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Songs that Remind You of Hockey

February 5, 2020, 10:59 AM ET [5 Comments]
Paul Stewart
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • RSSArchiveCONTACT
I was watching Turner Classic Movies over the weekend while doing cleanup in the kitchen. There was a Greta Garbo movie on, entitled Ninotchka, filmed and released in 1939. That same year, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup with The Kraut Line and Eddie Shore.

Greta Garbo, who was one of the world's most beautiful women of her time, portrays a Russian operative after the Revolution. It interested me for many reasons including the whole aspect of Russian life at that time. Asian history and Russia was my major at Penn plus I lived in Moscow for the better part of three years in the 2010s when I worked for the KHL.

It is a tremendous film that has stood the test of time, especially the interaction of the characters with Greta being the lynchpin on finding the Russian crown jewels, her three Russian friends and how they shared an omelette in a crowded apartment with each bringing an egg to the feast. Eventually, they all end up out of Russia in Turkey running a Russian restaurant and glad to be away from Mother Russia and all that the communist revolution did to their country. It's set in a particular place and time, yet timeless in many ways.

At any rate, the reason that I bring this movie up here on HockeyBuzz is that there's a song they sing in the movie that I mentally associate with hockey: Paree, or as it was it was known formally, Ca C'est Paris. I heard it many times as a kid and recognized it from John Kiley playing it on the organ at the Boston Garden and Fenway Park.

Art Ross, the Bruins' GM, brought that song to Boston after he had being in Europe touring, prior to the start of WW II in the summer of 1938. He also attended an ice show in Paris and watched as the ice was mopped with hot water between acts to make the ice smoother, thus the idea of resurfacing the ice and not just scraping it between periods of the NHL games came to North America.

That got me to thinking: I miss the organ being played at hockey games. I especially miss the organ at the Garden. I miss the Garden itself and all the memories it held for me. The college bands took owith their school songs at the Beanpot tournmanet. That is their tradition, and a good one. I like when those things are maintained.

I really miss Chicago Stadium and that big old organ playing "Here Come The Hawks". I miss being in Buffalo, The organ playing "the Sabre Dance" as The French Connection took to the ice. At the old Checkerdome in St. Louis, they played a rendition of the Budweiser song as the Blues skated out. The place was always jumping.

In Baltimore, they played the theme from Ghostbusters when the Skipjacks came onto the ice. It was catchy and timely for the '80s but not the arena-filling sound like an organ played by John Kiley. Even so, it was fun to skate to. When I broke into the minor leagues in the mid-1970s with Binghamton and we'd go to Philadelphia to play the Firebirds at the rickety Civic Center -- barely a stone's throw from my alma mater -- they'd always have "the Hustle" by Van McCoy playing on the sound system during the pregame skate.

That was a moment in time. I can hear either of those songs come on the radio, close my eyes and it takes me back to those rinks. Ditto the song "Right Back Where We Started From," the Maxine Nightingale tune that, noawadays, is not so much remembered as a top 5 single from 1975-76 but as "that song from Slap Shot." I don't think so much about my cameo in the movie as a Long Island Ducks player but just that time period in my real life; living the dream as I fought my way up the minor leagues and kept ending up right back in Binghamton.

I can't remember what the other teams played. Can you? If so, drop a comment on the message board or my Twitter page on the songs you remember hearing at sporting events.

Tevye, the father in the Fiddler On The Roof, sang about "Tradition." It's a shame when traditions get lost. Actually, that makes me think of another sporting tradition that was once prominent but has now faded away with the organ music and other once-omnipresent parts of attending a game: the playing of "Hava Nagila."

These things, once a subconscious part of the game night experience for fans (and even for players and refs, at least for me), fade away. The memories remain.

To bring this blog today full circle, here's a bit of useless trivia: Greta Garbo is buried in the same Stockholm cemetery as Pelle Lindbergh; the brilliant Vezina Trophy winning goalie who perished in a car accident in 1985. He was 26. Ms. Garbo, who was born 1905, passed away in 1990.

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A 2018 inductee into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Visit Paul's official websites, YaWannaGo.com and Officiating by Stewart.

Follow Paul on Twitter: @PaulStewart22
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