthem, it's justifiably considered iconic and a unifying part of Canadiana. Except that there's something much more iconic, of far greater value and historical significance than the song, and that's the fucking show itself. The song won't retain much of it's lustre when it's divorced from HNIC because Canadians only like the song because of what we associate it with. We watched Hockey Night in Canada before 1968 (since 1952 actually), I'm pretty sure we can manage without your little jingle.

Hmm, maybe my feelings are more "numerous" than mixed. It's sad to see a part of Canadian tradition fractured over greed, but when you're reading public negotiations and leveraging of a cultural symbol for more royalties it's easier to just say the hell with it. The audience will determine the value of the product, not a copyright company or Scott Moore. I don't think there'll be any significant ratings changes as a result of the song being used by another channel, I can't see anyone getting confused and thinking that now Hockey Night In Canada is on TSN and Ron Maclean has been replaced by wit-machine James Duthie, and now the show is on two or three days a week instead of Saturday night. Despite holding this opinion now (and holding it vengefully as in the paragraph above), it'll be very interesting to see if this will hold true. Maybe this will change the hockey viewership balance of power in Canada. Maybe that old hag was right. Nah.

The other issue with the song changing channels is the type of production attraction in question. The appeal of HNIC is tradition, knowing you'll see the same features as were shown twenty years ago. Typical first intermission interviews of some kid playing his first game on HNIC and saying Hi to his parents and friends back home in Moose Jaw, talking about how they watched HNIC growing up and how amazing it is to be on it now. Don Cherry ignoring (pick one) Crosby/Sundin/Jagr/Lemieux's first period hat trick and instead showing Gary Roberts blocking a shot on his one and only shift, then forgetting that sports are a distraction from the real world and forcing us to relive a recent soldier's death in (pick one) Iraq/Kosovo/Iraq/Afghanistan. The round table discussions in the second intermission where Al Strachan's "sources" are saying that Mats Sundin has agreed to waive his no-trade clause and will be going to the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Japanese Pacific League while Scott Morrison wonders how hard it would be to throw Strachan out a window. The folksy video intro, highlighting HNIC's past, kids playing pond hockey and a general casual, old-fashioned feel to the broadcast. The show knows its appeal and plays on it, and that's fine with us. The former theme song, one has to think, is only a small part of that appeal.

Contrast that with TSN's broadcast, a super-hip, cutting-edge production featuring seizure-inducing opening graphics, a clever and ironic host, pop culture references galore and a massive staff of newsbreaking "insiders." Well okay, just Dreger and McKenzie, but that's two more than CBC and Sportsnet. To be sure, this is an ESPN-style show for the spastic ADHD generation. Mixing that with Canada's best known symbol of sports tradition with make for interesting gumbo. The saving grace is that TSN's previous hockey theme was pretty lame and will now get a big boost, as did their play-by-play announcing when Chris Cuthbert came over and Glenn Healy was tragically eaten by a pack of wild boars in my imagination. Don Cherry did some "work" for ESPN during these playoffs, wonder if a few more years will see him and Milbury beating the hell out of each other while Duthie spins a pun.


Oh, and who cares what Tiger Woods thinks about the NHL and hockey in general. He excels at a sports that real athletes play when they retire. There, add that to the multitude of cheap shots he's taken after knocking hockey. I'd like to think that mine's at least better than Milbury calling him Tiger Wuss. I thought hockey shows had writers?