Contrary to how I thought I’d feel about the NHL All Star weekend, I more or less enjoyed the entire spectacle. Of course it had its gimmicks that predictably failed, but there was nothing unforgivably egregious.

Fuck this band.

… except of course for the inexcusable failure of the weekend that happened during the first intermission of the All Star game. I can’t for the life of me comprehend why anyone would decide that shitrock band 3 Doors Down (who were last relevant – but still awful – eleven years ago) would make for great entertainment and somehow be able to represent the bad-assery of hockey and its elites.

And I’m not alone. When 3 Doors Down started playing, Twitter users were almost immediately, uh, atwitter with criticism of the band. Due in large part to @NHL asking thousands of twitter users to tweet the band’s name as an answer in a twitter trivia question contest, ”Doors Down” became a trending topic for what was probably the last time the band will ever see this kind of surge in social media activity involving them. Unfortunately for the band, a large portion of the tweets that came up for that trending topic (when not related to the trivia contest) where either fiercely negative, or simply called in to question the relevancy of the band in 2011.

Whereas most of the tweets were washed away by the answers to the trivia question, our HockeyPunx crack team of investigators were able to dig up a few gems that popped up…

• EAMatt what happens when old white people choose the intermission entertainment? 3 doors down. [Source]
• AdamJBrady I’ll go to an old joke to describe 3 Doors Down performing at intermission: They were available. [Source]
• kms1914 Okay, who at the NHL’s marketing department is related to one of the guys in 3 Doors Down? [Source]
• lostheather 3 Doors Down still exists? [Source]
• fghtoffyrdmns 3 Doors Down? NOT IN MY HOCKEY GTFO! [Source]
• horbayj 3 doors down? Is it 2001? #tothedelorian [Source]
• donnellyjcd 3 Doors Down? Shame on you NHL [Source]
• meg_kerr 3 Doors Down? Umm, for serious? [Source]
• PeppyLives 3 Doors Down? White trash hoedowns are never a good idea to do on the ice. Come on NHL get it together. [Source]
• ryanwmurray NHL loses bet with relevance, hires 3 Doors Down to play All Star game. [Source]
• briannecole Three doors down…gag me [Source]
• mjamiebell Wow 3 Doors Down. I hope they roll out the Spin Doctors for the next intermission. #thisislame [Source]
• satherHater It’s going to take awhile to start the second period. A lot of manpower is needed to clean up the mess that 3 Doors Down just left! [Source]
• kairants watching the NHL All Star game. They could have picked a better band than ’3 Doors Down’ to play during intermission! What an epic fail. [Source]
• jimmyontheradio I think 3 Doors Down should stick to NASCAR events. [Source]
• Spec7ral Thanks NHL for reminding me how bad 3 Doors Down suck rotting cock smeg. #suckforlife #thingsweallhate [Source]
• clinnehan20 the NHL couldn’t find anybody more relevant than 3 doors down? [Source]
• rachargyle There are so many good bands out there who made the call on 3 doors down performing? Lame! [Source]
• KPBurrows 3 Doors Down… singing the exact same song for 13 years and counting [Source]

I sure don’t have those answers. But I absolutely refuse to believe that the league is this out of touch (though I admit sometimes it tries pretty hard to convince otherwise). In fact, in the past they’ve nailed it – does anyone remember a firestorm of vile contempt when say, the Dropkick Murphies played at the 2010 Winter Classic? Of course not. Was anyone upset when The Briggs played a set at Staples Center during a Kings playoff game? Okay sure; most people were upset to see the Kings undeservedly in the playoffs, but no one was mad that The Briggs came along with them.

The Briggs at Staples Center

Decisions like the ones to include the Dropkick Murphies and The Briggs in NHL events need to be rewarded and celebrated, and we should be letting whoever’s responsible for them (be it the league or the individual franchises or whoever else) know, or else we’re going to be stuck with more vanilla-rock bullshit like 3 Doors Down. The intensity of punk bands like the Dropkick Murphies and The Briggs actually compliments the excitement of the sport, and in those two particular examples, the bands’ clear ties to the communities they were playing in help to emotionally engage the fans — even those fans from out of area, regardless of the team they root for.

We here at HockeyPunx have been spouting off about the connection between punk rock and hockey endlessly, and if this endeavor has taught us anything, it’s that we’re far from the first or only people to recognize this link between the two. We’re constantly finding articles, communities, podcasts and other endless examples proving our same point: Hockey is the punk rock of sports. And so then, why not an appropriate soundtrack?

Basically, this all boils down to one simple point that I sent out in a tweet while I disappointedly watched 3 Doors Down perform, and I’ll leave you with that now:

Next time (and every time); punk rock.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 31st, 2011 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Hockey News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.