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Shawinigan gets custom beats from DJ duo Jodoin and Narbonne

Anyone who has ever been to a CHL rink knows how important good warm-up music is to setting the tone for not only the game, but for the players as well.

No one knows this better than the defending Memorial Cup champion, Shawinigan Cataractes. Unlike most teams however, the Cats are lucky, because their DJs — Olivier Jodoin and Jonathan Narbonne — are also players in the lineup.

In the pre-season, since Jodoin had a penchant for playing around remixing music, his teammates asked if he could to make something for their home opener — so he collaborated with teammate Narbonne on a track they called: 'Internet Spaceman.'

"I was remixing on the bus with Jonathan Narbonne," said Jodoin, who goes by the name DJ Jods. "After I was done the boys said can you send it to us? So I said, 'Yeah I'll put it on YouTube so it will be easier for you to download.' Then the boys started to share it on Facebook and Twitter."

That was some 3,000 views ago.

Since it started being shared on social media, a number of hockey clubs — everyone from Triple-A teams in Quebec to the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers — are using the remix in either their warm-up or in the dressing room.

"I never thought it would be that big," said the 6-foot-3, 197-pound winger. "It's pretty nice, even here in Shawinigan they put an article about it in the newspaper. It's pretty funny."

Jodoin said it look roughly a week to complete using DJ software to remix and mashup the songs and samples — which includes a cleverly used iPhone ringtone played over Hardwell's track Spaceman.

"That's the reason I decided to call it Internet Spaceman because that's the part everyone loves," said Jodoin of the mix between the song and ringtone . "I heard (the ringtone) one time in a club and I said, 'Wow. That's pretty funny, I should put that on.'

"It's also funny because in the warmup the first time we heard it, some people in the stands were looking at their cellphones — it was pretty funny."

Jodoin said he's received great feedback from everyone in the league and has heard from fans as far away as Turkey and Japan.

"People have been tweeting at me, " said Jodoin. "We already have (heard from fans) in 12 countries — France, Turkey, Germany, Brazil — I've got a lot of countries and it's like, 'Wow.'"

He said the response to what he and veteran defenceman Narbonne — aka DJ Narby — have created has spurred them to continue with music.

"Probably next road trip me and (Narbonne) are going to sit together and figure out what songs we are going to put on the next (mix)," said Jodoin. "It's growing so big, so why not another one?"

Last year during the Memorial Cup hosted in Shawinigan, there was a definite club atmosphere in the rink complete with strobe lighting and lots of loud bass-driven beats — something that Jodoin said appeals to players trying to feed off of the energy.

"Hockey players like that kind of music," said Jodoin who sites David Guetta and Avicii as his favourite DJs. "And I made my mix for hockey players."

He said anything new they create will be put onto YouTube, but that there's been talk of possibly making their mixes available for download on iTunes.

"But I didn't do this for money," said Jodoin. "I just did it for the boys to have a good warmup song."

Sunaya Sapurji is the Junior Hockey Editor at Yahoo! Sports.
Email: sunaya@yahoo-inc.com | Twitter @Sunayas