So many of the venues the Hip plays are hockey arenas. I would write weekly reports, which were meant to demoralize and diffuse enjoyment for others.” I used to run the band hockey pool-regular season and playoffs. To be honest, it feels like the right time to do this interview would have been 10 years ago. We haven’t done that as much in the last 10 years. Or some of them hadn’t played in a long time. Not the band, but some guys would have a few and play. “We had a lot of band and crew games, too. It was like, ‘Okay, backstage, skates off, on stage.’ We would do that a lot. I remember our tour manager coming out and yelling at us, ‘You’re on in eight minutes.’ When you’re opening for someone, there’s no pressure. “I remember when we opened for Page and Plant, we did two legs of America as their opening act,” Downie recalled, “and we had this ferocious three-on-three game on Rollerblades in the parking lot of the Spectrum right before we went on. Gord Downie is a diehard Bruin fan, but even before discovering the Bs, he was a goalie in Amherstview, Ontario. Sometimes it was just ball hockey in an arena parking lot, but oftentimes it would entail finding ice and equipment to play a real game with the crew. In the early or middle years of the band’s existence, in the 1990s and early 2000s, the boys in the Hip would go to great lengths while touring to organize hockey games. They all like hockey they like watching it they like playing it- or at least, to varying degrees, they did. Drummer Johnny Fay always liked the Philadelphia Flyers. Bass player Gord Sinclair describes himself as a “floater,” a Chicago Blackhawk fan in his youth but now quite content to cheer for any team that is contending for the Cup. Guitar players Paul Langlois and Robbie Baker are fervent fans of the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, respectively. Gord Downie, the front man and lead singer, as has been duly noted, is a diehard Bruin fan, but even before discovering the Bs, he was a goalie in Amherstview, Ontario. Hockey just happens to be one of those things, the organic by-product of, well, being Canadian. The iconic Canadian rock band, which came together when five young guys from Kingston, Ontario, got together in 1983, writes a lot of music and sings a lot of songs that dissect, reflect or chronicle what it is to be Canadian, everything from Jacques Cartier to Tom Thomson to Hugh MacLennan to David Milgaard to Bobcaygeon.
Not every song the Tragically Hip sings is about hockey it just seems that way sometimes.
So, yeah, mostly about the Bruins.”Ĭould you really expect anything else from Gord and Pat, two boys who, when they were christened, had Harry Sinden, the architect of the Big, Bad Bruins and the team’s longtime head coach general manager, as their godfather? “We have deep discussions every day about the Bruins or other stuff that may or may not be important in our lives. It is deep and abiding, communal, maybe even tribal. Their passion for the black and gold knows no bounds. Now, whether it’s Gord talking to Pat, or Gord talking to Mike, or Pat and Mike talking to each other-they’re all Bruins at heart, dammit-it should go without saying, but needs to be said for emphasis nonetheless: the Downie brothers are not what you would call casual fans of the spoked B.
Gord and Mike are kin, flesh and blood, brothers in arms, but when it comes to the Bs, they sometimes tend not to see things the same way, so they will opt for the path of least resistance. That’s when Gord left Mike’s house in a huff because Mike was mad at Gord for not being happier for the ex-Bruin great winning his first Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. You see, Gord and Mike know that sometimes, in the interest of peace and love, it’s best to steer clear of certain topics, at least since the infamous Ray Bourque blowup of 2001. Gord and his older brother, Mike, will speak to each other about the Bruins-it isn’t like they never break bread over the Bs it’s not as if it’s forbidden-but it’s not as frequent, not as naturally simpatico as it is with Gord and Pat. When the Bs up their game in the postseason, so too do Gord and Pat. During the playoffs, contact is even more frequent and intense, upgraded to a combination of phone calls, texts and emails on pretty much a shift-by-shift, running-time basis during every Bruin game. They talk about what is near and dear to them: the Boston Bruins. Gord, and his younger brother, Pat, talk on the phone. TSN's Bob McKenzie shares his own story of Gord, an excerpt from his book, Hockey Confidential, which was released in October, 2014. The Tragically Hip announced Wednesday that lead singer Gord Downie passed away at the age of 53.
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