Big League by Tom Cochrane & Red Rider

Album: Victory Day (1988)

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Songfacts®:

The lead single from Victory Day, this peaked at #4 on the Canadian singles chart, the first Top 10 hit for Tom Cochrane & Red Rider.
The song tells the story of an anguished hockey parent whose son had earned a scholarship to play with a big American team in the titular "Big League." Sadly tragedy strikes shattering their dreams.

The lyrics are based on a true story. Cochrane told The National Post in 2015 it was inspired by a parent who approached him before a show at a rink. "He came up and he said, 'My boy's a big fan of (1986 single) 'Boy Inside The Man.' And I said, 'Oh, is he coming to the show? We're playing it tonight,'" the singer recalled. "And he said, 'No, he passed away, he was an aspiring hockey player.'"

"And that just hit me like a ton of bricks."

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