The Greatest Hockey Music Ever Written - Part III: Dionne and The Puck-Tones

I love Marcel Dionne's story because it's the kind of tragedy that you don't feel completely awful finding hilarious. Probably the saddest part of it is that despite still ranking 4th in all-time goals scored and 5th in all-time points, becoming the third player to reach 700 goals, and remaining the highest scoring French Canadian player in the history of the leauge (no, really. Look it up.), he remains largely unmentioned in discussions of "the greatest players of all time". He's one of the NHL's forgotten superstars.



He's better remembered by Red Wings fans as the guy who wanted out. In 1975, after three years of on and off bickering with coaching staff and management, Dionne moved to the Los Angeles Kings as a restricted free agent. Because during the 1974-75 season he had set a club record of 121 points (on a team which held a winning record for a whopping ten games), the Detroit fans were a little upset. The Kings fan was, understandably, very excited.







Alas, life in Los Angeles wasn't all Dionne had hoped it would be - local interest in hockey, to this day tenuous at best, was still in its infancy, and, as he himself put it, "we didn't have the supporting cast". The Kings were perennial early-round knock-offs, and Dionne became another name in a long list of hockey players to be quoted about wishing they'd never left Detroit. In a last-ditch attempt to motivate his team to a championship, Dionne hatched an elaborate scheme which involved pretending to demand a trade. Then Kings GM Rogie Vachon called his bluff and sent him off the the New York Rangers, who were also in the midst of a long-term Cup drought.

aw man, this shit sucks.

So it's my hope that if he's not going to be remembered for being one of the top scorers in league history, maybe he'll be remembered for Dionne and the Puck-Tones' "Please Forgive my Misconduct Last night".


Recorded by Dionne and his Triple Crown Linemates Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor, "Please Forgive My Misconduct Last Night" was part of a record produced to help benefit juvenile diabetes research, so I guess it can be somewhat excused that the boys needed professional background singers and probably a little 70s-era auto-tuning to keep them sort of on-key. And we're still not talking "hey these guys are pretty good" on-key, just "well I guess at least this is for a good cause" on-key.

But as much as I love listening to hockey players butcher music, the real beauty of "Please Forgive my Misconduct" is in the lyrics. If you've ever found yourself in a position where you've been too frisky with a lady-friend and needed a creative way to apologize for your forwardness the next day to save the relationship, this is your song. Unless of course she's not a big fan of hockey, or wordplay. I'd quote from them, but I don't even know where to begin. Please just listen for yourselves - this is a song that needs to be experienced.

And actually, it wasn't even released as its own single. It was the B-side to "Hockey Sock Rock" by Phil Esposito and the Ranger Rockers!!! (the triple exclamation points are actually on the album cover) which you can read about here. Unfortunately, the crown jewel of that post, the 1979 Rangers Sasson Jeans commercial, was taken off Youtube recently, so here you go:



Funny story about the Rangers Sasson Jeans commercial - there were two of them. And what the second lacks in Ron Duguay's hair, it makes up for in prancing. Or maybe the right word is mincing.



I hope that if those didn't destroy your world, they made your day.

Whoa, where did June go?

I said we were aiming for fifteen posts this summer. I didn't say they wouldn't all be the last fifteen days before the season opener.


Today is the day before the draft, the day after the NHL awards, and one nerve-wracking week away from free agent frenzy. This is like a sad island of hockey in the middle of a long, hot, hockeyless sea. And yet, I feel as though I have nothing useful to say.

Except that HOLY CRAP NHL AWARDS WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE WITH SPONSORSHIP AND PRODUCT PLACEMENT? The ads were so deeply woven into the fabric of the show itself (they actually had the Gieco caveman running around, antagonizing Mike Green, and they actually had the United States Army present Shane Doan with the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, which sort of seemed strange) that the giant flashing Verizon logo during the first musical number seemed like a sad and desperate cry for attention. Come on, Verizon, you can shell out an extra 500 bucks for a custom graphic of like a cell phone playing hockey or something. But I don't know, maybe they just pasted that onto the Versus feed, since they don't even have Verizon in Canada.

I was expecting Ron McLean to come out with sponsored eyebrows again.

All I know is that after watching the NHL Awards, I don't want to join the army or buy insurance. I just want hockey to be back.

Expect another music post to be up in the next day or so. You might want to start airing the mothball scent off your Marcel Dionne jerseys in anticipation of this one.

Lidstrom's not retiring yet

I got the best email in the world today. It linked to this.

This is jumping around the house in celebration-worthy for three reasons:

1. NICK LIDSTROM IS COMING BACK NEXT YEAR

2. I get to stop having to listen to the analysts on CBC segue from Blackhawks goals to their opinions that Nick Lidstrom is retiring

3. Lindsay is done crying emo tears of sadness on the couch and actually becomes a functioning member of society once more.

If you're not sure how to react to this kind of news, The Triple Deke has suggestions. I'm going to celebrate by blowdrying the tears out of the couch cushions.

The Greatest Hockey Music Ever Written - Part II: We Counted on the Captain

To be honest, I wanted to save this song for later in the summer when I hadn't posted for two months and was sick with heat and tired of Lindsay yelling at me to write something, because I knew it was going to be an easy song to write about - but given recent developments, I felt that the timing was appropriate.

After spending a day and a half in stunned partial-mourning at the news that Steve Yzerman had taken the gm job in Tampa Bay, I began coming to terms and decided that he deserves to be happy, even if happy means opening a chain of Denver sports themed sports bars in Denver (oh god, please no). And while being ok with it doesn't mean I won't fight the urge to vomit every time I see him in another team's colors, his leaving for Florida isn't nearly as emotionally traumatic for me as it was when he retired four years ago. Four years ago, I felt like Yzerman needed more than a banner-raising and a goodbye celebration from the fanbase.

He needed a song.

Which brings us to Dick Fidge's 'We Counted On The Captain'.

Written in commemoration of Yzerman's 22 seasons with the organization, 'We Counted On The Captain' is 3 minutes and 25 seconds of your life that you cannot afford to spend doing anything else.

A lot of the music I went through to pick the songs I wanted to use this summer sort of killed my soul to have to listen to multiple times, but 'We Counted On The Captain' was not one of them. This song has been in my music library for two years now, and I can highly recommend it for blaring out your open windows in parking lots to get funny looks from people and secretly rocking on your iPod earphones when you're surrounded by a bunch of dirty Blackhawks fans. Granted, I come from a belief that any song which opens "In 1983 he was a rookie sensation / Stevie Y was all-star bound" can do absolutely nothing wrong from then on out, so your enjoyment may vary.

One of the real highlights of this tune (aside from the fact that IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT STEVE YZERMAN) is the synth solo at 1:12 (which is, to my knowledge, the only synthesizer solo EVER composed in honor of the Captain).

And has your love of Yzerman ever built up inside of you such that you felt you had to let it burst forth from your body in a sublime falsetto "STEEE-HEEEE-HEEEEEEEVIE YYYYYY-HIIII!!"? (Don't lie. You know it has.) Then you can sing along at the 2:50 mark.

This song is the first time you'll notice a reoccurring theme in this blog - songs to which my response is "a little cheesy, but it's about the Red Wings, so I can't not love it".

Is it stuck in your head yet? You're welcome.

The Greatest Hockey Music Ever Written - Part I

I know when I made the introductory post to this series, there was an implication that all the music was going to be awful, but we're going to start this thing off with a song that isn't that bad at all (unless you listen to it fifteen times in a row while you're trying to write about it to block out the noise of your family being crazy all around you, in which case it snakes its way into your brain and NEVER COMES OUT AGAIN).

Stompin' Tom Connors was born a poor black child Charles Thomas Connors in New Brunswick in 1936. He spent the bulk of his youth wandering itinerantly and writing spectacular folk songs that, as an American, I have never heard of. His lasting contribution to hockey music occurred in the early 70s:

Stompin' Tom Connors - The Hockey Song

Love it or hate it (and I've actually met people who really, really hate it), it's the consummate hockey song, and we really couldn't write about hockey music without mentioning it.

Of course, if the original really doesn't do it for you, you can try this Swedish version, which is in English with heavy accents, and has Peter Forsberg scoring the first goal instead of Bobby Orr-Hull-Clarke-Whatever. If Don Cherry hasn't heard this yet, I want to be there the first time he does, with a wheelbarrow, so when he shits bricks over its existence I can take them home and build myself a garden shed.

We're not dead

This isn't really a blog entry. This is a notification that in the near future there will be more blog entries.

Last summer we made a grand total of 8 posts. This summer, we're going to set the lofty goal of at least 15 (wow! 15 whole posts! That's more than we made in the whole entire month of January! Gee golly!). This isn't an empty threat, either. This summer Hockeytown Static is bringing you

The Greatest Hockey Music Ever Written

even though by "greatest", we usually mean "most embarrassing to admit we actually have saved to our computer".

So whether it's holiday cheer from Johnny Bower, unintentional (maybe) sexual innuendos from Guy LaFleur, or synthesizer solos in honor of The Captain, we hope you can pull yourself away from the beach often enough to join us.

Todd Bertuzzi's Beard

The Red Wings have made enough deep playoff runs in recent years that the fans have come to understand that each one of their playoff beards has its own personality. Kris Draper's once beat Chuck Norris in a fight. Niklas Kronwall's fights crime while he's sleeping. Johan Franzen's apparently gives him superpowers (thanks for the curly fries, Mule. They were delicious).

But Todd Bertuzzi's sort of looks like you're gazing into the void.

yeah, that's the best picture of it I can find.

And because when I gazed into the void the void gazed back, here's the top ten things hiding in Todd Bertuzzi's beard:

10. The rest of his teeth
They had to go somewhere.

9. Brett Lebda
Because he's very small. And he could fit in there.

8. Mike Ilitch's sanity
I love him, but he's crazy(bread).

7. Jimmy Hoffa
I'm just kidding. Jimmy Hoffa lives in a condo in Vegas with Elvis and Tupac.

6. The lost city of Atlantis
The weight of all those buildings could explain why he hasn't been doing anything overly useful the last few games?

5. Zordon
Maybe he got imprisoned in there by Rita Repulsa or something. That seems logical.

4. Free curly fries
They are delicious.

3. A KFC Double Down
He's got to have something to eat during intermission.

2. Whiskey for Larry Murphy
Is there room for enough of it though?

1. Gordie Howe's dog

Just in case Gordie's been looking for him or anything -- I suggest he start in Todd Bertuzzi's beard. That is an awesome sweater though. You couldn't pull that sweater off like Gordie can.

You think it's more likely there's a stripper in there? Leprechauns? The Art Ross Trophy? That's what the comments are for.


Game 5, the second in a series of four consecutive must-wins for the Red Wings, starts at 10pm eastern. If you happen to actually be at the game, you should throw an octopus or twelve. Scott'll show you how it's done.

Tinfoil Flashmob

I don't have to tell any of you how awful the officiating has been in the eyes of Red Wings fans throughout the second round. After watching what felt like 120 minutes of penalty killing, a group of fans decided to take action against the NHL. The best way to do that? Block the brainwashing with hats made of tin foil. Clearly.

Just that happened before game 3. A handful of Red Wings faithful made and passed out hats before dancing the Hustle to The Hockey Song on the steps of the Gordie Howe entrance.

And Hockeytown Static was there to capture the magic.


And by "capture the magic", I mean Lindsay creeped awkwardly in the shadows near the box office with a digital camera.

I'm the chunky one on the right.

We'd actually like to apologize to everyone involved for showing up seconds before the dancing began, loitering creepily with a video camera and running away as soon as it ended. We were fully prepared to show up early and introduce ourselves to all of you lovely people, but I-96 had other plans. Furthermore, a dinner engagement (which we were also late to) sort of forced us into a dash-and-dine. But let me tell you - having a nice family dinner in a restaurant decked out like we were actually at a Wings game, tinfoil hats and all? Worth everything.

If you'd like to read up any other perspectives of the event, check out the Free Press, Snipe Snipe Dangle Dangle, it_burns_us's LiveJournal, Etched In Cold, and Mlive

The tinfoil itself didn't seem to bother Gary or the refs at all during the game, but the event itself was life-changing. It taught me about myself, about brainwashing, and about how hard it is to do the hustle on non-regulation-sized stairs.

As WTF as we can get this week - Joe Thornton Reads Goosebumps

And that's not just speculation based on his naming his ventriloquist dummy "Slappy" as in the book from said series.

I mean, he actually reads Goosebumps, to Douglas Murray, for his bedtime story.


He also reads to Patrick Marleau.


But not to Dan Boyle, because Dan Boyle's been a bad, bad boy.


Or Nabokov, because he can read all by himself.


That's actually kind of an endearing picture. Just in case you're in danger now of warm feelings toward the San Jose Sharks, remember that they steal puppies and eat them.

That dog looks like she's been heavily drugged.

This post is the closest I can give to commentary on the series at the moment, because basically my brain gave me three choices - wax preposterously hopeful, vomit all over the internet, or do a search under "My Pictures" for "Joe Thornton" cross-referenced with "what the hell is this thing?" and post the results.

it didn't really make me feel better...

Furthermore, due to a dinner engagement (which we'll actually post about at length, along with in-depth coverage of the tinfoil hat flashmob on the stairs of the Joe) scheduled prior, both of us missed most of last night's game. So that's all I've got - St0ry Time with the San Jose Sharks.

Hopefully they're too entranced by Eric Carle's artwork in The Very Hungry Caterpillar to play very well in game four.