Last Spring, at a series of NHL and NBA games across North America, Canadian and American fans competed in a fierce race to see who could behave the most moronically during the playing of the other nation's national anthem. Who started it? Who cares when idiots are involved?
Well, it looks like the idiots are coming out to play again -- with the knuckle-draggers showing their faces at the Bell Centre in Montreal before an NHL tilt between the Canadiens and the New York Islanders:
A significant portion of the sold-out Bell Centre crowd of 21,273 booed throughout the singing of the Star Spangled Banner prior to the game.
Great, just great. By booing the anthem at a game beamed back to New York, their actions are going to be amplified all over the national media. Expect some American morons to come out of the woodwork in the next day or two.
UPDATE: Drudge picked up on this account from the Boston Globe. Look for it again on a local sports broadcast near you soon.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The AP account had these comments from one of my favorite New York Islanders -- a team I'll be watching on Saturday night on Long Island:
Teammate Mark Parrish, a native of Bloomington, Minn., was upset hearing the boos.''I came to the game pretty pumped up, but once I heard that it really got me going,'' Parrish said. ''So I guess I can thank them a little bit for getting me more pumped up.''
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: As you might have guessed, the New York area papers are all over this story. Here's Mark Parrish again from the New York Post:
"When they booed the national anthem, it pumped us up, even the Canadians," Minnesota native Mark Parrish said of the surge that went through the Islanders' bench. "I want to know how many of those Quebec people came down to Ground Zero and saw what happened."
Here's a quote from Long Island's Newsday:
Canadiens rookie defenseman Mike Komisarek, who is from Islip Terrace, is the only American-born player on the Montreal roster. He was asked before the game about his thoughts on the war with Iraq."I'd rather not comment on that," he said. "Just my prayers are with the troops in the Middle East and hope they come home soon and safe to their families."
For those of you who don't know, Islip Terrace is on Long Island, about an hour East of Manhattan. Dave Caldwell's report in the New York Times is much the same, but it added one important point: the Islanders win over Montreal just about ended the Canadiens playoff hopes.
POSTSCRIPT: The next time Canadian teams play in a U.S. arena are this evening in Atlanta when the Ottawa Senators play the Atlanta Thrashers, and in Miami where the Heat host the Toronto Raptors. I'm hoping the fans in both cities are silent and respectful.
AND THE STORY BURNS OUT. . .: As the Canadiens team president has apologized for the behavior of their fans.
And then the French- Canadian Habs promptly surrendered to the Islanders.
Does anyone else find it a little ironic that the Canadiens’ owner, George Gillett, is an American? Maybe that had something to do with the speed at which they apologized.
What your post doesn’t portray, Eric, is that English Canadians in Vanouver, Calgary and even at the Raptors’ game in Toronto, gave it up for the Stars and Bars. And despite the ugly anti-American rhetoric from M. Chretien et al, in poll after poll after poll, a majority of English Canada viewed 1441 as a go for regime change in Iraq believing that Powell had made the case.
Fortunately, Americans have only had to live with French sedition for a couple of months. Here it’s been since 1760 and now the tail wags the dog!