The NHL All-Star Game’s Awesome Intro

By Spencer Hall
I attended the NHL All-Star Game last night, a first for me since sports on ice are terra incognita for me, a Southerner who fondly associates sport with heat stroke, dehydration, and scorching sunburn.
With checking forbidden for the game, the NHL’s legendary violence (ahhh, sweet sporting violence) was absent, leaving the scorers free to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more for an 8-7 final--overall, an atypical, irregular, and altogether uninspiring slice of NHL product. I’m not sold completely on hockey, because what I saw last night wasn’t really hockey for the most part, but was more of a friendly between buddies played in front of a crowd of corporate sponsors and a laid-back fans on vacay.
One element of the proceedings should be imported to all sporting events: The Hives’ opening performance. The thunderous “Tick Tick Boom” is already an NHL-affiliated song...

...and it was the theme for the All-Star game. They introduced each player while the Swedish garage rock band growled along in the background, with the band slamming through a single riff inbetween each name. It sounded unbelievably cool, something a bit like this.
thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump...and now representing the Eastern Conference...thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump...
ALEXAAAAAAAAAANDERRRRR OVAAAYCHKIIIIIIIN!!!!
DUHDUHDUHDAYDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHDAYDUHDUHDUH ROCK!
It was nearly Jersey fist-pump worthy stuff. Note to sport: more horrendously loud bands during introductions! Now! Decorum is so 20th century anyway.↵