Five, four, three, two, one… the clock hits zero. The crowd starts to yell as the goal horn sounds. The game is over. The Wisconsin men's hockey team has just come back from down 2-0 to beat Notre Dame, 4-2, on a Friday night at the Kohl Center.

The cheers of almost 10,000 fans echo through the arena as the team showers David Silye, who scored both the game-tying and game-winning goals, with hugs and high-fives. Once the last helmet has been tapped, the team sings "Varsity" with the student section, waves to the crowd one more time and exits toward the locker room. 

Senior forward and team alternate captain Silye may have been the hero on the ice, but he has yet to complete his most important task of the evening – hitting play on Paul Simon's 1986 hit "You Can Call Me Al" to kick off the team's post-win celebration.

The locker room fills with the sounds of funky bass and upbeat drums as Simon starts to sing, "A man walks down the street…," which is the Badgers' cue to let loose and congratulate themselves on winning a hard-fought game.

"It's awesome," said David Silye on this special task. "You try to time it right as the guys are giving post-game speeches; you fade into the song and build up the momentum. I love those little transitions, hitting play on the right song to match the mood."

Silye, who transferred from Minnesota State this season, is the team's official DJ and the mastermind behind this iconic post-game tradition. 

"At the beginning of the year, you're just trying to find that win song, trying to find something that sticks," he said. "We were in the gym one day and we needed some energy. I think one of the freshmen ended up playing ["You Can Call Me Al"], and they all rallied around it. They started hootin' and hollerin'. It really got us going, so I thought, 'maybe I'll try this one [post-win] one day,' and it just kind of stuck."

Fellow senior forward and alternate captain Mathieu De St. Phalle notes that hearing the win song play is one of his favorite moments on game days.

"I think the win song's awesome, especially because we all get up and dance to it," he said with a laugh. "We have the broom going around when we sweep, so that's pretty funny too."

Sophomore forward Christian Fitzgerald, who played with Silye at MSU last season, adds that Paul Simon's hit is his favorite song David plays. "100%," he said.

Despite receiving this high praise, being a hockey team DJ is something relatively fresh on Silye's resume. 

The Arnprior, Ontario, native started playing hockey when he was about 7 or 8, which he considers "a little late" to the game. The son of a professional football player, Silye began his athletic career playing tennis, golf and other individual sports before trading in his clubs and rackets for skates and sticks. 

He quickly moved through the ranks, skating for multiple AAA teams before playing in the BCHL for four years. Silye then began his collegiate hockey career, playing close to home at Clarkson University his freshman year. He then played at Minnesota State for two years before transferring to UW-Madison for his senior season. 

It was during his last year at MSU that Silye first picked up the role of team DJ.

"We had a senior named Julian Napravnik on our team my first year at Mankato and he was from Germany so he had really good taste in music," he said. "Once he left, I just kind of took over on the aux. Always listening to music is something I enjoy. I like hanging out in the locker room before games, so being able to play what I want was nice for me."

He carried his love and passion for both music and hockey to Madison, where there happened to be a vacant DJ position. 

Graduate student defenseman and team captain Mike Vorlicky recalls that at the beginning of the season, the role of team DJ was up in the air. As time went on, it was unanimous that Silye deserved to be in sole possession of the aux.

"He kind of took it over," said Vorlicky. "What he's really good at is reading the vibe of the room. The way he can read what guys are feeling and figure out what kind of music to play, I think it's really good."

Silye's other teammates echo Vorlicky's words. 

"I think Dave's got the best aux in the league," said Christian Fitzgerald. "He always knows what the vibe is and picks the right songs that fit with it."

Mathieu De St. Phalle appreciates the genre diversity in his teammate's playlists. 

"He knows when we need something a little bit more pump up, more energizing," he said. "Some days, he knows it should be a little bit more chill. Great country music, great EDM music, great rap music. He takes requests, but he knows which requests to shut down because some guys have bad ones. He's always getting the boys going."

Silye credits his DJ abilities to his brother, who also grew up playing hockey but decided to pursue a full-time career as a musician. 

"My brother is probably the only musically talented person in our family," said Silye. "He's got a band, Doohickie Cubicle. I really looked up to him growing up. He's where I learned how to pick up on certain things as far as how much he enjoys music and appreciates all kinds of music. I think he really widened my scope of everything." 

Silye's versatility on the aux matches his versatility as a hockey player, a quality necessary in any locker room leader. He's currently an alternate captain for the Badgers, a position the forward takes a lot of pride in. 

"It's not your typical way of becoming a leader," he said on receiving the "A" as a senior transfer. "It's been a journey. Usually you're there for a few years before being part of a leadership group, so it has its own, different challenges. Mike [Vorlicky] and Matty [De St. Phalle] have been a huge help coming in – I think we really feed off each other. Since it's all new, nobody knew what to expect. I think having each other has been a ton of fun with everybody buying into it."

Having a good playlist is not the only quality Silye's teammates and coaches have praise for. Everyone agrees that he does an exemplary job at focusing on his 'dailies,' a concept important to men's hockey Head Coach Mike Hastings relating to living in the present and focusing on controlling everything within your power in a 24-hour period.

"He's developed into a top-six, power-play, penalty-killing minute-eater for us," said Hastings, who's coached Silye for the past three years. "When you have people in those roles, you want them to do the things away from the rink as well as what they do at the rink, and David's done that. I've got a tremendous amount of respect for him as an athlete. He's got a selflessness to him that I think other people are brought to because of the respect they have for him."

Mathieu De St. Phalle adds: "Doesn't matter if anything is going on in his life, he always comes in with the same work ethic, the same good attitude. Dave makes other guys around him better. He's a pleasure to be a leader alongside – I've learned a lot from him."

Mike Vorlicky notes that the way Silye approaches things day-to-day can be compared to that of professional athletes.

"I think everyone can learn from and lean on him and see what he does," he said. "Younger guys who come in with different habits can be like, 'oh, those habits are the ones I want to take on.' I think that's huge for the group."

"He's a great guy to be around all the time, always positive, and that's what makes him such a great teammate," said Christian Fitzgerald.

Transferring to a new school and earning the trust and respect of a fresh group of guys is not an easy task, but Silye used his love for music as a way to build relationships with his new teammates. 

"Music does bring people closer together," Silye said. "It builds something in common. I've always been known for being kind of shy and quiet, so I think music's a good way to express yourself and let people see different sides of you. You learn about other people, too – it kind of tells a story about them."

De St. Phalle has taken note of Silye's unique ability to use an off-ice passion to bond with his teammates. 

"The music Dave plays for us is a way for him to connect with us, whether that's on a teammate level, on an emotional level or on a spiritual level," he said. "I think he has a really good sense of what we need as a team, and music's the way he expresses that."

The forward's music has also helped him strengthen his relationship with the coaching staff.

"I like Dave's mix," said Coach Hastings. "There's some mixes that I hear come out of our locker room that I have a tough time connecting with, but not Dave's. I think he's got an appreciation for music that I can connect to a little bit with some of his stuff."

From morning lift pump-ups, to casual practice jams, to pre-game warm-up tunes, to "You Can Call Me Al," David Silye has engineered the 2023-24 Badger men's hockey team's soundtrack to success.

"It's been fun playing different songs," he said. "When you link certain songs to special moments, that's where you create your memories, and I think that's been happening this year."