Before the puck drop at the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off championship game in Boston, multiple fights had already broken out between Team USA and Team Canada fans in the lead up over the weekend. On Thursday, the night of the final, tensions were high as singer Chantal Kreviazuk took to the ice to sing Canada’s national anthem, “O Canada.”
Perceptive listeners tuning into the game may have picked up on Kreviazuk’s key change to the lyrics. At the beginning of the anthem, instead of singing, “True patriot love, in all of us command,” Kreviazuk belted out “that only us command.” Kreviazuk told the Associated Press that she revised the anthem’s lyrics “because I believe in democracy, and a sovereign nation should not have to be defending itself against tyranny and fascism.”
“I don’t think it would be authentic to me to be given a world stage and not express myself and be true to myself,” added Kreviazuk.
In an email, publicist Adam Gonshor confirmed that the singer changed the words due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about Canada becoming the 51st state. Kreviazuk, shared an image on her Instagram Stories where the phrase “that only us command” is written on her left hand alongside emojis of a Canadian flag and a flexed muscle.
Trump has repeated his desires for U.S. territorial expansion while threatening tariffs and mocking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referring to him as the “Governor” of Canada. Trudeau has called Trump’s remarks a “non-starter” and said that if the U.S. president follows through on his threats, Canada “will be equally unequivocal in our response.”
Following her performance, as the rival nations approached a sudden death overtime and just before Canada won the coveted championship, Kreviazuk shared a statement on social media. “I am sorry if my performance of our national anthem rubbed you the wrong way,” she wrote, “i am sorry if you think that we’d be better off annexed. here is the thing. art to me is an expression of our truth. and in this very peculiar and potentially consequential moment i truly believe that we must stand up, use our voices and try to protect ourselves… no – we should express our outrage in the face of any abuses of power.”
She pressed on, “Canada , not unlike ukraine is a sovereign nation. period. we have a culture individual to others. we are united in our values. we care. we’re kind. We are strong.”
After Connor McDavid sealed the 3-2 win in overtime for Canada, Trudeau issued a resounding statement on X in both French and English: “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
From Rolling Stone US
