It was a tempestuous and loud affair well before the puck even dropped at Tuesday night’s NHL game in Winnipeg between the hometown Jets and the Carolina Hurricanes.
Fans showered a chorus of hearty boos on the first notes of the American anthem, echoing what has been happening at sporting events in other Canadian cities since U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs against Canadian goods.
The Winnipeg jeers tailed off through the minute-and-a-half song before surging again at the end. Then the crowd kept the volume but changed to excessive cheers and applause for the Canadian anthem.
“I’m not advocating for disrespecting any anthem. We have a long friendship with our American brothers and sisters, and I have American family, but these are kind of unprecedented times, and people have so many feelings to let out,” said Stacey Nattrass, who has been the Jets’ main anthem singer since the team relocated from Atlanta in 2011.
“I understand it. I mean, I’m a Canadian through-and-through. I feel angry, I feel frustrated. [An anthem in a sports arena] is one of the only places that people can gather and let out their frustration as a whole.”
The Manitoba Chinese Choir sang O Canada on Tuesday night as the team honoured Chinese New Year, but Nattrass was tasked with The Star Spangled Banner because of her experience.
“They asked me to come in specifically to handle any booing that might occur,” she told CBC Manitoba Up to Speed host Faith Fundal. “If [anthem singers] haven’t been doing it a long time, it could really throw you off, I imagine.
“In some ways, I almost feel honoured to be the vehicle through which people can voice those frustrations. I’ve been doing this a long time and I am not afraid to stand in the middle of it.”
She also called it a historic time, which makes being part of it something special.
Boos have also echoed through Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena during NBA Raptors games and at NHL games at Rogers Arena in Vancouver and Ottawa’s Canadian Tire Centre.
The boos came even after Trump issued a 30-day pause on the proposed tariffs.
In response, American fans booed the Canadian anthem in Nashville on Monday.
“Every arena, every city has their own moments where [fans] scream or [have] things that they do during the anthems,” so you need to be ready for a curveball, said David Grenon, who occasionally sings anthems at Jets games under the name SoulBear.
In Winnipeg, fans shout “True North” at that part of the Canadian anthem, as a salute to True North Sports + Entertainment, the organization that brought the NHL back to the city, though it has had a more patriotic emphasis lately.
Dallas Stars fans shout during the U.S. anthem line “whose broad stripes and bright stars” and Atlanta Braves baseball fans do the same with the line “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
If you’re not used to it, it can be a rattling, Grenon said.
“There’s all eyes on you, so whatever happens, you are the person in charge at that point to show the pride and the values of those countries and to try to bring respect to all of the people who are from that country,” he told Fundal.
“Whenever I’m singing an anthem, I’m always putting myself in the idea that this is not about me, this is about the pride of millions and millions of people.
“So to me, whatever happens, I’m in my bubble at that time … just trying to bring unity, bring pride, bring a sense of belonging, patriotism.”
The recent political response — and the fact teams are made up of players from around the world — has sparked conversations around whether anthems at the beginning of games should be dropped altogether.
That is, unless it’s a game featuring two countries, such as the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off taking place instead of the annual NHL all-star game.
Nattrass doesn’t agree with that idea.
“There’s very few times that we get together and sing communally,” she said. “There’s something about when you get together and all sing together, or even if you’re just thinking about the anthem all at the same time.
“And I think if we lose that at sporting events, we’d be losing quite an important part of our country’s culture.”
Like a perfectly harmonized duet partner for Nattrass, Grenon agreed.
“And as long as they’re going to want people to sing in it, I know that Stacey and I will be honoured and privileged to continue.
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