Blues turn regular-season win song 'Gloria' into playoff anthem

The St. Louis Blues are bringing back Laura Branigan's smash hit "Gloria" one win at a time.

The Blues revived the song as a postgame anthem during the regular season, and it's taking St. Louis by storm as they prepare for Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round against the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

"Gloria," which spent 36 weeks on the Billboard Top 100 and peaked at No. 2 in the United States in 1982, became the Blues' postgame song of choice after an outing at a Philadelphia bar on Jan. 6, when five St. Louis players went out to watch the Philadelphia Eagles-Chicago Bears NFL playoff game. The DJ on hand was taking music requests during commercials, and when he played "Gloria," the crowd quickly became infatuated with it.
"After a few times and there was a commercial, everyone would yell 'Play 'Gloria!'" forward Robby Fabbri said. "We kind of took to that too."
The next night, Blues goalie Jordan Binnington shut out the Flyers 3-0 in his first NHL start, and forward Alexander Steen suggested the song replace "Runaround Sue" by Dion as the Blues' go-to tune after wins.
The Blues won 29 of their final 44 games, and fans went wild for the song as it became part of the city's sports lore.
"Everything just kind of fell together after that. It's fun for us," Fabbri said. "We're still having fun with it."

It's caught on all over St. Louis and even at the bar that was at the center of that fateful night.
"We still talk to the guys that were at that bar," defenseman Joel Edmundson said. "They're so pumped. They're new Blues fans, and they love watching the Blues now, so they turned it into a Blues bar, I think. I think the whole city of St. Louis knows the song now. It's a song that no one really knows. It's pretty cool and it's something that brings everyone together."
NHL.com correspondent Louie Korac contributed to this report