Maple Leafs: Time to Face the Music

This morning at breakfast the iPod wasn't charged and I was too slow getting to the radio so I got stuck listening to some really bad music.

As Drive My Soul played in the background (gack!) it struck me that if the Toronto Maple Leafs really want to change their culture, if they really want a fresh start in 2008-'09, a public execution of the MLSE employee in charge of the in-game music programming at the ACC is as good a first step as any. (And how perfect would it be if it turned out Peddie or Tannenbaum was the one that picked Enter Sandman for the Leafs to skate out to?)

Is there anyone out there who thinks the Leafs need to play three Metallica songs each and every night? Does anyone at the game think Marilyn Manson, Bay City Rollers and Wolfmother=hockey? And does Zombie Nation's Kernkraft 400 really say "Toronto Maple Leafs score!" or does it just say: "I could be at any sporting event at any arena in North America."

As an aside, if Stephen Harper really wants a majority government I think the perfect way to harvest support in vote-rich Ontario is to formally ban The Final Countdown (with a full exemption for magicians) and then move on to Cotton Eyed Joe.

Maybe the Leafs need to take a page out of the Jays' playbook (as long as it's not the "missing the playoffs for 15 years" one) and have each Leaf pick their equivalent of the Jays at-bat music. When that Leaf scores, the ACC would play his tune.

The good: seeing the reaction to a Boyd Devereuax goal when one of the artists on his record label get some prime time play down at the ACC.

The bad: about six to eight times a year, we'd see Jason Blake first pump to something like Slowride by Foghat and odds are one of Poni, Grabovski or Antropov would pick Dragostea Din Tei (aka the Numa Numa dance) for their song...(You just know Stajan would pick some emo number and if Steen went with Abba, I'd trade him).

As someone who hasn't bought a new release since M. Ward's Post-War in 2006, I may not be ideally positioned to suggest an alternate play list for Maple Leaf games at the ACC, but anything (anything!) has to be better than the gratuitous use of Nickel Back, Def Leppard, and Linkin Park...