Cochrane song Big League becomes healing anthem

TORONTO — Tom Cochrane’s song Big League was written more than 30 years ago, but this week, many Canadians have found it painfully resonant in the wake of the Humboldt Broncos’ bus crash.

The song is written from the perspective of a father whose son was a hockey player with big dreams cut short by a truck driving in the wrong lane. It flows with a certain Canadian spirit and howls at the loss of innocence.

Cochrane’s voice also carries a rousing tone on the recording that might seem too upbeat to some. But a number of listeners on social media credited its poignancy as they digested the news from Saskatchewan.

Fifteen people were killed and 14 injured when a semi-trailer collided with a bus carrying the youth hockey team last Friday.

The point isn’t lost on the Life is a Highway musician, who said he finds it difficult to process the tragic headlines alongside tweets he has been receiving from Canadians playing the song. One YouTuber asked him for permission to use Big League in a tribute video to the players.

Other Canadian songs have been chosen for tributes, including the Tragically Hip’s Wheat Kings, which was featured in a montage of photos of the team on Saturday’s edition of Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada.

Cochrane, who was raised in Lynn Lake, Man., and played hockey as a kid, said he understands hockey culture to its core.

“It’s a big family in this country,” said Cochrane, who now lives in Oakville, Ont.

“The game is a galvanizing force on that junior level. It defines the country more than even the big cities do.”

Big League in some ways is a reflection of that culture’s influence on Canada as a whole.

It was loosely based on a conversation between Cochrane and a man who approached him before a 1987 concert in Northern Ontario where he was performing with his band Red Rider.

The man asked if they would play their song Boy Inside the Man, saying that his son was a big fan and would’ve loved to hear it.

“He was talking in the past tense,” Cochrane recalled. “He said: he was a really good hockey player and had a promising career. It really stuck with me.”

Cochrane began writing about the experience months later, building a back story around the accident. The song appeared on the 1988 album Victory Day.