Gold Medal
October 12, 2008 5:00 PM   Subscribe

Colin - no relation to Conor - Oberst won the Hockey Night in Canada new anthem challenge with his entry Canadian Gold, beating out 13-year-old Robert Fraser Burke's Sticks to the Ice and (somehow) Logan Aube's Hockey Scores. (previously)
posted by mannequito (35 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I know it was keeping me up at night.


go S T A R S!
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:17 PM on October 12, 2008


Nice. That was my favourite out of the semifinalists. I've listened to it a few times without the visuals to try and imagine what sort of song this is. A lot of the entries to this contest sound like ordinary rock songs. The other finalist, Sticks To The Ice, definitely sounds like the intro to something important, but it's a little too serious; it has a touch of the evening news to it. Canadian Gold is so joyful. I picture people smashing their beers together in a pub, cheerleaders doing back flips, victors being raised on the shoulders of their teammates, that sort of thing. It's got so much pop.

I've been following this contest closely because my brother wrote an entry :)
posted by PercussivePaul at 5:24 PM on October 12, 2008


boring. average. predictable.
I remember a Vancouver prog rock band used to do a version of Hockey Night In Canada that riffed on Emerson Lake + Palmer's Tarkus.
They should've just gone with Tarkus.
posted by philip-random at 5:40 PM on October 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


I'm liking it! Is the Foster Hewitt bit at the beginning part of the actual anthem or just the HNIC intro?

Canadian Gold is so joyful. I picture people smashing their beers together in a pub, cheerleaders doing back flips, victors being raised on the shoulders of their teammates, that sort of thing.

Yep, exactly!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 5:59 PM on October 12, 2008


It was my least favourite of the five finalists. It'll be passable if they lose the bagpipes, though. Otherwise, they might just as well go all the way and get Great Big Sea to record it.

(I liked the one by the 13 year old kid.)
posted by evilcolonel at 5:59 PM on October 12, 2008


All the finalists sounded to me like fanfares for NBC Olympic programming from the early nineties or theme songs for Stephen J. Cannell productions.

Stupid greedy old lady.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:03 PM on October 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


I like it. The bagpipes remind me of Canadian parades (thanks Scottish immigration boom) and the dynamics ramp up inspiringly (I like PercussivePaul's images). I wish the ending were more interesting, and I'm not sure it will become as well-loved as the old (now TSN) song, but we'll see.

Does anyone know how well the winner / finalists will be paid, and what the copyright terms were. I ran a similar, smaller-scale competition a few years ago and you won't believe the animosity a creative competition can generate if you're not careful. Look up "spec work".
posted by Popular Ethics at 6:05 PM on October 12, 2008


The prize is $100,000 plus half of royalties. Copyright is assigned to the CBC; CBC gets a 3-year exclusive license to exploit the theme as well.
(source)
posted by PercussivePaul at 6:25 PM on October 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


I think the appeal of the old Hockey Song was that it sounded epic and a three-year old could hum it after hearing it for the first time. I've heard Canada Gold a couple of times and I am not sure I could recognize it right away.

I'm not tuned into the emotional battle here. I don't usually watch HNIC until the Western game starts, so I don't hear the intro anyway and I probably would not have cared if the CBC selected a bland generic jingle to begin the show. Remains to be seen if people will be talking about Canadian Gold in forty years.

Clearly the battle over the Hockey Song was wrong on a number of levels, and I am glad its over - the greed, posturing, and disregard for Canadian national identity on exhibit was sickening (I fault the CBC on that one, a little more than the jingles' creator). I miss the CFL on CBC, Glen Suitor's constant mindless chatter and the lack of a postgame show on TSN are hard to handle.
posted by Deep Dish at 6:40 PM on October 12, 2008


The problem with Hockey Scores is that is sounds too much like Steve Albini's work. Throw in some Pan flutes, glockenspiel, and the sound of paper tearing, and the number would stand on its own.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:49 PM on October 12, 2008


The problem with Hockey Scores is that it sounds too much like something Don Cherry would play behind his Rock 'em Sock 'em tapes. The Quebecois would riot over its pick.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:13 PM on October 12, 2008


It's like a mashup between some Great Big Sea pub crawl schlock and Annie Lennox's Walking On Broken Glass.

It's a pretty odd juxtaposition.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:18 PM on October 12, 2008


>Is the Foster Hewitt bit at the beginning part of the actual anthem or just the HNIC intro?
Part of the intro, not part of the song. The CBC used it last year and maybe a few years before that.
I think I prefer the young lad's entry to the one they chose. I am suprised they didn't use their "Saturday's alright" (not the real title) as the main theme. But maybe that is too rock-n-roll, seeing the choices of their two finalists.
posted by philfromhavelock at 7:28 PM on October 12, 2008


It sounds like the theme song from a 1980s Stephen J. Cannell action show.
posted by synecdoche at 7:35 PM on October 12, 2008


It would've been much more interesting if Conor Oberst had won.
posted by saraswati at 8:08 PM on October 12, 2008


I hate change.
posted by mazola at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


saraswati, I'm not sure that meandering, introspective songs about drug use and the craft of writing would go over great with the hockey crowd.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:12 PM on October 12, 2008


Canadian Gold works pretty well, though I'd just as soon have stuck with the original.

The new theme feels a tad overbaked.
posted by bwg at 9:20 PM on October 12, 2008


I was really rooting for Hockey Scores.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:23 PM on October 12, 2008


It'll be passable if they lose the bagpipes
Wrong, wrong, WRONG! The bagpipes are the best part.

You are wrong.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 9:46 PM on October 12, 2008


Hmm...the lack of a melody is what bores me about these finalists, although Gold Medal is much better than Sticks on Ice. The youngster's piece sounds like an introduction and then it just ends.

I was always partial to this one...recorded with a real orchestra. Peppy, optimistic, and still grandoise with a nice ending...
posted by salishsea at 11:08 PM on October 12, 2008


Isn't there some sort of eminent domain/expropriation law that would allow Canada to take control of the original Hockey Night in Canada theme song? And then we could forget this whole silly thing with the new song?

It'll be passable if they lose the bagpipes

It'll be passable if they play it using only bagpipes. Blowing bagpipes, squeezing bagpipes, hitting bagpipes, hitting one another with bagpipes, setting bagpipes on fire, setting one another with flaming bagpipes as they play flaming bagpipes, playing bagpipes with compressed hydrogen that is ignited as it exits the pipes so as to create firebreathing Scotsmen on ice, all skating in formation with nothing under their kilts they weren't born with.
posted by pracowity at 11:54 PM on October 12, 2008


I'm thrilled that it's an ordinary Canadian whose passion for hockey will be forever associated with the show

I'd have hated for the hockey anthem to be written by an unusual Canadian.
posted by srboisvert at 2:12 AM on October 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Don't worry, srboisvert, we only have one and he was busy all summer.
posted by mannequito at 4:41 AM on October 13, 2008


An ex-boyfriend of mine submitted this one. I wanted another, songwriting, um, "more-than-friend" to enter the contest, but he said it wasn't his type of thing. Crap, what an opportunity lost. How much Canadian cred would it have give me to be able to say I'd slept with the Hockey Night in Canada theme composer?!

Now I'll have to fall back on saying I slept with someone who was in the Anne of Green Gables movie.
posted by orange swan at 5:50 AM on October 13, 2008


As much as I loved it so, I knew that Hockey Scores wouldn't win, but deep down inside I had this kind of hope that even if it lost, the CBC would still use it for bumper music at least. Kinda like one of those made-for-TV movies where the kid who runs for mayor doesn't win the election, but in a heartwarming ending, the new Mayor appoints the scrappy underdog a special Youth Liaison position on the city council or something.
posted by Spatch at 6:12 AM on October 13, 2008


> The new theme feels a tad overbaked.

Man, we scored a baggie of that Canadian Gold eh, and y'know got totally overbaked.
posted by scruss at 6:34 AM on October 13, 2008


The more I think about it, the more I think the CBC should've just asked The Tragically Hip to create the new theme based on their most awesome The Lonely End of the Rink.
posted by bwg at 8:05 AM on October 13, 2008


Hockey Scores was robbed. :(

God Bless Hocky
posted by gyc at 9:57 AM on October 13, 2008


The full version of Ice Warriors should have won. It's like Steve Vai meets Mahavishnu Orchestra with some good cheesy stuff in the mix.
posted by furtive at 1:49 PM on October 13, 2008


The “old lady” is not “stupid” and was not “greedy.”
posted by joeclark at 1:51 PM on October 13, 2008


I don't even watch hockey, but I still hate this theme.
posted by tehloki at 4:43 PM on October 13, 2008


>The full version of Ice Warriors should have won. It's like Steve Vai meets Mahavishnu Orchestra with some good cheesy stuff in the mix.
I say, that is an excellent description.
posted by philfromhavelock at 5:37 PM on October 13, 2008


The upside of the whole sityeeashun with the classic theme was this hilarious Colbert bit.
posted by stevil at 9:30 AM on October 14, 2008


Needs more cowbell.
posted by bwg at 4:38 PM on October 17, 2008


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