{"id":598981,"date":"2026-04-22T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598981\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:12:09","slug":"why-sabres-sing-canadian-national-anthem-o-canada-before-nhl-games-in-buffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598981\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sabres sing Canadian national anthem ‘O Canada’ before NHL games in Buffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> play their home hockey games, two national anthems are sung.<\/p>\n

First it’s the Canadian tune, ‘O Canada,’ before the United States’ anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ is sung.<\/p>\n

It’s something that’s normal to those in Buffalo, but with the Sabres back in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years, it’s something that has caught the attention of a national audience.<\/p>\n

It’s not common in the NHL’s U.S. cities to sing both anthems. Only Detroit does it aside from Buffalo.<\/p>\n

But it’s how it has worked in Buffalo for a long time, and there’s no sign of it changing.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Sabres provide Buffalo a magical night 5,472 days in the making<\/a><\/p>\n

Why Sabres sing Canadian national anthem ‘O Canada’?<\/p>\n

In essence, it comes down to their proximity to Canada.<\/p>\n

You can go from Buffalo to the Canadian border in less than five miles.<\/p>\n

That proximity also means that the Sabres’ actually have a strong Canadian fanbase, including many season-ticket holders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consider the name Sabres itself — the Americanized spelling of that word would be “sabers,” but Toronto filmmaker Harry Cole had submitted the suggestion in a name-the-team contest in the late-1960s, and the Canadian ‘-re’ ending stuck.<\/p>\n

The Sabres have also had a ton of prominent Canadian players, most notably the French Connection from Quebec.<\/p>\n

In the KeyBank Center, you can hear a good chunk of fans sing along with ‘O Canada,’ as well. It’s just part of the action in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the Buffalo Sabres play their home hockey games, two national anthems are sung. First it’s the Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-598981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598981","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=598981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}