The 4 Nations Face-Off championship game on Thursday between the United States and Canada ended with an exciting 3-2 overtime win for the Great White North, and Canadian patriotism and snark were on display both before and after the matchup. First, Chantal Kreviazuk, the Juno-winning singer who belted out Canada's national anthem ahead of the players taking the ice, subtly tweaked one of the lyrics to "O Canada."
The song starts out "O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command." But close listeners of Kreviazuk's rendition heard her instead sing, "True patriot love that only us command"—a dig against President Trump and his growing insistence that Canada become the 51st state of the US, as confirmed to Postmedia by a Kreviazuk spokesperson. The 50-year-old singer also posted a photo to Instagram showing the changed lyrics scrawled on her hand.
Kreviazuk explained in her post that the decision to change the national anthem was a spontaneous one that happened after she accidentally messed up the lyrics during the pregame sound check. "When i analyzed the new line i thought wow—this could mean something so pertinent to our country in this moment with a change in just two words, three syllables. ... [I]t really felt like the right thing to do." She added that "the anthem is not a lawful document," but instead "an expression of the collective, and it changes from time to time when the moment demands it should."
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Previous 4 Nations and NHL games have seen booing during the US national anthem ever since Trump announced earlier this month that he'd be imposing tariffs on the US' northern neighbor. Kreviazuk doubled down after the game, posting a victory photo of herself with the caption "and justice prevails" and the hashtag #thatonlyuscommand. Meanwhile, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—who's been called Canada's "governor" by Trump and pushed back on the 51st-state idea—had his own message for Trump after Canada squeaked by the US in Thursday night's game. "You can't take our country—and you can't take our game," he wrote on X. (Here's what other Canadians think about Trump's idea.)
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