In Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Rogers Arena, home of the Vancouver Canucks, it seemed as though the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner was a little speedy. Granted, they understandably wanted to get the pesky American anthem out of the way so they could practice their fantastic rendition of Oh Canada!, but still.
The ever-intrepid Shawn Roarke of NHL.com decided to whip out his trusty iPod stopwatch for the sing-song session before Game 5 on Friday night, and what did he find? Richard Loney sung the anthem in 68 seconds.
By video comparison, he sung it in 69 seconds before Game 1. He also started singing before he stopped walking down the red carpet, which is just absolutely hilarious.
But yeah... that's seriously fast. It's not like Star-Spangled Banner Length Before Sporting Events is a stat or anything (although I'm sure Elias Sports Bureau could get it for us if we asked), but we do have some numbers to compare to.
At the Super Bowl a few months ago, Christina Aguilera sung the anthem in 1:54, or 114 seconds. (We only know that because it was a prop bet in Vegas, we swear.)
Some people might take all of this as a sign of disrespect or something ridiculous like that. Personally, as a patriotic American who thinks Canada has an anthem that's 1,000 times better than ours, I'll gladly accept it.