Hey, hockey fans – how about a little Laurel & Hardy?

If you’ve been to a Red Wings home game in the last two years, you’ve heard the magic fingers of Dave Calendine. This weekend, though, the Red Wings organist is heading north just as his team is heading out after its 6-day training camp at Traverse City’s Centre Ice.

Saturday evening, Calendine is bringing his organ chops to The Music House Museum in Acme. He’ll play the Wurlitzer Theater Organ – which itself came to TC from Detroit’s former Cinderella Theatre – as an accompaniment for two Laurel & Hardy silent film shorts.

For the past two seasons, Calendine was the organist for the Detroit Red Wings. But, as of right now, that gig is up.

“The Wings organization has decided to do something different with the music, something more toward rock ‘n' roll,” Calendine says. Sure he’s a bit disappointed, but he remains a fan. “I’ll still be there. I just have to buy my game ticket now.”

Calendine is a staff organist at the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit and also performs at The Redford Theatre, the Senate Theater and at his church.

How did he get hooked up with the Red Wings? The owners of the Fox Theatre, Mike and Marian Illitch, also own the Red Wings. One day he was asked if he might be interested in playing at “The Joe,” the home of the Wings.

This hockey fan didn’t think twice – despite the fact that he wouldn’t actually have an organ to play at the arena, just “a keyboard with Hammond organ sounds,” Calendine says. It was a thrill anyway, he says: “Anytime I got to play … and have 20,000 people cheering.”

So what is it about organ music that draws hockey clubs? Calendine says he isn’t certain, but despite the Wings’ new plan to fill the Joe Louis Arena with rock music for its in-game entertainment, organ music is an essential part of the game for hockey teams and fans elsewhere. The Tampa Bay Lighting just invested millions of dollars in facility renovations, and a humongous pipe organ is part of the package, he says.

Calendine started “tickling the ivories” when he was just three years old. But when he attended a concert featuring a “Mighty Wurlitzer Organ,” that was the turning point.

“I thought to myself, ‘I have got to get my hands on that,’” Calendine recalls. “I just love the full sound of the theater organ. You’re literally a one-man band.”

The rest is history. He was hired as a staff organist for the Akron Civic Theater when he was just 16 years old.

For the Laurel & Hardy shorts at The Music House Museum this weekend, he'll play right along with the action, knocks and all.

Interested in listening in and enjoying a good laugh or two? There are two showings tomorrow night: 5:30 and 7: 30 p.m. Check out musichouse.org or call 938.9300 for tickets.