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Green Day and the NHL Ink New Partnership

The league is hoping the band's "Fire, Ready, Aim" will become a hockey anthem
Green Day and the NHL Ink New Partnership
Photo: Greg Schneider
By Calum Slingerland
Published Sep 30, 2019
Any true Green Day fan would wait until tomorrow to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong and his bandmates, but the NHL has jumped the gun in announcing a new partnership with the punk vets. Today, the league and band have detailed a two-year marketing and promotional partnership, which will include "performances, appearances and other collaborations."

The team-up will begin with the band's forthcoming Father of All... song "Fire, Ready, Aim" serving as the opening theme song to NBCSN's Wednesday Night Hockey. The league has also announced that like Kid Rock before them, Green Day will perform at the NHL All-Star Game, which is set to take place in St. Louis on January 25, 2020.

Outside of that placement, the NHL notes that songs from the forthcoming Green Day album will be "featured in NHL game highlights, broadcast bumpers, tune-in campaigns, and in-arena jumbotron content."

"Green Day is the perfect band for the NHL," NHL chief content officer and executive vice-president Steve Mayer said in a press release. "Their music fits so perfectly with the energy, speed and power that we witness on the ice and each and every night."

Speaking with the Associated Press, Mayer said he believes the song could become synonymous with the Wednesday night broadcast. 

"If you look at our season and how many times this thing is going to be on, it'll become an anthem," he said. "The song, we're using slap shots, it's about scoring and speed — 'Fire, Ready, Aim' — I think people will start associating this."

Green Day added, "This NHL season is hereby known as LOUD season... where the toughest athletes to ever lace up a pair of skates meet the baddest rock band on the planet. So turn up the volume on your TV sets, fire, ready, aim and enjoy the ride."

While a number of hockey fans seem ready to give the partnership a chance, the announcement has become yet another opportunity for many others to clown the NHL's perpetually busted pop culture barometer, on top of its perceived inability to market itself to people who aren't "30-40something white guys."

You can find some reaction below.

Green Day's Father of All... will arrive on February 7 via Reprise/Warner. Next year, the band will also head out on "The Hella Mega Tour" with Weezer and Fall Out Boy.