I always watch the Canadian broadcast of a game rather than the American. I actually quite enjoy NBC's and even Versus commentators and presentation, but there are certain Canadian-centric traditions I must simply indulge in.
Take for example - the national anthems. Almost always CBC will broadcast live coverage of both anthems. TSN and Sportsnet usually show at least the Canadian anthem.
American broadcasts very rarely show the anthems, which is a real shame. Take Sunday for example, where NBC audiences were not show the live coverage of God Bless America in Philadelphia, while CBC audiences were. How good was it? So good that NBC did a short feature on it coming out of the commercial break.
The Flyers of course have a tradition of having the legendary Kate Smith sing God Bless America, with great superstitious influence on the outcome of the game. When Smith sings, the Flyers almost always win.
Of course Ms. Smith died 23 years ago. They've carried on the tradition by showing video footage of her singing. In more recent years, they have combined the video footage and new anthem singer Lauren Hart, daughter of legendary Flyers announcer Gene Hart, to create one of the most stirring duets out there.
Of course, last night's anthem is not readily available on YouTube. Here's a similar performance from last season, I believe.
Great stuff from two great singers.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (no pun intended Flyers fans), there were a few classless buffoons in St. Louis last night. A small but noticeable minority of Blues fans were booing the Canadian national anthem. That's about as low as it gets.
If the series gets back to Vancouver, I hope Canucks fans cheer on the American anthem and show those few dozen idiots what class is all about.
1 comment:
there was a couple of games this season in Montreal where it was a montage of the one that was singing the anthems in the 70's, you know, when the Habs were really always winning... I just don't remember the name...
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