{"id":374784,"date":"2025-12-28T21:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T21:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374784\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T21:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T21:33:07","slug":"wwii-vet-104-thrills-rangers-islanders-crowd-with-national-anthem-on-saxophone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374784\/","title":{"rendered":"WWII vet, 104, thrills Rangers-Islanders crowd with national anthem on saxophone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/27\/sports\/islanders-growth-glaringly-evident-with-statement-win-over-rangers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> the Islanders blanked the Rangers<\/a> on Saturday night, the real highlight came before the game, when 104-year-old Dominick Critelli, a World War II veteran, performed the national anthem on his saxophone prior to the game at UBS Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Critelli, a Staff Sergeant in the Army who was born in 1921, hit every note of the anthem on Saturday, with the Long Island crowd chanting \u201cUSA\u201d as he was led onto the ice in an Islanders jersey emblazoned with 104 on it, and again when he finished the flawless version of the song.<\/p>\n<p>He saluted the enthusiastic crowd after he wrapped up the song with a flourish.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">104-year-old World War II veteran Dominick Critelli played the national anthem on the saxophone at the Rangers-Islanders game <\/p>\n<p>Pretty special stuff \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/duou98CQ72\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/duou98CQ72<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JomboyMedia\/status\/2005056999432880451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 27, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>104-year-old World War II veteran Dominick Critelli plays the national anthem on a saxophone before the Islanders-Rangers game at UBA Arena on Dec. 27, 2025. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>104-year-old World War II veteran Dominick Critelli waves to the crowd as he plays the national anthem on a saxophone before the Islanders-Rangers game at UBA Arena on Dec. 27, 2025. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>104-year-old World War II veteran Dominick Critelli waves to the crowd as he plays the national anthem on a saxophone before the Islanders-Rangers game at UBA Arena on Dec. 27, 2025. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Leading up to the game, Critelli \u2014 who was in combat for 151 days during the war and survived both the Battle of the Bulge and the landing on Normandy \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/25\/sports\/world-war-ii-vet-excited-to-perform-national-anthem-on-saxophone-for-islanders-rangers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told The Post<\/a>, \u201cI love this country. If I hadn\u2019t come home to this country, I\u2019d be stuck with Mussolini.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the war, Critelli flew into enemy territory and provided American troops with supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Critelli, who lives in Floral Park, emigrated to the U.S. after being born in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>104-year-old World War II veteran Dominick Critelli waves to the crowd as he plays the national anthem on a saxophone before the Islanders-Rangers game at UBA Arena on Dec. 27, 2025. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Dominick Critelli Courtesy of Dominick Critell<\/p>\n<p>He received three Bronze Stars for his service.<\/p>\n<p>Critelli was also recently knighted by French President Emmanuel Macron for helping liberate the nation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe pins a medal on me, kisses me on both cheeks,\u201d Critelli said of the honor. \u201cAnd I ask, \u2018If I\u2019m a knight, where\u2019s my sword and horse?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Critelli earned a music degree from NYU and became a jazz saxophonist, and, although Saturday\u2019s performance was significant, it wasn\u2019t the largest crowd he\u2019d ever performed before, as he noted he also played it on a tank while freeing the Netherlands from Nazi rule, surrounded by \u201c50,000, 60,000 people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Islanders blanked the Rangers on Saturday night, the real highlight came before the game, when 104-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[87886,394,4823,385,99,28833],"class_list":["post-374784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-national-anthem","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}