The 2015 NHL Awards are set to be held in Las Vegas Wednesday night. It is the annual celebration of the game filled with once-relevant musical acts, awkward player-actor award presenations and a comedic host often clinging to every hockey cliche in the book in hopes of a charity chuckle or two.
What you might not know is that the 2015 NHL Awards marks the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in NHL Awards history.
Gather ‘round, boys and girls. I’d like to tell you a story about a little half-decade called the early 1990s. It was a mystical time, full of teal, fanny packs, snap bracelets, Double Dare and New Kids on the Block.
We were a simpler people, then. We in the early 1990s were entertained by anything with bright colors and snappy catch phrases like “Did I do that?” and “WOAH!” or my personal favorite, “Haaaave mercy.”
The early 1990s was an especially magical time in the NHL, too. Wayne Gretzky was still in Los Angeles. Mark Messier did not yet have an award named after him. Jeremy Roenick was legitimately awesome and not just in NHL94 form. Chris Chelios was still like 15 years away from retiring. The neutral zone trap was the hot new fad and a movie became a real NHL team.
This radical era in our world’s history with its sitcom catchphrases, energetic music and Wayne Gretzky collided in the most dramatic fashion at the 1995 NHL Awards.
Not all that different from today’s award show, the 1995 edition was desperately trying to be culturally relevant and entertaining. So there obviously was an upbeat dance number that looked like it was a left over idea from 1991 or 1992 to open the show. Obviously. And what's an opening dance number without music with NHL Awards-related lyrics?
Oh, and jorts. Lots and lots of jorts.
LA Kings bloggers Spike Coffman and @TheMouthLAKings are apparently responsible for turning back the clock to 1995 to unearth this beautiful time capsule.
I can say, in all my years of living, which includes the entire decade of the 1990s, nothing in the history of the world has ever been more 1990s than this and it was dated even for 1995:
There's an awful lot to unpack here. It's hard to know where to begin, really, but we'll start with the lyrics. And if you’re wondering if someone took the time to sit through this video and transcribe the words to the song, the answer is yes and that person is me. The offseason, eh?
Now, this rapid-fire song and distracting dancing made it difficult to get this by the word, but I think the following is an accurate representation of what you are hearing or heard. Anything in italics is added commentary. The rest is all painfully real.
My apologies for erratic verse structure, but I tried to represent the pace of the song, which is all over the place.
::puck drops from sky into hands of a crazy-eyed dancer, music starts::
Drop it.
::grunting::
::more grunting::N – H –L
::grunts again::
N – H – L, Yeah!
Awwwwwwwww….N-H-L, Yeah!
::more grunting::
::still more grunting::
N-H-L, Yeah!
Hey, Goalies!
Did you pass the test?
Add your name to the Vezina [fest](? I’m not sure)
Stop every shot, Oh!
Too hot, too hot, Too hoooot!((Breakdancing))
Mister defenseman
You have no fear
On the blue line
Well, you’re the best one there
We tried
But we couldn’t get by((More breakdancing))
Yes, ya played it hard and ya played it clean
So smooth, so quick
You’re a plus… to your team
A gentleman just doing his thing
Take home the Lady Byng(And now that thing where every song between 1990 and 1993 decided to fill time with a bunch of go go goes. Again, this show was in 1995. Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" was the No. 1 hit that year for crying out loud.)
Go, go, go, go
::collective grunt::
::a second collective grunt::
::an additional collective grunt::Go, go, go, go
::another collective grunt::The Masterton
Perseverance
Dedication to the gameArt Ross
Scoring machine
We know your nameBest goals against
Take the Jennings home
The Selke
To a forward in a de-fen-sive role (I imagine the songwriter sitting on the Selke line for three days before just giving up)(sweetly sung/rapped) For helping your community
(oddly aggressive) Take the Clancy!Yo, coach
Give us inspiration
Got ‘em through every situation
You are the man
For the team, with a dream with a task at hand (this could be wrong, I hope I heard this wrong)In the NHL for the very first time
Making headlines
North, south, east and west
Hey, rookie
I’m impressedFrom the drop of the puck at the start of the game
Excitement
Leadership(?)
The Hart you will win(?)
M-V-P
[unintelligible]Go, go, go, go
::grunting again::
::more grunting::Go, go, go, go
::grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt::Awwwww
(at this point all dancers rip off their current jerseys to reveal New Jersey Devils threads)
Here’s what’s up
It’s all for the Stanley Cup
The video skips at the end and we may never know the dramatic conclusion. However, we’ll choose our own adventure here and imagine that Gary Bettman stumbles out from backstage, knocks over the Stanley Cup and says to the camera, “Did Iiii doooo that?”
::Laugh track::
::More grunting::
