At Thursday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off championship game between the U.S. and Canada, tensions were already extremely high due to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and his repeated suggestions of making Canada the 51st state. In Montreal the previous week, Canadian fans had booed the American anthem in protest.
The final in Boston on Thursday had even more at stake. American fans booed the Canadian anthem in retaliation, and Trump even called the U.S. team before the match to boost their motivation. However, it wasn’t the booing that truly grabbed attention but what happened during the singing of the Canadian anthem, “O Canada”.
Many initially thought Canadian anthem singer Chantal Kreviazuk had made a mistake, but later it was confirmed by her publicist, Adam Gonshor, that she had deliberately changed the lyrics as a protest against Trump’s remarks. The original lyrics say, “in all of us command”, but Kreviazuk sang, “that only us command”.