Gino Odjick

Back in the time before Mike Keenan ruined watching the Canucks for me
When he traded away Trevor Linden
After letting Messier have the captaincy

I used to like to watch Gino Odjick, he played the enforcer role
Didn't have as much talent as some
But he sure played with an awful lot of soul

Now you can go ahead and be a jerk, and you can call him a goon
But he fought like a kid in the schoolyard
Who was trying to make the bullies lеave his little brother alonе

There was a reason that the people always shouted his name:
They recognized the emotions playing across his face
They recognized the feelings ‘cause they knew they’d often felt the same
It It's a determined look that says
I'm just fighting to stay in the game
I’m just fighting to stay in the game

Us Canadians like to believe that we're so polite and nice
But we're more like the Romans than we know
And we like to see a little blood on the ice

But the armchair shouters and the TV clowns, they don't pay the butcher's bill
It falls to people like Gino
To go out and bleed for the national spectacle

But he never let himself become another casualty
He took your worst impulses
And he turned them around, to lead a life of leadership and dignity

There was a reason that the people always shouted his name:
They recognized the emotions playing across his face
They recognized the feelings cause they knew they'd often felt the same
It's a determined look that says
I'm just fighting to stay in the game
I’m just fighting to stay in the game

Fighting to keep the love of our spouses
Fighting to keep the banks from taking our houses
Fighting to keep the respect of our children
"Making a living, not making a killing."*
Oh...
Let’s go

As a First Nations leader, Gino Odjick met with the Pope
It's true. (It’s true.)
Pope apologized for the Church's role
In Canada's residential schools

I wonder was he tempted to grab him by the jersey and pop him a few?
But Gino forgave him, said it's time to work
Together to build the future anew

Now he owns and runs the golf course out on the Musqueum
Leading young people with a strong example
That is what he’s always done

There was a reason that the people always shouted his name:
They recognized the emotions playing across his face
They recognized the feelings cause they knew they'd often felt the same
It's a determined look that says
I'm just fighting to stay in the game
I'm just fighting to stay in the game
*”Making a living, not making a killing.”
Is a phrase I heard from Utah Phillips, who lives on in song