It is a sound that stirs the emotions, makes Canadians stand up a little straighter and can even bring a rare smile of pride to the face of a Great White Northerner.
And while it's not our national anthem, there are some sports fanatics who think it should be. But the familiar notes of the Hockey Night In Canada theme heard every week during the NHL season for the past four decades may soon be like the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup - a glorious memory of the past.
What's happening to the noteworthy notes? The agency that controls the rights to the iconic tune claims the CBC's option on the theme has run out - and the Corp. is refusing to hand over the $500 fee that gets paid out every time the song is played.
The agreement to use the HNIC theme ended with the season on Wednesday night. It was composed by a woman named Dolores Claman and has been used in one form or anther on the broadcast every year since 1968 - coincidentally the season following the Leafs' last Cup triumph.
But John Ciccone of Copyright Music & Visuals, which owns the rights, claims he's been told the song has been given a final fadeout. "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has advised the composer, owner and administrator of the musical composition that it is not prepared to enter into a new license agreement with respect to the use of the theme," he writes in a
statement on his website. "The current license agreement expires at the conclusion of the 2007/08 NHL playoffs."
Claman has also weighed in on the controversy. "I am saddened by the decision of the CBC to drop the Hockey Night in Canada Theme after our lengthy history together," she writes on the same site. "I nevertheless respect its right to move in a new direction."
But the CBC insists - to interject a baseball adage into a hockey story - that it ain't over til it's over. "Our negotiations continue and if we can do a deal for the theme that's reasonable for both sides, we'll do it, it's a great theme," CBC's Scott Moore explains. "If we can't, then we have an alternate direction that we're excited about."
But he claims his first choice would be to keep it.
Still, Ciccone counters he received an email from the broadcaster giving him a
noon Wednesday
deadline to renegotiate or the agreement would be history. The clock struck high noon but there was no Gary Cooper-like figure to come to the rescue.
If the music man is right and Claman's famous song is no more, we may just have to change another iconic hockey classic to 'he shoots - but she no longer scores.'
For more on the history of the song and its composer,
click here.