Diapason Ice: Nostalgia Theory
and Performance Practice in NHL
Organ Music.
Antonio Giamberardino
M.A. Candidate, Music and Culture
Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada
March 11th, 2011
Society for American Music
03/08/11
The Hockey Organ: a Brief
History



03/02/11
Rise of the Secular
Organ → 19th century
Orchestrion, Carnival
Organs
“Omnipresence” of
organs in secular
places
Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Welteorc
hestrion1862.jpg
The Hockey Organ: a Brief
History



03/08/11
Chicago, 1929
Barton Organ
Company, Osh Kosh,
WI
Tremendous Volume
SOURCE: http://www.catoe.org
03/08/11
SOURCE: http://hammond-organ.com
1970s and 80s: The Rise of Rock
Music



03/08/11
1967 – League
Begins Expansion
Philadelphia
Spectrum and Rock
Concerts
1980s: Heavy Metal
and the “Young
Male” demographic
SOURCE: http://philadelphia.about.com
Nostalgia Theory

Janelle Wilson, Nostalgia : sanctuary of meaning
(Lewisburg : Bucknell University Press, 2005)

Origins and “Depsychologization”

Johannes Hofer (1669-1752)
03/08/11
03/08/11
Source: http://hockey-blog-in-canada.blogspot.com
Nostalgia Theory

Janelle Wilson, Nostalgia : sanctuary of meaning
(Lewisburg : Bucknell University Press, 2005)

Origins and “Depsychologization”

Johannes Hofer (1669-1752)
03/08/11
Nostalgia Theory




03/08/11
[A]n intra-personal expression of self which
subjectively provides one with a sense of
continuity.
[A]n interpersonal form of conversational play,
serving the purpose of bonding.
[A] form of ideologizing or mystifying the past.
[A] cultural commodity derived from the
experience of a particular age-cohort and
transformed into a market segment.
Case Study: the Detroit
Red Wings
•
From Detroit's Olympia
to Joe Louis Arena
•
2009: Dave Calendine
hired on
•
“Original Six”
connection
03/08/11
SOURCE: redwings.nhl.com
“Displaced” Nostalgia
•
Wilson: lack of relation between subject and
its object
•
NHL examples: Ottawa Senators and New
Jersey Devils
•
Benefits of nostalgia to its audience
03/08/11
Nostalgia Marketing:
For the Benefit of the Brand
•
Stephen Brown, Retro-marketing: yesterday's tomorrows,
today! Marketing Intelligence & Planning 17/7 [1999]
363-376
•
Noted nostalgia brands → Coca-cola, Starbucks, Old
Spice
•
The hockey organ and the VW Beetle
03/08/11
Benefits of Nostalgia Marketing
Clearly, the pervasiveness of retromarketing has something to do
with the companies that are promulgating it, since it doesn't
happen all by itself. From an organisational standpoint, indeed, it
makes eminent sense to play the heritage card when there is a
heritage to play with. In a world where top-notch performance is
industry standard in countless product categories – cars,
cameras, colas, cornflakes, chinos, cellular phones etc. – the
length of one's lineage remains a meaningful dimension of
differentiation and, at the same time, a means of positioning the
competition as less trustworthy, less reputable, less
knowledgeable than the first born.
03/08/11
FIN
03/08/11