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Song sung blues Anthem antagonism needs to stop before things get uglyPosted: Saturday March 22, 2003 3:09 AM
Get a grip, people. They are just songs. Sure, they are meaningful, patriotic songs, but let's not denigrate one another's heritage by causing a ruckus during the national anthems at NHL games. Please, stop the booing before this escalates into a national incident and we have George W. Bush and Jean Chrétien talking smack about who would win a playoff series between the Capitals and Senators. Politics and pucks make strange bedfellows, so it was shocking to hear the fans in Montreal boo The Star Spangled Banner on Thursday. The last time the NHL had an anthem-booing showdown, at least the fiestiness was fueled by the hatred of the postseason. New York fans booed the Canadian anthem before Games 3 and 4 of last year's epic first-round series with Toronto. The Leafs fans responded by cheering the American anthem before Game 5 at Air Canada Centre. Kill 'em with kindness. In this latest round, a silly, spontaneous act brought shame to the NHL's most famed franchise and left it backpedaling Friday. "On behalf of the entire Montreal Canadiens organization, I would like to express my deep regret over the conduct displayed by certain fans prior to Thursday night's game against the New York Islanders," Habs president Pierre Boivin said in a statement Friday. "During the performance of The Star Spangled Banner, some of the fans in attendance at the Bell Centre chose to express their political beliefs by jeering the American national anthem. It is our firm belief that this kind of behaviour has no place in the context of professional sports." It wasn't surprising to see this demonstration of displeasure with the war effort in Montreal, since more than 200,000 people participated in an anti-war protest there on Saturday. Then, when a small group of idiots responded in kind on Friday by hollering during O Canada in Atlanta, things officially got out of hand. Once they were out of hand, they just got foolish. Someone in the Philips Arena crowd yelled, "Canada sucks!" during O Canada, while another patron shouted, "We carry your damn country, anyway!" after the anthem ended. "Just a handful?" Toledo, Ohio-born Bryan Smolinski laughed on Friday night when asked about the small group that booed the Canadian anthem. "It sounded like a lot of them. But they have a right to do that. Everything has been pretty sensitive for the past couple of days, so what are you going to do? Once everything is over [in Iraq], things will be all right." Atlanta released a similar conciliatory statement during the second intermission Friday, opting to do damage control during the game before the issue escalated. The crowds for recent war protests in Atlanta were much more sparse than in Montreal, with only 20,000 showing up that same day for a "Rally for America" at Centennial Olympic Park. "The Thrashers' organization firmly believes this type of behavior has no place in professional sports," the statement said. "We hope that this was an isolated incident and apologize to anyone who was offended, including the Canadian-born members of both teams." The Habs' fans were voicing their feelings about the United States' military involvement in Iraq. They should've waited for a better time to do it, but they were, in fact, making a legitimate protest in regard to their political feelings. Not the best venue, I suppose, but they made their point. "A hockey game is no time to boo the United States," Winthrop, Mass., native Rick DiPietro said Thursday night. "This really aggravates me. I am so embarrassed to be a hockey player." The Thrashers' fans were apparently mad that the Habs' fans had an opinion that differed from their own. But their protest was premeditated after the preferred method of response was argued all Friday afternoon on message boards. "I think tonight was just a reaction from what they saw on TV last night with the Canadian anthem in Montreal," Waltham, Mass.-born Thrashers captain Shawn McEachern said. "In both cases, it's not right, and it has no place in sports." Roswell, Ga., native Oldtimhockey proved his intellectual prowess by starting a thread on the Thrashers' Web site titled "Boo Canadian National Anthum Tonight!" Mr. Oldtimhockey showed his aversion to the letter "e" by not only leaving it out of his handle, but also by spelling "anthem" with a "u." "Let's let the people in Canada know how we feel about their booing our Anthum the other night at a game in Canada! I plan to boo during the entire Canadian Anthum." Did anyone think something good was going to come of this? McEachern and Smolinski are in the minority in their respective locker rooms, with McEachern being one of just two Americans on the Thrashers, and Smolinski being the lone U.S.-born player on the Sens' active roster. "I'm the only American here," Smolinski said Friday, looking around the emptying Ottawa locker room. "Obviously, Canada and the U.S. are two separate nations, but in a time like this, we are one. It's North America. We're one. And people have a right to speak." Another Senators player -- a native of neither Canada or the U.S. -- made light of the sudden anthem controversy while walking to the team bus following Friday's game. "It's all France's fault," he said. Senators general manager John Muckler summed the whole controversy up best by saying simply, "It shouldn't be that way." So here the sport of hockey is wrapped up in an international incident. Man the borders of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire. Build a wall between Washington and British Columbia. Watch out for a budding rivalry between Montana and border rivals Alberta and Saskatchawan. Hockey isn't the only sport featuring political debates about the war efforts. Canadian-born Mavericks point guard Steve Nash has come down against the war. Spurs center (and U.S. Naval Academy graduate) David Robinson was then critical of Nash's criticism. "It makes basketball awfully ridiculous when people are having bombs dropped on them and guns pointed in their face," Nash told the Dallas Morning News. "It's very difficult and somewhat embarrassing that in the year 2003, we're still threatening each other with violence. When you take into account that we run around in shorts and throw a ball through a hoop, it's certainly insignificant in the scheme of what's going on in the world." "Sometimes, if you think something is important, you have to stand up for it," Robinson told the San Antonio Express-News. "This is a world issue. If you have 35 other countries supporting us, obviously, somebody thinks it's the right thing to do. The whole United Nations agreed that [Saddam Hussein] is not a good guy, he's not a guy you can trust." Fans attending the Raptors-Heat game in Miami offered no negative reaction to the Canadian anthem. The NBA's product may be unwatchable, but at least its fans don't act like 2-year-olds during the anthem. The Senators-Thrashers game was the only NHL game Friday night matching a Canadian team against a U.S. team. There are five such games on Saturday: Hurricanes-Canadiens in Montreal; Senators-Panthers in Sunrise, Fla.; Predators-Flames in Calgary; Capitals-Oilers in Edmonton; and Sabres-Maple Leafs in Toronto. With four of those five games in Canadian cities, it will be interesting to see if the volley is returned. Americans: If you are still seething mad at the fans in Montreal for booing the anthem, remember this. Habs fans will have plenty of time to practice O Canada from the comfort of their own living room, since after April 6 they won't have the chance to sing it en masse at the Bell Centre again anytime soon. Canadians: If you have a problem with Atlanta's reponse and want to get a rise out of a Southerner, just remind them who won the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s. Can't we all just get along? Jon A. Dolezar covers the NHL for SI.com. Got a comment, question or scoop for Jon? Click here. |
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