About that National Anthem…

Let he (or she) who can easily sing one of the world’s most unsingable songs, without accompaniment, with a 17 degree wind chill, while millions of people watch you on TV, cast the first stone.

Noelle Scaggs of Fitz and the Tantrums drew the short straw before today’s Green Bay-Dallas game. When she was selected last week, the Packers fan tweeted that it’s her dream come true.

She killed it.

Literally, some suggested.

There was a giant flag, a couple of jets burning the taxpayer’s kerosene flying overhead, and a national discussion on whether the National Anthem was any good.

Why do we do this?

Early this month, a letter-writer to the Star Tribune caused a little stir when suggesting TV and sports teams stop hiring celebrities to sing the National Anthem and just perform it straight. As it turns out, the suggestion was pitch perfect and should rekindle an old debate: Why have the anthem at all before every sports event?

In somewhat more meaningful national anthem news, last night the players lined up on the blue lines for the national anthem in Montreal. Then, the Canadiens played France’s in honor of the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks.