The NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs just changed their goal-scoring song, again, for the third time in a week.
The team had changed it from Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” after fans complained the song wasn’t relevant or fresh enough, according to Yahoo.
The new song, however, was quickly eschewed due to an entirely different set of concerns.
The Steve Aoki remix of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit Of Happiness” lasted one day before it was scrapped. A team spokesperson told Yahoo that the team was aware of concerns about a line in the song that alluded to drunk driving. (RELATED: ‘Keeping The Focus On The Game’: NHL Players No Longer Wearing Pride Jerseys During Warm-Ups)
The line in question, which wasn’t even played in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, according to Yahoo, plays like “I don’t care, hand on the wheel, driving drunk I’m doing my thing.”
Nobody in their right mind is going to condone drunk driving, but to scrap the song, which players and fans appeared to enjoy immensely, over a lyric that doesn’t even get played in the stadium is utterly ridiculous.
Leafs forward Mitch Marner told Yahoo it was a “hell of a song” after his team’s 6-5 win Wednesday night.
By their next game Saturday the song had been replaced by the largely inoffensive “Dup Dup,” The Leafs Nation’s Nick Alberga reported.
Goal song no. 2 for the #LeafsForever:https://t.co/Baxl3p1BnS
— Nick Alberga (@thegoldenmuzzy) October 14, 2023
To even know that the song references drunk driving you either A: are a fan of the song, in which case it’s unlikely you’d complain, or B: went on a Google deep dive that could only be inspired by an increasingly common impulse to be offended.
This is seriously becoming a thing in every aspect of our culture. The Offended Industrial Complex, as I like to call it, will come for your favorite art form eventually. Today it’s a song that mentions drunk driving. Tomorrow it will be that the local coffee shop displayed artwork created by an artist who was mean to her boyfriend once, or something equally absurd. The more ground we cede to the offended, the more they’ll take. Can’t we just enjoy a song at a hockey game?