Play Gloria! The St. Louis Blues win song has quite the backstory

The St. Louis Blues celebrate every win by playing Lauren Branigan’s pop-disco song, “Gloria.” Here’s the unlikely story that led to the victory song that’s taking over hockey.

By now, you’ve definitely heard “Gloria.” If not, you’ve at least heard every St. Louis Blues fan on Earth yelling “Play Gloria!” every time their team wins. When the Blues win, the 80’s disco classic by Laura Branigan blasts through the sound system at the Enterprise Center as 18,400 fans in attendance dance and sing along. It seems like one of those long-standing NHL stadium traditions, dormant for years of the team struggling and brought back to life by the Blues’ very recent success. It is not. Its origins are exactly the opposite.

It all started at a bar in Philly. Yes, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On January 6th, the night before their game against the Philadelphia Flyers, Blues players Jaden Schwartz, Robbi Fabbri, Robert Bortuzzo, Alex Steen, Joel Edmundson and their friend Larry “Flowers” Yatan (who invited them to the club) went to Jacks NYB, a private bar in Philly, to watch the Eagles play the Bears in their NFL wildcard game.

During commercials, a club member kept requesting the song “Gloria,” as it was the club’s victory song for a New Year’s parade they had won a few days before. It resonated with the Blues players who adopted it as their own victory song after beating the Flyers the next night. The Blues finished the back half of the season as the hottest team in the NHL and the rest was history. Gloria turned the last place Blues into the Western Conference’s best team. Larry Flowers explained the story in detail on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast back in early April (Skip ahead to around 34:40 for Larry).

Even if you cheer for any other team, you can’t be mad at this. The song is happy, timeless, upbeat and fun to sing along to. “Gloria” is a banger and it just might be the catalyst that a team in last place needed to make a Stanley Cup run (Jordan Binnington also helped).

Now, a Philly bar, previously decorated with the proud city’s sports team logos, is all-in on their adopted child, the St. Louis Blues, on this historic run to the Stanley Cup Final. Because of that fateful night, the Jacks NYB Twitter page is flooded with Blues content and the club is making a killing selling “Play Gloria” t-shirts. The story is so outlandish that it’s hard not to cheer for the Blues this post-season. It’s becoming one of those magical sports moments. The Philadelphia Flyers missed the playoffs this season but this… This is happening at a bar in Philly.

If you’re into the song, imagine how die-hard Blues fans feel right now. Here are but a few ways they are celebrating with the 1982 hit song:

• There’s a radio station in St. Louis that plans on playing “Gloria” for 24 straight hours if the Blues finish the Sharks in tonight’s game 6 (like they did after the Blues beat the Stars in the last round)
• A local brewery created a “Play Gloria” brew for Blues fans to enjoy.
• Branigan’s Twitter account, run by Kathy Golik of Other Half Entertainment who managed Laura before she passed away in 2004, has become a shrine to the song and the Blues fans who love it
• Gloria has become a must-play song for any wedding in the St. Louis area
• Watch parties during away games are selling out and going bananas for the song in an empty arena

Live it up, St. Louis. Enjoy this historic run and hope that it continues tonight if the Blues defeat the Sharks and move on to the Stanley Cup Final. A rematch of the 1970 Final would make for some very exciting storylines, especially since it would mark the first time the Blues would be competing for the Cup since then. A win Tuesday night means another step closer to Stanley Cup redemption and another reason to play “Gloria” at every radio station, bar, wedding and post-game party in Missouri.

If the Blues get the job done at home against the Sharks Tuesday night, you best be ready to hear some “Gloria”.