The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Try to Make Their Goal Song Cool

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a lot of things, but “cool” isn’t one of them.

The Toronto Maple Leafs may have the best player in the game,  but they also have the worst goal song, apropos though it may be.

Auston Matthews looks like a guy who used the millions he made off his first big contract to buy a controlling stock in Axe Body Spray.

Mitch Marner was recently photographed wearing a bucket hat.

Hall and Oates sing “blue eyed soul”  the possibly least-cool kind of music this side of Yacht Rock.  I don’t hate the song  – it’s catchy as hell – but like the Leafs two superstars it’s really more effective than cool.

The Pixies are cool.

Bruce Springsteen is cool.

The Clash is cool.

Hall and Oates are your mother-in-law’s favorite band.

Toronto Maple Leafs Need a New Goal Song

Don’t get me wrong: I am a huge fan of the hockey players Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. I just find their style, which I’ll call Bro Chic, not to mention their association with Justin Bieber, to be pretty lame.

Bad tats, questionable facial hair and shorts that scream “I own stocks and a boat”  aside, you really can’t blame the dynamic duo: sports and being cool rarely go together.

Truly, for the vibe they give off, Hall and Oates is probably the perfect song.  But, it could be worse, as my colleague Mr. Nixon has so deftly pointed out.

If it was up to me, I’d blow people’s minds with a Daniel Johnston song.  

No question that would be really cool, but I don’t think it would really do the job of a goal song.

Where Is My Mind is the obvious meeting point where popular music intersects with something someone in a denim jacket could respect.  But its  iconic use in the movie Fight Club (I’m just gonna take a shot in the dark and guess this is Auston’s favorite movie haha) makes it off-limits and destroys its cred.

If you really wanted to be cool, I’d recommend this track from Husker Du:

Man, imagine that!  Now that’s a team I could cheer for.

But let’s get real.  Goal songs aren’t about being cool.  They are about getting 19 thousand people to scream.

We live in Canada.

The Leafs are Canada’s team.

But it doesn’t matter where you live, the only band that matters is the Clash.   There are dozens of acceptable choices, all better than whatever you think the new song should be.  Personally, I like Radio Clash, but you might be a Train in Vain girl.  The beauty here is you can’t go wrong.