{"id":378948,"date":"2025-12-29T20:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/378948\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T20:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:47:09","slug":"104-year-old-wwii-veteran-performs-memorable-national-anthem-before-nhl-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/378948\/","title":{"rendered":"104-year-old WWII veteran performs memorable national anthem before NHL game"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Gray News) – A World War II veteran had the honor of performing the national anthem Saturday, before the New York Islanders hosted the New York Rangers. <\/p>\n

At 104-years-old, Staff Sergeant Dominick Critelli wowed the crowd as he played the national anthem on his saxophone.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The crowd began chanting, \u201cUSA!\u201d for the veteran when he finished, and he saluted the fans before leaving the ice, NHL.com said<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Critelli served in the 95th Infantry Division and was a member of the 378th Infantry Regiment in an artillery aviation unit, according to Mission Margraten Plus<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"FILEFILE — U.S. World War II veteran Dominick Critelli is greeted by the crowd during an American Airlines veterans parade in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy, France, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat.(Daniel Cole | AP Photo\/Daniel Cole)<\/p>\n

He spent 151 days in combat and survived the Battle of the Bulge. Critelli was one of the men who flew behind enemy lines to drop needed supplies to American troops. <\/p>\n

During his time in service, Critelli earned the Air Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three bronze stars, the American Theater Medal, the WWII Victory Medal and a Good Conduct Medal.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Gray News) – A World War II veteran had the honor of performing the national anthem Saturday, before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,204067,204068,5791,3617,575,85,204069,38303,66046,77273],"class_list":["post-378948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awe-inspiring-national-anthem","tag-dominick-critelli","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-staff-sergeant-dominick-critelli","tag-veteran","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}