ARLINGTON, VA — On the morning of his NHL debut, Cole Hutson kept some secrets close to his chest. Hutson, like the rest of the Capitals, had gotten the task of picking a goal song when he arrived in DC: he’d made his choice the night before, but didn’t want to make it public just yet.
“I’m not going to tell you,” he told reporters Wednesday morning. “I’m going to make you wait.”
“Or you can score three,” replied Capitals play-by-play announcer Joe Beninati “Then (we’ll) find out quickly.”
Though he didn’t manage the hat trick, Joe B was right that fans wouldn’t have to wait long. Hutson tallied his first NHL goal that night, scoring against the Ottawa Senators on an empty net in the final minute of the game. The sound of cheering from Capital One Arena nearly drowned everything else out, but underneath the screams, Hutson’s song blared out: Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire.”
After the game, a shaving cream-covered Hutson said he’d enlisted help from new roommate Pierre-Luc Dubois to make the pick.
“Me and Dubie were sitting in his kitchen…I get a text saying I have to pick a goal song, and we were going through songs, and that’s what we went with,” he said.
Dubois later gave his account of the decision-making process: once “Great Balls of Fire” started playing, he could tell from Hutson’s reaction that they’d found a winner.
“He just played me a bunch of songs,” Dubois told RMNB. “He had a few decent ones, and then that one, he had a smile on his face, so that sounds like that’s the one.”
The classic rock song, which came out nearly half a century before Hutson’s birth, hardly seems like the most likely choice for the Capitals’ youngest player. “Great Balls of Fire” saw a surge in popularity after its inclusion in the 1986 film “Top Gun” (as well as several of its sequels), but as far as Dubois knew, that wasn’t why Hutson picked it.
“No,” Dubois said. “I mean, maybe that’s where he got the idea from.”
Most of Hutson’s other ideas were more modern, including some from Drake, who he’s named his favorite artist to listen to pregame.
“(The runner-ups were) a few Drake songs, and then a few crowd pleasers,” Dubois recalled.
Hutson also didn’t go with what seemed to be the obvious choice, Pilot’s 1975 song “Magic,” playing off the nickname he used at Boston University and had used in personal Instagram posts.
Out of all the options Hutson and Dubois considered, however, “Great Balls of Fire” stood out from the rest.
“He said he wanted to be himself,” Dubois said. “He just played a bunch of, not normal, but songs everybody knows. And then he played (“Great Balls of Fire”). That’s different.”
Intentional or otherwise, Hutson’s pick mirrors the goal song of one of the franchise’s most decorated players: John Carlson. Carlson used Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” from the introduction of personalized goal songs in 2019-20 right up until his trade to the Anaheim Ducks earlier this month, and “Go Johnny, go” became a regular refrain at Capital One Arena.
Carlson was one of Hutson’s favorite players as a child, and before Carlson’s unexpected move, he appeared set to mentor Hutson through his adjustment to the NHL. Even after his 17-year tenure in Washington came to an end, Carlson reached out to Hutson before his final game with BU, offering him advice if he ever needed it.
To Dubois, Hutson’s goal song brought back memories of watching Carlson score.
“That’s what I said, too. It was like, Johnny had an old song, so there you go. It’s kind of similar in that sense,” he said.
If Hutson’s debut is any indication, fans will get used to hearing “Great Balls of Fire” in the years to come.
