In honor of America

Today is a day to honor and thank the brave men and women in the United States military for all they do to protect our freedom. In their honor, I present to you the four greatest renditions of the national anthem.

First, the greatest of them all, Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles. Only Marvin could successfully turn the anthem into a song which you make sweet love to in front of a fire with that special someone. The best part is when the crowd starts clapping along. When does that ever happen with the national anthem?



Next up is Wayne Messmer at Chicago Stadium at the 1991 NHL All-Star Game. President George Bush had announced just days earlier that the United States were going to war with Iraq and the Blackhawks fans were known for going crazy during the anthem anyway. Combine the especially patriotic time period and the raucous times and this is the result:



A couple of weeks later, the NFL held the red, white and blue Super Bowl between the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills. In retrospect, everyone should have known that these two teams would win their conference championship games because it was only fitting that two teams with these colors would meet in the Super Bowl. Whitney Houston, back before she was a complete and total mess, belted out one of the most emotional and stirring national anthems of all-time. It's a shame that the Whitney Houston of 1991, who had one of the most incredibly beautiful and powerful voices of all-time, effectively murdered her own career in the subsequent years by allowing Bobby Brown to physically abuse her and load her up on drugs on a daily basis.



The best anthem singer in the business today is the lovely Lauren Hart in Philadelphia, the daughter of the legendary Flyers voice Gene Hart. In the 1970s, the Flyers started a tradition of forgoing the national anthem in favor of God Bless America for big games. They used to play a tape of Kate Smith's rendition of it and once, Smith came and performed the song live. Incredibly, the Flyers always seemed to win when they went with God Bless America. That tradition continues to live on today with Lauren Hart on the ice in person and Kate Smith on the video board singing a joint duet of God Bless America. I fully expect to see this duet on Wednesday night during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final. Let's hope Versus is smart enough to show it instead of going to commercial.



And with the Stanley Cup Final going on, a tip of the hat to the people of Canada, who have a great anthem. I sometimes wish Americans took as much pride in their nation as do Canadians, as this clip from the 2006 playoffs in Edmonton displays. The anthem singer belts out the U.S. national anthem, then shuts up and lets 18,000 strong at the old Northlands Coliseum take over for O Canada.