Sports In North America, "Rock and Roll Part 2" became popularly associated with sports, as a number of
professional teams adopted the song for use during games, primarily to signify scores and victories, or to otherwise invigorate the crowd. It is often referred to as "The Hey Song", as the only intelligible word in Part 2 is the exclamation of "Hey", punctuating the end of several instrumental phrases and repeated three times at the song's chorus. It was played first in a sport setting in 1974 at games for the
Kalamazoo Wings of the high-minor
International Hockey League by Kevin O'Brien, the team's public relations and marketing director. When he went to work for the
NHL's
Colorado Rockies in 1976, he brought the song with him. After the Rockies moved to New Jersey as the
New Jersey Devils in 1982, the
Denver Nuggets and
Denver Broncos picked up the tradition and were the first
NBA and
NFL teams to play the song during games. In 1999, Glitter was convicted of downloading
child pornography in
England, and in 2006 of
child sexual abuse charges in
Vietnam. After the second conviction was upheld in court, the NFL asked teams to stop playing the song. The NFL allowed a
cover version of the song by the
Tube Tops 2000 to be played, but in 2012, the NFL instructed teams to "avoid" the song following negative reaction from British media to the
New England Patriots' use of the song. In 2014,
Billboard reported that the song was slowly falling out of favour due to both the controversies, and teams electing to replace it with newer songs. Following the 2014-15 season, the NHL officially banned use of the song following the controversies, with the New Jersey Devils and
San Jose Sharks (although the Sharks used an organ version) being the last two teams to use the song.
Film The song was first used in 1988's
Doctor Who as an adaptation "Doctorin' the Tardis" then in 1994's
Mighty Ducks 2 and again in the 1996 Adam Sandler film
Happy Gilmore. In 2019, "Rock and Roll Part 2" appeared in
Todd Phillips' film
Joker as Arthur Fleck dances down
a staircase, generating public controversy. Some sources indicated that Glitter, as co-writer of the song, would receive a lump sum and royalties for its use. According to the
Los Angeles Times, Glitter does not receive payment when the song is used, as he has sold the rights, and the US rights to the song are now owned by
Universal Music Publishing Group. ==Chart performance==