750 miles of hockey tunes

Four o’clock Monday morning the alarm goes off. It’s time to head out to western Pennsylvania. It’s over 750 miles round trip. I leave home with a thermos of coffee and a lunch my wife hands me as I head out into the dark. On the way out the door I see that someone has left out ACDC Live. I grab it and slide it into the car’s cd player. “ Da da dum. Da da dum da da dum da da dum da da dum!” Angus Young’s opening chords to “Highway to Hell” blast out of the car’s speakers as I head down the road. This cd has seen a lot of hockey games. It’s the very same cd that has supplied warm up tunes for many of our games. Listening to the album brings back lots of memories. In Clayton it was “Thunder Struck” and “Back in Black” that opened the Friday night games. In Watertown it was “TNT” with the team joining in for the chorus. In Syracuse it took a while, but eventually the Coliseum echoed with the chords of “Back in Black”. How many face offs have been backed with the bell tones from “Hell’s Bells” during critical moments in many third periods. I’ve heard some real weird warm up music at many venues for hockey and lacrosse, but ACDC is hockey music to me. I must be dating myself, but I still remember when Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog” seemed radical before games. Today’s warm up music doesn’t sound hockey enough to me, but that’s my opinion. Through the foggy hills of Pennsylvania I drive with the windows down and the stereo cranked. Each track brings images of snowy cold nights with drifts piling against arena walls. Angus Young’s opening notes to “For Those About to Rock” echoing out beyond snow filled parking lots and out into the dark as players square off within the sodium lit confines of the local rink. Coaches tossing pucks out to start off the team’s warm ups as they confer on the bench and watch the opposing team while taking a few last sips of hot coffee from their Styrofoam cups. It’s a cold image on such a muggy morning. I’ve got seven hundred and fifty miles of hockey memories backed with three note power chords. I know who left the cd out for me to see. It was my youngest son. He knew I’d have a long day and decided I needed to take a little hockey with me. And to think, the album was recorded live in Edmonton.