The CBC suggested that Claman withdraw the 2004 suit, which might've paved the way to renewal of the theme. She apparently refused, and the Corporation walked away. There's a lot of time before the start of next season... In spite of all this sabre-rattling, legal positions can ebb and flow like the tide. Stay tuned...
Outraged hockey fans across the country have united online to protest the CBC's decision to ice the Hockey Night in Canada theme song.
CBC broke off negotiations Friday with the agency representing the composer of Hockey Night in Canada's famous dunt-da-dunt-da-duh ditty. The broadcaster issued a release expressing its disappointment at failing to reach a deal with John Ciccone, who represents composer Dolores Claman.
The online social networking site Facebook has been flooded with groups of hockey fans protesting the move to scrap the beloved theme song, with some starting petitions.
"I was raised on that song and I plan on raising my children with that song," wrote Tre Meyers of Vancouver.
One Facebook group of angered hockey fans alone had 7,000 members crying foul over the move to replace the song.
"I can hum this song better than I can hum O Canada -- it's almost as if we're tearing a page of history from the pages," wrote Mark Wedgewood of Guelph, Ont.
"Hockey will never be the same for me."
Claman, (a former Vancouverite) who now lives in England, gets C$500 each time CBC uses the song. Ciccone was looking for a similar deal this time around.
The licence agreement between Claman and CBC expired at the end of the NHL season Wednesday.
CBC has announced a contest to compose the new theme song. The winning composer will earn C$100,000, with some royalties going to minor hockey associations.
Hockey theme can go, as long as Leafs games do too by Jack Knox Victoria Times Colonist Published: Sunday, June 08, 2008
Can't believe the CBC will lose the Hockey Night In Canada theme music.
But then I can't believe I lit my fireplace in June, either.
The Canadian Broadcorping Castration, as some like to call it, says it has given up trying to reach a deal with Dolores Claman, the woman who wrote the tune in 1968. If they indeed can't work things out, Canada's familiar Saturday night anthem will be heard no more, replaced by, well, who knows, perhaps Don Cherry singing Give Peace A Chance.
Judging by the torrent of editorial invective flowing from this news, you would think the Hockey Night nastiness constitutes the greatest crisis facing Canada today -- which is, from one perspective, oddly comforting, a sign that nothing truly threatening bothers us. Good thing nobody's starving or the globe's not warming or anything.
Just goes to show how much people care about this iconic music, which is as quintessentially Canadian as Mounties, maple syrup and cheating on your income tax. It has been heard as a ring-tone, been played as a wedding march. When sheet music for Claman's tune was finally produced in 2000, it immediately shot to the top of the sales chart. Four years ago, the Shuffle Demons got 930 saxophonists to play the theme in downtown Toronto.
Ah, yes, Toronto, the spiritual home of our national broadcaster -- if by "national" you mean the area spanning Barrie to Windsor. Hockey Night In Canada aired 85 regular season games this year, 86 of which featured the Toronto Maple Leafs. By contrast, the Ottawa Senators, hockey's best team for the first part of the season, could be found only on the side of a milk carton. If there's one thing that binds all Canadians, or at least those living outside the 416 area code, it's their resentment of the gushing treatment given Toronto.
The Maple Leafs like to think this makes them Canada's version of the New York Yankees, the team most despised by the rest of the USA. One big difference, though: The Leafs suck. In his forward to Victoria writer Bill Gaston's book Midnight Hockey, Will Ferguson wrote of a telephone conversation with Will's brother Ian, an Oilers fan who had moved to Toronto: "In the background I could hear horns honking, people yelling, and when I asked him about it, he grumbled '[bleeping] Toronto [bleeping] Leafs.' The Maple Leafs had won something spectacularly unimportant -- a game maybe, or perhaps they got a shot on goal, or managed to miss the playoffs by fewer points than last year." I mentioned this passage to Ian when he was in Victoria last week, and got some anti-Toronto muttering in reply. Good guy, that Ian.
Not, I hasten to add, that there is anything wrong with Maple Leaf fans themselves. No, you have to admire people who soldier on with such improbable optimism. Their team hasn't won the Stanley Cup since, well, since before the Hockey Night In Canada theme was written, yet still they hold out hope. It's like watching Jimmy Hoffa's dog sitting at the end of the driveway, waiting for his master to come home.
So, no, gotta like a Leafs fan. In fact, Stephen Harper's affinity for the team might be his one endearing quality. Most national-level politicians park their allegiances when elected, the idea being that if you cheer for one team, you'll alienate the voters who back the rest. Maybe neutrality is the prime minister's official stance, too, but the closest he ever came to looking human was at a Toronto game where the Hockey Night In Canada camera caught him shooting out of his seat in joy when the Maple Leafs scored. Remember, this is the same man who stiffly shook hands with his nine-year-old son as though he were the Bulgarian ambassador.
But I digress. The point is that the problem isn't with Leaf fans, but with the CBC, which acts as though the rest of us all wear blue and white, too.
So let's make Hockey Night In Canada a deal: They can drop our beloved, comfortably constant theme music, even open the show with Celine Di ... Di ... (sorry, this is hard to say without gagging) Dion if they like, as long as they stop forcing the Toronto Bleeping Maple Leafs down our throats every Saturday.
CBC is its own worst enemy. If they hadn't killed the CBC Orchestra - maybe they could've composed a newer version and own the "rights" - without having to pay royalties. Dohhh! That's what you get having appointed political bureaucrats run a broadcasting enterprise where WE the tax-payers fund it.
Something about this whole story REEEEEEEEEKS of the CBC looking for an excuse to do another "voting" contest. I don't know that they really care that much about the song, so much as they just REALLY want an excuse to "have the viewers pick a new one" where they can run a show for a few months and make a few billion dollars in advertising from Ford and Coca Cola Co.
CBC asks mediation expert to stickhandle negotiations for hockey theme song Canwest News Service Published: Monday, June 09, 2008 Former Vancouverite Dolores Claman
TORONTO - CBC is not ready to hang up its skates in its Hockey Night in Canada theme song negotiations.
The broadcaster said Monday in a statement it had asked a well-known sports lawyer and expert in mediation to serve as an intermediary in its negotiations with Copyright Music & Visuals, the copyright holder of the iconic theme song.
CBC said it hoped Osgood Hall law school professor Gord Kirke's involvement would help resolve outstanding issues over extending the licence to continue using the tune, also known as Canada's second national anthem.
"(Kirke's) ability to negotiate integral resolutions in sticky situations is incredible. Gord is an ideal candidate to assist CBC and the theme song rights-holders in brokering a positive agreement," said Scott Moore, executive director of CBC Sports.
Moore said Kirke's appointment signalled that the CBC wants to exhaust all possible avenues before giving up on the theme song.
"We feel this song is worth one last attempt to save," said Moore. "Canadians are passionate about its association with Hockey Night in Canada."
Kirke is considered to be one of Canada's top sports and entertainment lawyers, said CBC in the statement.
"Canadian Hockey fans clearly identify this music with their enjoyment of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada," said Kirke, in the statement. "I welcome the opportunity of exploring means by which this can continue."
He is also a sports and entertainment law professor at York University and University of Toronto and the first Canadian Director of the Sports Lawyer Association.
CBC announced last week it was considering dropping the popular theme song to Hockey Night in Canada because of a contract dispute with its composer.
TORONTO - CTV has acquired the rights to the song that's been CBC's `Hockey Night in Canada' theme for the past 40 years. CTV and Copyright Music and Visuals, the company that controls use of the classic song composed by Dolores Claman, announced Monday afternoon that CTV acquired all rights to the song in perpetuity. The network says it will use the song on NHL broadcasts on TSN, RDS and during the broadcaster's coverage of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. CTV says it made an agreement in principle Friday with Copyright Music and Visuals after CBC announced a contest to find a new theme song. The contest announcement followed months of negotiations that failed to result in a new licensing agreement between CBC and the agent. CBC's licence to use the song expired at the end of the Stanley Cup final last week. (The Canadian Press)
CBC is its own worst enemy. If they hadn't killed the CBC Orchestra - maybe they could've composed a newer version and own the "rights" - without having to pay royalties. Dohhh! That's what you get having appointed political bureaucrats run a broadcasting enterprise where WE the tax-payers fund it.
Let's not forget (because this is being bandied about everywhere) CBC Sports gains ad revenue just like Newsworld to support itself.
Now if i were CBC, i'd abandon the silly HNIC Theme contest and get on the blower with EA Sports...the video game people. see what kind of theme they can come up with. Some of their themes have attitude! Not to mention the cross promotion that would be created by having that theme in every XBOX, WII, Playstation that has the game.
OR, something that reflects the current state of the game...say "Yakety Sax!"
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