LONG OVERDUE

It has been a week since my last update. No excuse other then the job that pays the bills. We had a tornado sweep thru the area on Sunday which was a bit unusual as we don't really live in a "tornado prone" area. This isn't Kansas or anything. The family took refuge in the basement, there was lots of crying from the children, especially when the power went out. No damage to the house, a couple large branches snapped off the trees in my yard but none of them came down. A few large trees around town were down, only one across a road that I found (we did a tour in the car after things calmed down).

Only one thing I wanted to write about today, and it is hardly neighbour related. Folks everywhere but Canada will probably say "WTF?" and not understand what I'm talking about but here it goes. Big story in Canada this week is that the CBC lost the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song after 40-years. The network, which has been using the song as the theme for every hockey broadcast since 1967, had been in tense negotiations with the rights holder, some old lady named Delores Claman who was born in Canada but now lives in England. For the last few years the contract paid this old hag $500 every single time the CBC played the song, which was pretty big $ if you consider they probably broadcast 50+ games each season.

The story is that Claman wanted to sell the CBC the rights to the song for $2.5 million, the CBC didn't want to pay more then $1 million and so both sides walked away. Claman promptly sold the rights to the song to rival network CTV who plans on using the theme for the hockey games broadcast on TSN (a Canadian all-sports cable network similar to ESPN).

I don't envy the CBC, who is now being roasted by the press and public. If they had spent $2.5 million they would be getting roasted for "wasting taxpayers money". It was really a no-win situation.

The problem now is that the CBC has announced a contest to have somebody compose a new theme song. The prize is $100,000 and obviously the CBC then owns the song permanently, avoiding any such royalty/licensing conflict in the future. The problem is the winning song will most definately be 100% crap and suck supreme because the idiots who decide the winner are neither hockey fans and will need to pick some bland and sugar-coated boring crap that is guaranteed to not offend anybody.

Enter, 'The Hockey Song', the 1973 classic by Canadian icon Stompin' Tom Connors. Connors has made it very public that he is more then interested in licensing the song to the CBC for use on their broadcasts. The CBC needs to jump on this. The song is a classic, it is already played at nearly every game at nearly every arena in N. America, and it is known by hockey fans everywhere. They can replace a classic with a classic, and nobody would miss the old theme music for even a minute.

Please take the time to write the CBC and ask them to enter negotiations with Stompin' Tom.

Hello out there! We're on the air,

It's Hockey Night tonight;

Tension grows, the whistle blows,

And the puck goes down the ice.

The goalie jumps, and the players bump,

And the fans all go insane;

Someone roars, "Bobby scores!"

At the good old hockey game.

Oh! The good old hockey game,

Is the best game you can name;

And the best game you can name,

Is the good old Hockey game!