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When I discovered that Adolphe Sax was born on this day, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind as to the theme I was going to play for every stoppage, Zamboni, and warm-up session for the two games in the Bendis division.

The various saxophones look like the creation of an utterly mad mind with all of the valves and buttons and I’m sure people were wondering just what in the hell Adolphe Sax was thinking of when he designed the early saxophone.

I can’t imagine that he would have ever thought his creation would become a staple instrument in jazz ensembles (jazz wouldn’t really be a thing until right around his death in the late 1890’s) or the instrument you’d most often hear late at night on Cinemax when the action on the screen was going to get a little more hot and heavy… 😉

Anyway, not only is the saxophone one of my favourite instruments to listen to and very occasionally play…a certain referee in this league who would dearly love tonight’s show but isn’t available has played three variations of the saxophone starting on my old $5 UCF band salvage special alto sax (I’d won that completely scratched up instrument shaped object that still played pretty well in a surplus auction along with a clarinet which was actually the more expensive of the two instruments at $10!) before working his way to performing on a tenor sax and baritone sax in both marching band and concert/jazz ensembles in high school.

Here is Nick marching the tenor saxophone in his first year in the Enloe High School marching band and he’s stealing a glance at his Carnage Middle School band teacher Mr Pellas (in blue) who is judging the musical performance in competition at Garner. To say he was shocked to see Mr Pellas out there was an understatement but fortunately he kept his wits and his steps the way they were supposed to be… 🙂

He still has yet to put his hands on my soprano saxophone (that’s the one that looks rather like a big brass clarinet in the featured image that Kenny G and Jeff Kashiwa favour) which is safely hidden in plain sight but I’m sure he’ll end up playing it at some point or another.

Anywho, the tracks started at three songs in a saxophone-heavy playlist I’d always intended to fully populate with my favourite sax tracks that has now grown to a 181-track monster playlist now weighing in at 14 hours 35 minutes that should give plenty of lovely saxophone fodder for your listening pleasure! 🙂

Game 1 Warm-Ups

Zamboni and Game 2 Warm-Ups

Post-Game