Hockey, Hockey, Uncategorized

A Brief Exposition of the 2026 Olympic Hockey National Goal Horn Themes

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A delightful features of hockey the musical theme that plays following the horn sounding a successful goal.

It’s good to have something up-beat & celebratory for the tune, a local relevance or affinity is a plus. How well did the competing nations of the Olympics fair in their horn sound selection? Below are the samples and my thoughts, alphabetized based on their names in English:


CANADA

Couple things to get out of the way here: despite the recent rough patch in our national relations, I love Canada and will always love Canada, and have a profound reverence for its culture and people. Canada introduced the world to poutine and Hockey itself, and is second to none in its donut culture.

With that out of the way, I note that Canada has a strong stable of significant, hard-driving anthems that most cultures and people throughout history can only aspire to:

Guess Who, Rush, Tragically Hip, Neil; all have huge catalogues of driving anthems. Instead they chose the Sheepdogs ‘Feeling Good.’

Sorry, this beat sounds like a recycled Norman Greenbaum tune. Not worthy of a squad with Crosby, McDavid, or MacKinnon on it. If Seth Jarvis scores on the USA tomorrow morning, the Hockey Night in Canada theme would be a superior sound.

https://youtu.be/DVH8fcHVlAE?si=02bji-lnDmR9qiTD

CZECHIA

Don’t know much about the Walda Gang, but dig the driving beat and horse shouting. I’d imagine Pastrňák or Necas really enjoyed hearing this whenever they scored. An entire NHL home season’s worth of this anthem might be a bit much for a fan but among the more solid choices of this Olympics.

DENMARK

Denmark’s ‘Vi er dem’ by Kim Larsen is the first in the alphabetic series that has a touch of Eurovision to it. It’s fun. The translated lyrics to the song are somewhat ominous:

We are the ones the others are not allowed to play with
Vi er dem, de andre ikke må lege med

We are the bad company
Vi er det dårlige selskab

We have a weak character and a cheap imagination
Vi har en svag karakter og en billig fantasi

It’s good that we were born
Det’ da godt, at vi blev født

Before the abortion it became free
Før aborten den blev fri

Sounded good when Ehlers scored despite the off-putting back side of the chorus.

FINLAND

Finland is known for its death metal, and while VilleGalle’s ‘Peto on irtie’ turns out to be a punchy pop song, according to my google-foo it translates to ‘the beast is loose’ and I think that aligns nicely with the death metal idiom even if this is much easier to dance to. Well done Suomi for delivering one of the better anthems this Olympics.

FRANCE

Ok, points for the African beats, but TR3NACRIA’s La Foule (Le Monde Club) sounds like a jewelry commercial. Next.

GERMANY

Germany has Peter Schilling’s ‘Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)’ and I gotta say I’m a little confused and sad when I listen to this.

Let’s turn to the lyrics:

There it is, thoroughly checked
Gründlich durchgecheckt steht sie da

And waits for the start, all clear
Und wartet auf den Start, alles klar

Experts argue about some data
Experten streiten sich um ein paar Daten

The crew still has a few questions
Die Crew hat da noch ein paar Fragen

But the countdown is on
Doch der Countdown läuft

Effectiveness determines actions
Effektivität bestimmt das Handeln

You rely blindly on the other person
Man verlässt sich blind auf den andern

Everyone knows exactly what depends on them
Jeder weiß genau, was von ihm abhängt

Y’all are welcome to help me out in the comments.

ITALY

Italy pumps Gabry Ponte’s Tutta L’Italia after the goals. It was only heard 4 times this Olympics. As a man descended from a line of Italian musicians, I am not sad about that.

LATVIA

Latvia’s theme has a Billy Joel sing-along vibe. Points for the vibe. Can’t really piece together who sang this song (Marhils, Dons, Muktupāvels, Fomins, Kaukulis un Čakste, ‘Par Latviju’), but I think its about Latvia so props to Latvia if they have a pub song.

SLOVAKIA

Are you still with me, because if you are, its time to talk about Slovensko’s squad, making it to the semis; they played hard. And how about their sweet uniforms? Easily the sharpest looking of the dozen this year.

Their horn-tune is Ščamba’s ‘Tak, tak, tak + A ja taka dzivočka’. I visited Bratislava almost 15 years ago. Great city, great people. Bring back HC Slovan Bratislava. This song checks out.

SWEDEN

No thank you.

SWITZERLAND

Swiss have Stubete Gäng / Richi. I’d like to take back half the things I said about the Canadian horn anthem.

USA

Ok, we’ve made it to the 12th and final theme song.

I will cop to being more of an Allman’s guy, myself, but I have to say to the dude that has been coming to 2/3rds of all live concerts the last 50 years screaming ‘FREEBIRD!!!’: ‘Strange agitated confused person yelling ‘FREEBIRD!!!,’ you have a point when it comes to the Scorcese part of the song.’ This part whips and there is no denying it.

This would be the perfect horn song for any bird-themed NHL teams. Alas for the Atlanta Thrashers, they picked a Motley Crue song, which is probably why Atlanta shed a second NHL team to a mid-market Canadian town after already losing the Flames. Incidentally, the Flames picked TNT by AC/DC. Should have picked Skynyrd, ATL.

Will ‘Freebird’ be heard more often than ‘Feeling Good’ tomorrow? Only time will tell.

NC

When the Monks Came to the Neighborhood

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Earlier this month some friends of mine from the western part of North Carolina were sharing pictures of a community of monks walking across the country on a Walk for Peace. We learned Friday that the monks from Texas would be continuing their Walk for Peace journey down our neighborhood streets, and resting at the park in our neighborhood.

While our esteemed guests ultimately had to cancel the evening program they had planned yesterday at Lions Park, it was splendid having the monks pass over the same footsteps my swamp dog, Porter and I traverse, daily. Having a happening like this warrants grabbing the camera and sharing this on a larger scale than a microblog.

So here we are, blogging from the neighborhoods of Breezy Heights, Heritage Heights, Bennet Woods (aka the BenWoo), and Belvidere Park. We had many wonderful neighbors from adjacent neighborhoods such as Longview, Oakwood North (OaNo), Woodcrest, Madonna Acres, and Ben Lloyd coming out on a cold day. Everyone was effervescing and anticipating our saffron guests.

I love how beautiful everyone in my neighborhood is.

The monks path made an ‘L’ shape around the BenWoo. Being very familiar with all the hobotrails and cut-throughs, their path afforded me an opportunity cross paths with the group and take some photos from multiple vantage points along their route.

My sensei Pat Callahan likes to quote the photographer Robert Capra “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” As I wanted to provide our guests on the Walk for Peace some space as they traversed our neighborhood, I used a zoom lens rather than the usual fixed lens I use when I’m walking around my city. Getting in our visitor’s faces with a 35 mm would conflict with the premise of a venerable guest. Hopefully you will find these photos good enough.

We first glimpsed the monks as they climbed the Glascock hill, up from the Cemetery Branch Creek valley. This is the same path through which I take my dog to the dog park.

The GoRaleigh #3 State St. bus stop had a big turn-out yesterday.

The monks climbed up the hill at a good clip. There was a palpable somber exuberance from our neighbors.

Incidentally, less than eighteen hours after the monks passed, the kids and I were sledding down this hill. Maybe today’s snow day might warrant a blog post of its own.

I digress, back to yesterday. Ducking through the BenWoo to Bennett St., another crowd had gathered to watch the monks turn on the street.

As they had on Glascock, the moved at a steady pace up Bennett.

My understanding is hosts should stand silently and observe, but I couldn’t help myself, knowing that they were on the home stretch, gave them some words of encouragement.

This monk seemed to appreciate the news that his daily journey was coming to a close:

Our guests continued through the Breezy Heights neighborhood. While I thought they would turn into Lions, they continued up Bennett towards Woodcrest. This is the same path I take my son to play baseball.

Following this encounter, your photographer cut through Lions Park crossed paths with the troupe again on Watkins.

At long last, the monks and their Winnebago approached their home for yesterday evening, our neighborhood park, Lions.

Last night while they slumbered, our neighborhood received a dusting of sleet. Evidently, my neighbor (and #15’s old football coach) Tim from down the street heard bells ringing earlier this morning, walked over and watched as our guests arose to continue their journey to Washington, D.C. They hiked up ice-covered paths 18 miles today to their next stop on the northern edge of Wake County.

It was wonderful having the monks pass through our community today. We are blessed with sharing a beautiful, walkable space filled with interesting and caring people.

I hope our guests felt the joy my friends and I experienced while sharing our space with them, and wish them a safe passage as they promote their message of Peace.

Hockey, Hockey

Triumphs and Defeat in the Youth Hockey Arena

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I’ve been taking a lot of photos of my son’s U10 House League team this season.

This season has been a challenge for him. Whereas last year he was a rookie on a team filled with talented (and gracious) teammates, coaches, and parents which culminated in a championship, this year his crew is comprised of mainly newcomers. Applying the lessons learned as a veteran and sharing it with the less successful is a different skill set playing up with competitive and focused collaborators. He is learning with this change.

Our #15 has been turning it on, playing in a road tournament, skating against kids who have been playing a lot longer and work hard at their sport. When he came back to House League early this year, he played hungry, scoring a goal on a long drive around the rink.

Yesterday, he had a double header, first being at 6:30 in the morning across town. #15 skated well, delivering a huge assist, clearing the D-zone to a friend across the ice.

While he played like a beast holding the line with his shift (and ended up a +2), his team was outplayed, losing 5-2.

#15’s second game yesterday occurred later in the morning. More evenly matched than the first contest, our son put on a hell of a show. He skated quickly and worked hard, executing graceful and rigorous maneuvers on the ice I had no idea he was capable of. His grandparents that came to watch the game were effervescent, as would be expected, but many of the team parents were just as surprised by his performance.

Alas, as with the earlier game, the Cyclones did not prevail. Down by 1 with 40 seconds left, the Cyclone center won the draw, and your left defenseman gathered the puck, and wound around his goal, building up speed to barrel up the boards. The Cyclone parents, gazing through the glass, raised their voices as #15 stormed up the rink with the puck. As he punched past the blue line into the neutral zone with the puck, he was as a freight train passing through school buses. Ecstatic voices in the crowd grew louder.

The high water mark for #15’s surge was just inside the scoring zone, puck removed from our protagonist as he slid out on the ice, a handful of seconds left on the clock.

#15 was crestfallen, he had not seen what we had. Kid left 100% out there, and delighted the audience with his verve and determination.

My favorite photo taken yesterday was a few moments after the end of the game. The amount of snow on his pants and jersey tells the tail. Everyone wants to make the big goal and win the game, I think the story, and the real prize, is found right beside the competitors with watery eyes, breathing heavy with nothing more to give.

Ireland

Road Bowling in West Cork

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Last summer, happened upon some Irish road bowling. Been wanting to witness road bowling for some time, and as luck would have it, there was a practice competition last summer (2024) in Lislee, a village in the Barryroe parrish in West Cork, Ireland.

It is a very intense sport, whereby two participants throw a 28 ounce iron bowl down country roads from point to point.

As you can see, it is a very physical sport, and the spectacle draws crowds of folks wagering on the competitors. I recommend it even if I’m not quite certain what’s happening.

Raleigh, Sport

2025 TSA Championships

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Several years ago, we joined Southall, a small country pool up in NE Raleigh that has a lot of wonderful folks that frequent it.

The TSA team they have is quite splendid; there aren’t many year round kids, but the program is growing, and the coaching staff does a great job emphasizing goal setting, growth, and sportsmanship. One of these days I’m going to have to write a post about how wonderful youth sport is, particularly when you know your kid is being exposed to coaches with strong positive values.

I digress, congratulations to the Seahorses for your second consecutive undefeated season. Behold scenes from yesterday’s TSA Champs.

Cars

More Cars!

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Despite having seen Senna, Days of Glory, F1, Rush, many episodes of Drive to Survive, & the Criterion collection of the animated movie franchise, Cars, tonight was Ace’s first live motorsport experience.

Scenes from tonight’s races at Wake County Motor Speedway.

A thrilling scene at Wake County Motor Speedway featuring several cars lined up for a race, with spectators watching in the stands.
Nighttime race scene at Wake County Motor Speedway featuring cars on the track and spectators in the foreground applauding.
A view of several racing cars competing on the track at Wake County Motor Speedway during a nighttime race, with spectators visible in the foreground.
Nighttime view of Wake County Motor Speedway, featuring cars, spectators, and a grandstand with the checkered flag
Nighttime view of Wake County Motor Speedway, featuring cars, spectators, and a grandstand with the checkered flag