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cbc hockey night in canada – brought to you by the letters that spell “huge dolts”

Take a step back, Canada. It’s for your own safety. Believe me: you do not want to get too close to the ginormous pulsating brains at CBC when they are having An Incredibly Brilliant Idea!! You might get some genius on you.

From the people who sent Ron MacLean to Beijing to film all those did-you-know-China-is-Chinese? vignettes comes an even more Incredibly Brilliant Idea!!! Here it is in a nutshell (and believe me, it would fit): Why bother keeping the Hockey Night in Canada theme song, which everyone likes and recognizes and knows and is actually far more entertaining than just about any other aspect of the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast (except for at the outset of the playoffs when they locked P.J. Stock in the soundproof booth from Family Feud and forced him to watch the out-of-town games), when instead you can hold an Exciting National Contest to replace it?!

Think about it: Exciting National Contests are exciting! Whereas according to the head of CBC Sports, keeping things the way they are is boring and stupid and does nothing to enhance the year-end bonus given to the head of CBC Sports.

An Exciting National Contest is outside-of-the-box thinking! It’s a four-quadrant, real-time blockbuster of a synergistic brainstorm that exploits core competencies and can be immediately actioned! It will grow the brand! No sooner will an Exciting National Contest be ordered than the CBC superbosses will stroll along and proclaim with delight, “Whoa, who shifted this paradigm?!” Sure, the paradigm was shifted off the edge of the cliff and it plummeted to its horrible and grotesque demise, killing many, many innocent people – but the point is it was shifted.

Your move, status quo.

Question: Does everything now have to be a national contest? Must every freaking thing now be decided by audience vote, reality show, opinion poll, focus group or some other form of arduous, soul-sapping national consultation involving Farley Flex? Can’t some executive somewhere just make a goddamn decision without asking for a coast-to-coast show of hands? *

That said, just to cover my bases I nominate Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler as the new theme song for Hockey Night in Canada. Except sung by ninjas to give it more of a Saturday night vibe.

* This mockery does not apply to any potential national contest to replace Ron MacLean, Ben Mulroney or the radio program Tonic on CBC Radio Two (“Now listeners, here’s 20 minutes of excruciating cabaret jazz recorded live in front of three drunk shower-curtain salesmen at the Tulsa Airport Holiday Inn”).

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