There are few things that piss off Canadians (right Krista?)
1. American Beer
2. Messing with hockey or anything associated with it
The CBC had a license agreement to use the familiar Hockey Night in Canada theme song. It ran out recently:
The “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song, a mainstay of Canadian households for 40 years and often thought of as the unofficial second national anthem, may have launched its final hockey game, according to the company that controls use of the song.
The tune, which has opened the Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s Saturday night National Hockey League broadcasts since the late 1960s, will not be renewed as the broadcaster has chosen to move in a new direction, said John Ciccone, president of Copyright Music & Visuals.
This is not funny and I hope it is a joke. The Hockey Night in Canada theme song is as ubiquitous as Don Cherry and hockey itself! Canadians will hate this.
Mary
Nah, this is just posturing — well, for now. The Ceeb has been paying $500 each time for the theme, and wanted to negotiate a cheaper rate. Talks continue. Expect the theme to be back in the fall.
But really, balking at 500 bucks for a tune that’s embedded in the country’s pulse? That’s damn cheap considering how much they pull in for broadcasts.
pharniel
feh. try pissing off people in michigan as well.
i’m not gonna watch my wings on no goddamned lazy ass fox coverage.
cbc all the way.
they don’t need no glowing puck, the camera man can do his fucking job there.
Michael D.
This is more important than Iraq, really.
Michael D.
I realize that 500 bucks a game is a large percentage of Canada’s gross national product. But it’s important!
Ugh
Who?
Zifnab
It could be the other way around, with the owners looking to hike the rates. Still, you get what you pay for.
Justin
Given the glee with which the owner is trumpeting the story in the media, I’d say that he’s trying to hike rates. This is the perfect way to pressure the CBC.
BJ
Hopefully it is just posturing. Otherwise you may see street protests.
tom brandt
What pharniel says. I don’t know if anyone has meaured the American audience for HNIC, but I and every Detroit-area hockey fan I know watches HNIC, especially the playoffs.
IanY77
I hear you. But it’s not going to work. It’s like when a union shut down the entrance to an airport to protest their cause. Like hell I’m going to take their side after they made me miss my flight. Pissing people off to make your point never works.
tom.a
Celine Dion’s Canadian and not doing much, maybe she could whip something up?
Billy K
America’s hat.
Hey Canucks! If you’re lucky, maybe we’ll send P. Diddy and Gwen Stefani up there to “modernize” your little song.
b. hussein canuckistani
Maybe we can pay in American dollars.
Being a big-city sophisticate, I’m surprised how bugged I am at the prospect of not hearing the HNIC theme. It really has woven itself into our national conciousness.
John Cole
Boomer: All I said was “Canadian beer sucks!”
AkaDad
I’m going to drink a Budweiser, while contemplating why Ice Boxing isn’t a sport, because they don’t have balls.
Michael D.
Billy : Fighting words.
John: You don’t know dick about Canadian beer. Have you ever tasted it? It sucks a LOT less than American beer. If you love Nattie Light, as you surely so, how can you compare?
Medicine Man
The American education system at work.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
As a baseball fan born in the 1970’s hearing the closing music (“Gathering Crowds”) to This Week In Baseball still gives me goosebumps. “How about that?!”
Medicine Man
Actually, I find the suggestion of Celine Dion re-writing the HNIC theme music much more offensive. Or maybe the word I’m looking for is “horrifying”.
Cornbread for Detroit
I have got to agree with Michael D on this one John. Those of us growing up in Detroit got our first taste of the stuff at the age of 19 going over to Windsor. The stuff you get via import in the US is donkey piss compared to the real stuff we drank over there.
patroclus
Ever since that Diefenbacher terminated the Avro Arrow advanced air research project, everything up there has pretty much turned to shit…
joe
Is that the game where they can’t use their hands, or the one where they light up the little ball so you can see it on tv?
BJ
(throws up in mouth)
Seriously, don’t even mention the possibility. Look what it did to Hillary’s campaign!
Faux News
Will Canada go on strike just like the cartoon series “South Park” foretold?
I’d hate to see how the Danes would do in hockey let alone hear the new national anthem “Oh Denmark”
Krista
Hopefully that was your own mouth you just threw up in. Otherwise…ewwww.
Krista
True. I’m just a bundle of sweetness and light.
But don’t fucking mess with my Hockey Night in Canada theme or I’ll rip your goddamned throat out with my teeth.
BJ
Yes, mine unfortunately.
Regardless, many Canadian, (also known as real), beers will be needed to get the taste out.
Nylund
The top ten selling beers at The Beer Store are Coors Light, Canadian, Molson, Blue, Carling, Lakeport, Bud, Lucky, and Keiths. Keiths is the only potable one on that list, and its really nothing special. You can knock natty light all you want (and one should), but Carling, Lucky, Blue, Molson, 50, etc. make Natty Light taste gourmet by comparison. That is quite a feat.
Also note that in Canada, Coors, Bud, etc. are all brewed by Labatt and Molson (Molson and Coors are the same company), and they have managed to make piss beer taste even pissier. So when a Canadian mocks them, they are just mocking their own brewery’s abilities to make a bad beer even worse. The sad thing is, is that most of the time, when you order a foreign beer like Guinness, you’re actually getting a much inferior licensed variety produced by Labatt or Molson in Canada. A lot Canadians have never even tasted the real thing.
My favorite Canadian party game is to ask a Canadian to answer, “Name a fancy beer.” 99% of the time they will say Heineken. This was especially funny to my German friend who said that in Germany, it is referred to as “headache beer”.
Canada does make some drinkable mainstream beers. Moosehead, Rickards, Keith etc. are all ok for BBQ beers, but I’d take a Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Brooklyn Lager, over any of them. Hell, I’d even take something like Rolling Rock or Yuengling.
In short, most Canadian beers are absolutely terrible and these are the beers that most Canadians drink. Canada does have some good beers, but if you line up the worst American beers with the worst Canadian beers, the Canadian ones are worse, and if you match up the best to the best, American ones are better. Yes, Keiths is better than Busch Lite, but any country that actively drinks suck insanely terrible brands as Carling, Lucky, 50, Blue, Canadian, etc. cannot claim to have good beer tastes.
I was recently at a wedding in Ontario where on numerous occasions I heard Canadians referring to Coors Light as “the good beer” at the party. Sadly, it was since the other options were Carling, Blue, and 50.
Lets also not forget that in Ontario you can only buy beer at the Beer Store, which closes quite early, and charges you $20 – 24 a 12 pack.
Next week, I move back to the US from Canada, and I will tell you that Canadian beer is definitely not something I will miss.
Hockey Night in Canada though…that is a religion here. Changing the anthem will cause riots (I am completely serious).
YellowJournalism
Celine Dion is probably number three on the list.
Krista
A fancy beer? How would one even define a “fancy” beer? Cost? Complexity of processing? Image?
Keith’s is a good quaffing beer for a hot day. Usually, we drink Rickards Red or Rickards White. Sleeman’s Honey Brown is also a favourite. For imported stuff, the husband likes Stella Artois or Kilkenny, whereas I’m a fan of Boddington’s.
pylon
Given the glee with which the owner is trumpeting the story in the media, I’d say that he’s trying to hike rates. This is the perfect way to pressure the CBC.
—-
The he’s a she, I think.
In any event, count me as a Canadian hockey fan who’s not too fussed if they change the theme. They’ve aletered it so much over the years it’s almost unrecognizable from the original anyway, and I doubt, after a few weeks, anyone would even care.
1jpb
3. referring to canadian geese rather than the correct canada geese. (I’ve found that some Canadians really don’t like this mistake. It is very offensive, though I have no idea why.)
4. asking for canadian bacon on your pizza rather than ham. (This doesn’t get the Canadians too worked up, they just have a confused look, until you mention ham.)
YellowJournalism
5. Igloo jokes.
Kirby
Last year the Leafs won the cup – 1967
year the CBC started using that theme – 1968
That theme has cursed the Leafs for 40 years. DUMP IT!
Get the Tragically Hip to write a new theme.
Kirby
And while we’re on beer, yes, most of the big Canadian brewers produce crap. But if you’re in Alberta, try anything from Big Rock Breweries, great stuff.
But most of the time I drink Keith’s. It’s in my maritime blood, and pronouce it Keet’s if you want to sound local.
Grand Moff Texan
Whoa! That was a song? It’s … it’s just two minutes of vamping and cheesy syncopation. Blech!
.
OriGuy
Kokanee isn’t a bad lager; I don’t think you can get it east of the Rockies.
I’ve never been in Canada during hockey season, so I haven’t heard the Hockey Night theme. Anyone have a link?
double-plus-ungood
You southerners better shaddap about our country already or we’ll cut off your oil.
Krista
No, you can get Kokanee here. Took awhile, but it’s been available for about a year now.
Christ, Kirby, I’ve been in N.S. since I was 18, and have never pronounced it “Keet’s”. From where do you hail, my friend?
PeterJ
YouTube to the rescue.
PeterJ
YouTube to the rescue.
Now with a non fucked up link.
Andrew
Wow, so the Canadians are super upset about a riff that sounds like it came from a third tier 80’s action movie?
BTW, Canadian beer does suck. (Unibroue beers excluded.)
SammyB
My crew and I all drink Budweiser. Pretty tastes the same as Canadian (which is actually an American beer) so we really don’t feel bad. We normally do feel bad when buying any Americn product.
BJ
Maybe not you, Krista, but that’s sure how it sounds coming from most of the Atlantic Canadians I know. Granted most of them are Newfies.
In any case, I’ll second the Sleeman’s nod and as well as the fine products from Big Rock.
Matt
PeterJ – that second link is to the ESPN intro, not HNIC.
Try here: youtube.com/watch?v=4kERvuPMhTA
A classic. Changing it makes me sad.
GoMS
LOL…considering that Budweiser is the #1 beer in America, I’d broaden things a little and say, North American beer sucks. Actually, all beer sucks…now, give me a hit from a bongload of BC Bud…mmmmm…and I should point out that America is Canada’s pants…(facebook.com/profile.php?success=1&id=770780110) – if you are on facebook…
GoMS
Off topic a little, but I was on my way home from my Japanese class last week and I met a bunch of American architecture grad students (from UC-Berkeley) and their Professors on the bus (I live in Kyoto, Japan), and I heard them talking about where they were going to go to view traditional architecture in Kyoto…they seemed to have nothing more than tourist brochures to guide them and they only had an afternoon in Kyoto, so I decided to intervene. Rather than go to Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavillion), I suggested they go to Daitokuji, a very large temple complex with many different buildings to see, unlike Kinkakuji, which only has 1 building worth seeing. I decided to take them there myself and after we got off the bus, a tall, beautiful girl from the group came over to me and said, “Youuuuu suuure dooooo saaaaayyyy that wuuurd ‘about’ fuuunny, youuuu must baaayyy from Canada?!”
I didn’t ask her what part of the states she was from…’cause I was abooot to laugh my freekin’ arse off!!!
double-plus-ungood
Wow, so the Canadians are super upset about a riff that sounds like it came from a third tier 80’s action movie?
It’s a Canadian thing, you wouldn’t understand.
Myself, I still think that Molson’s I. Am. Canadian. song should be the anthem.
The Grand Panjandrum
The least you could do is talk about beer. Jesus. Nothing in this thread remotely resembles beer. Drinking any of the the beers mentioned above is tantamount to eating shit with a dirty spoon.
b. hussein canuckistani
Upper Canada, Sleemans, Creemore, Wellington, Mill St… we have the good beer.
Kirby
Krista, I grew up an army brat, living all over Canada. Currently I reside in Alberta. I picked up saying ‘Keets’ from my Cape Breton coworkers.
slippy hussein toad
So, this song is 40 years old, right? And copyrights exist to protect the creator of a song in order that he/she can make money from his or her creations. The idea is to encourage people to contribute to culture and science with their ideas by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they may profit from their labors, then after that it becomes public domain and benefits all.
However, it appears that in most of the Western world we’re forgetting about the second half of the equation, and the first half becomes increasingly ludicrous. Is the person holding the rights to this ditty the author/composer?
If not, what the hell are they doing charging for its use? No encouragement for future works is being done if they’re just squatting on some intellectual property they had nothing to do with the creation of.
Inquiring minds would like to know. This one even holds copyrights of his own, and is curious as to whether he can expect . . . what shall we call them . . . leeches and ticks to be feeding off the corpse of his intellectual legacy in a generations’ time.
Splitting Image
Before I gave up drinking beer, I used to drink Stella, Sleeman’s, Corona, and the occasional Keith’s. I’ve always assumed that any brand of beer that was brewed in large quantities by a major brewery probably sucked.
Regarding things that piss off Canadians, well, the glib answer is:
1) American —-.
American TV, American beer, American food, American music, you name it.
The more-close-to-reality answer is that what pisses everybody off up here is the weird idea some people have that Everything American is Better.
Both Americans and Canadians probably annoy people in the other country by cheering for the home side, which is I guess understandable, but Canadians also have this strange breed of people who understand patriotism to mean “America First!” even though, um, they’re not American.
I remember back in my clubbing days and a friend of mine told me she wished she knew more club kids. I said I already had friends who were club kids, and she said “Really? A genuine New York club kid?”
Because wearing a $1200 outfit to get wasted in a dingy hole-in-the-wall in New York City has a purity of purpose that wearing a $1200 outfit to get wasted in a dingy hole-in-the-wall in any other city sometimes lacks.
Krista
Heh — that’s funny, ’cause I was going to ask if you were a Caper.
jack fate
Even the border folks (like myself in Buffalo, NY) who get the CBC broadcast will not be happy.
Satellite Hotstove, eh?
Thursday
They may well retire it with Bob Cole – Game Six was likely his final broadcast.
Job well done, but time to go.
The HNIC song is Canada’s third national anthem, right after O, Canada and the astounding Northwest Passage:
youtube.com/watch?v=rz6vU1iSA0k
bad dad
Well, the real story is that Dolores Clayman, who wrote the theme, sold the rights to it years ago. The current owners of the rights are suing the CBC for $2,000,000 for ancillary uses of the theme. At that point, no wonder the CBC said ‘fuck it’ when it came time to renew.
Here’s the site for Dolores and the theme:
hockeytheme.com/
Here’s the site for the lawyers (barristers for you Canucks) that are handling the case where you can look at .pdfs of the filings:
kemplaw.net/hnic-litigation.html
It looks to me like the current owners of the theme are being dicks and are using this poor old lady and “It’s just $500” as a shield to try to extort the CBC.
Anybody else want to read and offer an opinion?
bad dad
OK, Mrs. Claman wight still be an owner. It says that the rights were transfered to Vine Music. From page one of the suit it looks like she might be a partner in this venture.
But I still think her other partners are taking her for a ride on this one.