Ever get a song stuck in your head, a lyric repeating over and over, sometimes lasting for days? I’ve been waking up most mornings lately to the nasal twang of Stompin’ Tom Connors singing the chorus of “The Hockey Song”:

Oh the good ol’ Hockey Game
Is the best game you can name
And the best game you can name
Is the good ol’ hockey game

At least it rhymes, right? Stompin’ Tom was a maritime icon of Canadian country music in the last decades of the previous century. He was famous for more than The Hockey Song, having written and performed also the fondly remembered Bud The Spud and Sudbury Saturday Night. He wrote more than 300 songs and released four dozen albums – in Canada. That ain’t chicken feed.

As these lyrics echoed in my skull, morning and night, they got me thinking about our national game. Really? you say, imagine that.

Growing up on the prairies we were urged to learn to walk so that we could learn to skate, skates and hockey sticks being among our first gifts under the Christmas tree. Hockey indeed was our game, and we played it as kids with a rare passion on frozen creeks and ponds, outdoor rinks on empty lots flooded with an accomodating neighbour’s garden hose and eventually, as PeeWees in community arenas.

We played in mismatched, ill-fitting gear, much of it bought oversized so that it would last several seasons, and the rest of it too small because we’d had it too long and couldn’t afford to replace it. Some of us stuffed Eaton’s catalogs in our hockey socks and held them in place with stretched sealer rings from Mom’s canning jars and electrician’s tape pinched from Dad’s tool box. Broken sticks were cobbled together with Elmer’s Glue, wood screws and yards of tape. The lucky ones among us had a logo sweater.

The Leafs and the Habs were our teams in what was then a six team National Hockey League. Our good Canadian boys (as Don Cherry fondly called them) played against the “other” teams across the line in New York, Boston, Detroit and Chicago, and our boys filled most of their rosters then too. We idolized our favourites, bought bubble gum to get the hockey cards and dreamed of one day turning pro.

The opening bars of the theme music for Hockey Night In Canada stirred our blood on Saturday nights as we gathered in front of the television set to listen to Foster Hewitt’s play-by-play and his never to be forgotten, “He shoots, he scores!” The next day we hummed the music while we cleared snow from the ice with homemade wooden scrapers and snow shovels. No Zambonis back then.

There were other hockey songs, notably a couple by The Tragically Hip and of course, Clear The Track, Here Comes Shack by Del Barber & The No Regretzskys which paid homage to the great Leafs’ wildman, Eddie Shack. There was also a tune called I Want To Drive The Zamboni by – wait for it – The Zambonis (a one-hit wonder, I’m guessing). But no one spoke more eloquently for our game than Stompin’ Tom:

Hello out there, we’re on the air, it’s “Hockey Night” tonight.
Tensions 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 ol’ Hockey Game.

Yeehaw… Sing it, son.