HONOUR FOR THE HOCKEY SONG
From coast to coast, The Hockey Song has been as popular as the Hockey Night In Canada theme. Now, Stompin’ Tom Connors’ iconic tune will be inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Saturday’s Leafs-Jets game at Scotiabank Arena.
“I truly did want it to become the anthem that it has,” Connors said before his death in 2013. “I tried to write it in a way where I was in an arena and hearing it myself.”
Penned in 1971, it didn’t get much air play upon release, but sustained a pulse through Connors’ musical travels and radio stations here and there. The gradual rise of recorded music in arenas brought The Hockey Song back to life in 1992.
Tom Connors Jr. and family will be presented with a plaque recognizing the song’s induction Saturday and rising country star Tim Hicks will perform it.