You might know Mitch Albom from such TV shows as ESPN’s The Sports Reporters or his increasingly preachy Detroit Free Press sports column, perhaps disagreeing with him while reading or listening to his work. But Albom also has a successful career as an author and playwright, writing books and plays based on inspirational themes. His new play, titled Hockey, the Musical!, appears to be taking a slightly different approach.

In the stage production, which just opened in Detroit, God is trying to wipe the sport of hockey off the earth. He has decided that humans have created too many sports, and thus tries to eliminate one. After deciding against flooding the earth (which doesn’t make any sense), God sends an angel to Earth, who picks hockey as the sport to go, probably because he doesn’t want to hear Mike Milbury and Jeremy Roenick talk about it anymore.

“I always thought hockey was a quirky enough sport that, if you’re ever going to do a musical about a sport — and make it funny — it would make a great subject,” Albom told CBC’s Windsor Morning host Peter Duck (via Yahoo Sports Canada). Apparently, hockey is quirky enough to write a play about wiping it out. He wouldn’t have dared making up a story about getting rid of football, would he?

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Though Albom is from Detroit, Hockey, the Musical! could easily have been written by a Canadian with some of the jokes packed in the lyrics. For instance, “God brought us all forth from a place in the great white north. He created the loonie and Brian Mulroney and other things of that sort.” Oh, God is also Canadian, if you were wondering.

Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan even makes a cameo appearance on a video screen, along with several other famous hockey players, telling the audience that hockey heaven is somewhere in the Big Smoke, a reference to Toronto’s nickname that isn’t “The 6.” These hockey luminaries try to convince God that his arbitrary destruction of a sport is actually not a good idea, despite what he might be thinking.

Albom hopes his Canadian friends appreciate the humor, considering the play is basically written for them anyway.

“The nicest people I know are always Canadian, so I wanted to throw a bone towards the fact that, if the deity had to pick a nationality, he’d probably pick Canada because they’re good people,” he said.

This, of course, is not Albom’s only hockey project. He wrote a song about hockey for Warren Zevon titled “Hit Somebody,” which is amazing in its own right. Currently, Albom is writing the screenplay for an upcoming movie about John Scott.

If you weren’t sold on the concept before, maybe the news of Albom’s hockey play will help assuage your fears. Or, more than likely, it won’t. The John Scott movie is not going to be a stage musical. Or even a cinematic musical. Probably not, anyway.

[Yahoo Sports Canada]

About Matt Lichtenstadter

Recent Maryland graduate. I've written for many sites including World Soccer Talk, GianlucaDiMarzio.com, Testudo Times, Yahoo's Puck Daddy Blog and more. Houndstooth is still cool, at least to me. Follow me @MattsMusings1 on Twitter, e-mail me about life and potential jobs at matthewaaron9 at Yahoo dot com.