Miami Dolphins Should Do Away With National Anthem Singers and Let Crowd Sing Instead

Ryan Yousefi May 8, 2017 8:30AM

George Martinez

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Did you see what happened April 30 in Edmonton, Canada? The hometown Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks were moments away from dropping the puck for Game 3 of their Round 2 National Hockey League playoff game. Only the formality of the singing of "O Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" stood between fans and game action.

The only problem was that when Canadian country singer Brett Kissel stepped up to belt out the U.S. anthem, his microphone went dead. So Kissel did what any sane person with 20,000 eagerly awaiting Canadians would do: He asked them to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner," no mike needed.

And hell if it didn't work. The Edmonton crowd not only knew the words to the U.S. anthem but also sang it in goosebumps-inducing unity, creating a moment few will ever forget. The sight of seeing 20,000 Canadians singing the U.S. anthem made me wonder why more teams in the States don't do this on purpose, like, every game.

Guess what? There's no reason why it wouldn't work. And Miami Dolphins home games would be the perfect place to put the new plan into action.

Picture it: Next season, before every Fins game at Hard Rock Stadium, fans should belt out "The Star-Spangled Banner" together. It would become a new tradition, and nobody would miss doing it the other way.

There's no getting around the fact that in the über-divisive age of Trump, even the National Anthem has become a political flashpoint. Just look at the reaction to Colin Kaepernick and other players kneeling during the anthem in solidarity for Black Lives Matter, and those who angrily demanded that "politics don't belong in sports" conveniently forgot that the Department of Defense spent millions of taxpayer cash to pay NFL teams for extravagant flag ceremonies as a form of propaganda.

This would be a low-key, crowd-led way to reclaim our national song. What better way for people — Dolphins fans, Patriots fans, Republicans, Democrats, gay, straight, black, white, or Jets fans (OK, maybe not Jets fans) — to come together before a game than with a good old-fashioned belting out of the National Anthem?

If this movement were to start, it should happen in Miami, a city known for its diversity and progressive thinking.

Miami Dolphins Should Do Away With National Anthem Singers and Let Crowd Sing Instead

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