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.

One point is better than no points

Which is what we were going to get as of five seconds left in the third period.

You saw that, right? The last (literal) second of that game? The spectacularness that was Brian Rafalski tying the game with less than a second left in regulation? How freaking awesome was that! When does that even happen? Holy crap.

But it was just a point, when it could have been two, so I'm still posting the fruits of my third period labor:

HAHAHAHAHA I'VE COME TO CRUSH YOUR DREAMS!!!!!

I don't know. If I were an Oilers fan, and I knew my team had no shot at the playoffs whatsover, I'd want the Red Wings to streak off and MAKE THE CALGARY FLAMES MISS THE PLAYOFFS TOO, but I'm an angry, vindictive bastard, and a Wings fan, so even my imaginings of myself as an Edmonton fan have a pro-Detroit bias.

And hey, tomorrow's a new game.

(If the Wings had just flat out lost this game, I would have only posted that picture, no context, because I thought that would be the most spectacular 200th post to which this blog could ever hope to aspire.)

Groundhog Day

Today is that magical day when Bill Murray movies are showing on eight different channels and we wait with bated breath for an ugly rodent in Pennsylvania to tell us that it's spring everywhere except Michigan, where it's still going to be cold, bleak, and unfortunate until the middle of May.

still winter, bitches

On top of that, tonight the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning, whereas tomorrow the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning. And given what we've come to expect from the broadcast team at FSD... well, I'll be honestly surprised if we don't get at least three groundhog day jokes.

Heres hoping Todd Bertuzzi gets a birthday hat trick so that we can all go to Arby's and get some birthday curly fries.

And maybe I should clarify, because this seems to be happening a lot lately - if he does get a birthday hat trick, I want the Wings to keep the lead until the game is over. Not over like there's two minutes left. Over like all the players have retired to their respective dressing rooms and have disrobed and showered and are giving interviews to the assembled media. All the way over.

You listening Red Wings? You have to play the whole game until it's over.

Or you'll make me cry.

Yeah they damn well better have won that game

That game was far from perfect. But it was the closest the Wings have come to it in weeks, and I'm not going to argue with 2 points.

With 2 points, I'm going to dance around the house jubilantly, like it was a playoff game or something. Except it's January, so that's kind of sad.

I guess the big news of the night (because I refuse to consider the Red Wings winning a game in a decisive fashion "news") is Nick Lidstrom scoring his first goal since practically his rookie season. Talk about getting a giant-ass monkey off your back.

No, not a giant ass-monkey

Also, did anybody else catch Mickey Redmond calling Jimmy "King James" tonight? Yeah, I'm still undecided on whether I want that one to catch on.

You can thank (blame?) the photoshop on the abysmally long time it took for me to load the gorilla picture on dial-up.

Let There Be Vikings.

If you haven't already heard, Jonathan Ericsson will return from a knee injury tonight against the Hurricanes. With this, the Wing's Swede count increases to three. THREE. I remember a time long, long ago when Detroit had seven Swedes on the roster...



...Oh wait, what was that? Seven? Really? This season? You mean 2009-10?

Yeah. There was a time when the red and white of the Winged Wheel and the blue and yellow of Sweden's flag were practically synonymous. I miss those days.

Speaking of international hockey, a couple days ago it was released that Brian Rafalski was named alternate captain America.




He's a defenseman, so the bulletproof shield is used to... stop pucks... or something... I don't know. There was a point in my life when I was on MS Paint, meticulously cutting around a Red Wing player's head, pixel by pixel, so I could copy/paste it onto a comic book character's body, and it occurred to me that I probably shouldn't think far enough into these things to actually come up with backstory for what Alternate Captain American Brian Rafalski uses his superhero paraphernalia for.

Sadly, that day predates this blog by about two years.

Who else felt like the US Olympic roster was subtitled "let's see how many current/former New Jersey Devils we can fit on one team"? There were less Swedish Wings in Torino.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post, which was supposed to be: I miss our Swedes.

At least we got to see Darren McCarty?

There's not really much to say about last night's game. The penalty kill sucked, Brian Engblom's hair sucked, the final score sucked, and as usual in Nashville, the fans sucked. Or I guess maybe they blew. Because god forbid Jordin Tootoo take a shift without the world being alterted. If I ever find myself in Nashville, I am marching into the Sommet Center with a jug of lighter fluid and a match, and burning everyone's train whistles. In a big, giant train whistle bonfire.

(yeah you best view that shit full-sized.)

I literally watched half the game on mute so I didn't have to listen to it. But the final fwa-eeeeet that they'd all make together as the superheated air of the whistle-fire blew through them? Would be worth hearing.

Also, after martin Erat's hat trick--- oh wait, he only scored two goals? So it wasn't a hat trick then? Well that's good to know. I guess I got a little confused from there having been more hats thrown on the ice for him than there were after Teemu Selanne's actual hat tick against the Wings last season in Anaheim. Maybe they just thought three goals for one team in a game or three points for one player in a game was a hat trick. That's an honest mistake that anyone could make.

I feel bad for the 8 or 10 Nashville fans that actually like hockey.

Arby's here I come!

Wings beat Anaheim 7-4 in what ended up being one of the most exciting games that I've seen in a long time. And while thankfully Chris Pronger wasn't in this game, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf are starting to get to be just as annoying. They're like your annoying little cousin at Thanksgiving dinner that just won't stop poking you because they think it's funny. Well, it's not funny and neither are their constant goals against the Wings.

This game proved that while the Wings still have a long way to go this season in terms of defensive brain farts (coughJonathanEricssoncough), hitting goalposts, and taking bad penalties, the future is still looking bright. Leino looked good, Helm looked, well... fast, and Jimmy now has a mastodonic 5 NHL wins. Also tonight was the first hat trick in over a year. Not that I didn't love Hossa, but he apparently missed the memo on how to put the third puck in the net and just ended up being the ultimate roastbeef tease. Not Henrik Zetterberg. Nothing will be as sweet as walking into Arby's tomorrow holding the boxscore and asking for free potatoes. It's taken a freakishly long time, but it's here now.

Happy Halloween!

Wouldn't that be perfect if we were playing the BJs tonight? Unfortunately, I don't have any Flames in costume, and the only Red Wings-related Halloween picture I can find is wildly inappropriate:


Since, as we just found out, Valtteri Filppula's pimpin' hand ain't strong.

And that's where we stand, before a team that's not afraid of blood, already injury-ravaged, desperately, desperately in need of a win.

I mean it's starting to get ridiculous. I know Babcock's been saying that regardless of the record, this team's been playing better than the blowing-through-the-league teams of th elast couple years, but is that any consolations? Isn't it the most cliched-yet-true saying in all of hockey - good teams find ways to win? I know it's only the end of October, but right now the Wings have not-won more games than they have won, and I'm kind of expecting to see people start to leap from the bandwagon as though it had been set aflame.

Speaking of which, I know what the Red Wings can go as for Halloween.

Let's put down some Flames.

Can we have another game like Tuesday?

We'd like to be able to say something profoundly intelligent about the way the Red Wings played that game in Vancouver, but Trisha was on painkillers at the time, and I was half asleep in a post-midterm haze. And no, neither made the dark, sad portions of the first period any easier to watch, I'm sorry to say.

But it did look like Jimmy Howard had the goddamned game of his life out there. I only wish it didn't take pulling Ozzie to wake the team up (and hopefully pulling Ozzie woke up Ozzie). That was probably the most intense October game I've ever seen. Again, maybe it was the three hours of sleep and the painkillers, but if it could keep us both conscious until 1 a.m., then it had to be pretty good.

Today the Wings are in Edmonton for the second to last game of the road trip, and the world is freaking out about the Swine Flu. I know it's kind of a big deal, but I don't think Gary will have a repeat of 1918 until Sidney Crosby is on a respirator. Still, all the hype (and continued lack of sleep) is giving me trippy mental images of Piet Van Zant's daily lectures about the proper use of hand sanitizer and I somehow imagine the whole team walking around like this:

It looks like the freaking zombie apocalypse. Be careful not to get Swine Flu, Kronner. We can't afford to lose anyone else at this point.

Winning is nice

Winning is very nice.

I know that between flukey injuries and low goal production, Tomas Kopecky wasn't exactly a perennial favorite among most Wings fans, but he's well liked around our household, and it was a little hard watching him... be a Blackhawk... ugh.

And uh, Brad May. Yeah. Who'da thought?


Today is Henrik Zetterberg's birthday. Fittingly, it's also Leif Ericson Day. Happy vikings!

Ericson spelled with one S looks wrong now. Thanks for that one, Fabio.

No guesses from us

Now's about the last chance any of us have to make our finals predictions. Maybe you were waiting for ours.

You're not getting any. At our house, you don't even say the word "prediction" out loud. Just typing it in the same blog post twice is getting me sideways glances from Lindsay. We have hung the phone up on our own father before because he sounded like he might have been just about to tell us what he thought the final score was going to be.

Besides, all my internet predictions this season have ended disasterously. There's enough for us to worry about right now without me dooming the team. Injuries. Malkin not having the flu again. Scheduling that makes it look like Gary's not taking any chances this year.

Seriously, the man has to be wetting himself over the chance to do last year over again, with his ending.

But even with all that potential pukeyness hanging in the air, it's been like Christmas in our household over the last few days thanks to a wonderful and mysterious benefactor named Karen.

We don't know what she looks like, so here's an artist's rendition:

If you can take your eyes off the legs, you'll notice the halo. We don't break out Paint Shop Pro for just anyone, people.

I have never been happier to see JS Giguere in my life

That game was... less pukey. And I think after this series, I'm retiring the word pukey. I may have invented it, but that doesn't mean I can't change my mind about liking it.

In case you missed the end of this one because you were asleep, jacked up on caffeine, or piss drunk from the first period, Hockeytown West showed up. They should be proud. The cheering at the final buzzer sounded almost as loud as it does at the Joe.

But I do have a problem with that game - Why do the Red Wings keep baiting me with the unfulfilled promise of free roast beef? Hossa's the worst at this. Today it was him and Franzen each one goal away from the hat trick, and subsequent free Arby's. Seriously, you guys. I'm giving you both the Larry Murphy award.

That's ok. He can get a hat trick on Sunday. Please?

That's more like it

No, it wasn't perfect, but it wasn't last Saturday, either, or the Saturday before. The world at large will still probably be screaming "GOALTENDING SITUATION" from here until the end of eternity, however impressive a job that might have been for Chris Osgood, and until the Wings get a streak of cohesiveness going, it's just a single isolated game amidst a season of inconsistency.

At the same time, that season of inconsistency has the team sitting at the top of the league, and they won today, so speaking very short-term, there's nothing I can really complain about.

Actually, that game was just a tiny part of a Saturday of great ridiculousness, and I'm exhausted and I don't really have anything else to say at all. So in honor of his return - I made this over spring break because our internet is crappy. It's sunshine and flowers and Marian Hossa. This is what I feel like when the Red Wings win games.


It gets bigger if you click it, but why bother, really? Once you've seen Hossa ice dancing in real life, watching him frolic through a field in MS Paint really doesn't bring the same kind of joy anymore.

Whut. the crap. was that?

I don't really think I have anything to say after that game. Honestly, the level of ridiculousness was so high that I spent most of the game laughing. It was either that or cry.

On a dial-up internet connection, I'm not going to try to confirm this, but as of the seventh goal, I think I heard Ken mention that Rafalski and Lidstrom were still even with their plus-minus. Who the hell was at like a -5 to make this happen? I have the mental image of Raffi leaping into the bench in a panic to protect his stats when he thought Nashville was about to score.

This MS Paint job is better than that game was. Think about how sad that is.

Of course, maybe that game never happened. Maybe it was all part of an elaborate acid trip hallucination I'm having. We've changed the channel to what Lindsay tells me is Hockey Night in Canada, but for some reason, all I'm seeing is footage of a lion-fish superimposed over a photograph of Kelly Hrudey dog-sledding. I don't even know.

I'm going to go gorge myself on leftover paczki and hope I never have to sit through another game like that again.

Not really a game report...

I don’t watch the Ducks very often. The Wings only play them a few times a year, usually around two o’clock in the morning, and spend most of the game bouncing pucks off Holmstrom that never end up counting as goals. The Ducks goal horn sounds like what would happen if Satan (the Prince of Darkness, not the hockey player) tended a Lighthouse of the Damned. Chris Pronger’s legs being so much longer than his torso looks foolish and it pisses me off. There’s a 35% or more chance that someone leaves the game on IR.

So when I’m watching the Ducks, I’m not actually watching the individual players; I’m watching myself, in the reflection of the glare off the glass of the television screen, slowly going insane.

I cite this as the reason why I’m almost happier for this game to be over than I am for the Red Wings to have won the game.

In the first ten minutes, I was calm enough, and the Red Wings were doing well enough, that I was almost ready to admit that for the first time, I had been watching the players on Anaheim, and I saw more than a few playing some damn good hockey.

The feeling didn’t last very long.

No, sadly, from that point out, the game was yet another unbalanced three-speed ceiling fan of emotion, from Getzlaf’s goal all the way until Chris Pronger tried to Jamie Langenbrunner another 2,638,468,234 foot shot past Ozzie in the dying seconds of the game.

It’s also really nice to know that you can still trip, hold, and otherwise interfere with Pavel Datsyuk all you want, no whistle. The officiating is consistent this way, I’ll give it that.

But now I’ll try to move away from the cynical, end-of-the-world, I hate hockey mentality, because the Red Wings won tonight, and no matter how the actual game made me feel, beating the Ducks is still beating the Ducks. So here’s what I walked away from this game with:

• Chris Osgood is absofreakinglutely amazing. It isn't just everyday that the general populace will go along with me when I say this, so I'm getting it in while I can.
• Derek Meech - aside from that part where he looked like he died, I think I like where this is going.
• I shouldn't try to watch hockey after drinking a double-strong caramel macchiato, because my roommate will come in to see why I'm yelling 'NEIDERMAYER' at my tv, then worry about the fact that I'm twitching worse than Nikolai Khabibulin during a shoot-out.
  

Finally, I’m serious about Pronger’s torso-to-legs ratio pissing me off. I’m not sure what it is about them. Maybe it’s jealousy. As a veteran of 15 years of ballet lessons, I know what I’m talking about when I say that someone has long, well-turned out dancer’s legs, and Chris Pronger is one of those people. God. His grand jetes would be spectacular. But… this is Chris Pronger we’re talking about, so he doesn’t leap through the air like a gazelle, he just lifts his elbows and looks foolish. I’ve drawn you a diagram to illustrate, practically to scale, just in case you hadn't noticed it before:

I do these things when I’m up too late at night. So if his eyes are stealing your soul. as they are mine, blame Pacific standard time, not me.