For the second 12 months in a row, Crew Canada is celebrating its targets on the world junior ice hockey championship with a music from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Nice Large Sea’s “Extraordinary Day” got here blasting out of the audio system on Tuesday close to the top of the primary interval after Canada scored its first aim of the event towards Finland in Gothenburg, Sweden. The upbeat trad-rock music would play one other 4 occasions because the group beat its European opponents 5-2.
“Extraordinary Day” is a music about perseverance and perspective, with lyrics, “And I say, whey, hey, hey it’s simply an unusual day, and it’s all in your mind-set.” It was chosen after two weeks of intense deliberation, stated Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s senior vice-president of operations.
“It’s taken very significantly, for positive,” Salmond stated concerning the course of of choosing a aim music. “We actually imagine it may well have a huge effect on the sport and on the group.”
Earlier than the music is performed for the primary time, he added, there’s at all times some anxiousness it might not catch on. However on Tuesday evening, Salmond stated, Canadians within the stands in Gothenburg jumped out of their seats and belted out the lyrics to “Extraordinary Day” after Nate Danielson knocked the puck previous Finland’s goalie, Niklas Kokko.
“They had been standing and singing and cheering and clapping,” he stated in an interview. “When the play resumed, there was nonetheless some people who had been singing it, and I feel it’ll simply proceed to develop.”
Each group on the earth juniors has a aim music, performed to ramp up the gang and rejoice the puck touchdown within the web. Some nations, comparable to Finland, have a nationwide music that performs when any of its groups rating, Salmond stated.
Hockey Canada desires its group to have a music by a Canadian artist, one thing the viewers can rejoice with, he stated, including, “We wish to have just a little extra character.”
Salmond wouldn’t say what number of contenders there have been for this 12 months’s music, or what they had been. However he stated the talk was a severe course of.
Managers, gamers, coaches and different Crew Canada employees started providing strategies on Dec. 9, and a closing resolution was made after a gathering on the evening of Dec. 21, he stated.
“We had been throughout the desk and we performed some completely different songs and other people on our personal employees had been standing up and singing alongside to ‘Extraordinary Day,’ and we simply stated, ‘That’s it, it’s apparent,’” he stated.
The favored Nice Large Sea music, from the band’s album “Play,” was advisable by Crew Canada’s physician, R.J. MacKenzie, who hails from Cape Breton, N.S., Salmond stated.
“Extraordinary Day” has a troublesome act to comply with: final 12 months’s aim tune, “Heave Away” by Newfoundland and Labrador band The Fables, had crowds on the world juniors in Halifax going wild, Salmond stated.
It climbed to No. 12 on the Spotify Viral 50 Canada chart by the top of the event.
To this point, it appears “Extraordinary Day” will probably be simply as beloved.
“I cherished it,” stated Crew Canada centre Macklin Celebrini on Wednesday, two days after officers unveiled the music for the group.
“We didn’t know the way it was going to go. After which we heard it on the ice after which all of us cherished it,” Celebrini stated.
Alan Letang, Crew Canada’s head coach, stated he was conversant in the music from his days taking part in with the now-defunct Fredericton Canadiens, within the American Hockey League.
“It’s 100 per cent my classic, proper?” he stated in an interview. “I feel it’s good … We noticed how a aim music catches on final 12 months. Hopefully this one rolls alongside the identical path.”
He stated the music actually “sums up” the group.
The publicist for Alan Doyle, Nice Large Sea’s former frontman, didn’t reply to an emailed request for an interview. However on X, previously Twitter, Doyle expressed his enthusiasm on Tuesday afternoon.
“Loves it,” he wrote, utilizing a well-liked Newfoundland expression. “Go Crew Canada!”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Dec. 27, 2023.
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