When I was a kid, theme songs didn't really matter to me.
I remember "Growing Pains" used to change up the style of their theme song all of the time. Sometimes it was an a capella version of the song. Other times they would just carelessly toss in the phrase "sharing the laughter and love" at the end of the song.
It was all arbitrary, but as long as Mike and Boner spent 22 minutes entertaining me, I could care less about the 90-second musical intro. Apparently, that's not the way Canadians feel about their hockey theme songs.
As I write this today, the sports world has gone crazy with the news that TSN has taken the HNIC theme song. The way some people are reacting, you would think that TSN is going to show up in October wearing the old school HNIC blue blazers. (Now that would be sacrilege).
The TSN acquisition of the old HNIC theme song is the equivalent of Armageddon on the sports broadcast landscape. It will result in a domino effect of blockbuster moves, as each network attempts to make the biggest summer splash.
I predict it will go something like this:
* The CBC will immediately lure Maggie The Monkey away from TSN, with a lucrative deal on July 1st, when she and all the other hockey-related primates are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents. The CBC will not only use Maggie to predict outcomes of games, but she will also determine the weekly broadcast assignments of their on-air talent by spinning a wheel. Can't you just see Jim Hughson and Elliotte Friedman with their fingers crossed saying "Please not Ottawa-Phoenix, please not Ottawa-Phoenix."
* To respond to that move, the CTV family will steal one of the CBC's top Canadian-made sitcoms. On second thought, is there a Plan B?
* Rogers Sportsnet will jump into the fray by luring Jermaine Franklin away from the TSN Calgary bureau and moving him to Toronto to become our Maple Leafs beat reporter. The payoff? Imagine Jermaine leading off Ron Wilson's press conferences every day. That's a ratings bonanza!
* The Score, feeling left out by all of this movement in the industry, will make a ground-breaking move, by switching spots on the cable dial with one of those space-related specialty channels. In most cases, this will mean they move from Channel 52 to Channel 51.
* Sportsnet, unsatisfied with only pillaging one TSN employee, will bring back Darren Dreger. However, we inform Dreger that we have the right to make him work at any one of our TV stations in the Rogers family. First stop: OMNI 2, where he will be forced to bridge the commercial gaps between Latino soap operas and The Simpsons with witty banter and anecdotes. That will teach you for leaving us.
