Oh Cannon a Dick

[susandennis]

Ok Toronto wins The Best Home Opening Ceremonies for 2025. Ok, it's the only one I've seen so far but man did they nail it. A lovely tribute to Ricky Henderson, one of my favorite players who died last winter. He only played for Toronto for a minute but they did a wonderful job of celebrating him. Kevin Keirmeyer threw out the first pitch and their intro of him was fabulous. (he played for Toronto for a while but retired as a World Series winning Dodger last year and is now a Blue Jays coach).

Extra kudos to the staff who wrote the announcer's script for the pre-anthem announcement. I don't remember exactly what he said but it was perfect in tone, in words, and in sentiment. The gist was 'if you boo the American National Anthem, you are an asshole'. And, if there were those who audibly protested, they were not seen or heard on the TV. It was just about the classiest bit ever.

The cast of the Lion King sang both anthems and did a fabulous job! I am not a fan of the US anthem but they made it into lovely music.

I do like the Canadian anthem but I spent most of it laughing like a six year old... I had closed captions turned on and Oh Canada turned into

Oh Cannon a Dick

I'm sorry, but I'll be giggling about that for most of the season, I think. For sure every time I hear the anthem from now to the end of my days.

Comments

[lostincandyrain]

That is too funny about the Canadian anthem. Closed captions give us some great moments!

[meowmensteen]

Something I've always noticed when watching hockey is how the Americans like to Boo during O' Canada, but that the Canadians usually sing along to both anthems. They're definitely more classy when it comes to this kind of thing... but I'm sure it's different now. It's been a few years since I watched a hockey game.

[bill_schubert]

“Opening Day is about gathering together with friends and family, cheering on your team, and enjoying the love we all share for this game,” read the announcement before the anthems. “Throughout history, baseball has served a role, as a place for hope during times of turmoil. The ballpark has been a place to get away and escape from the challenges we face in everyday life. It’s a special day for all of us — you the fans, the players and coaches standing on the field — for everyone. We ask that you please be respectful of the day and the moment.”

[susandennis]

Oh excellent. Thank you!! And, I was right - it was perfect.

[adafrog]

lolol CC is so on crack sometimes.

[rsc]

I'm sorry, but I'll be giggling about that for most of the season, I think. For sure every time I hear the anthem from now to the end of my days.

And now, thanks to you, so will the rest of us.

We tend to watch programs with closed captioning, but we always shut it off for sports events – it's not necessary, it tends to be way behind, it clutters up the screen, and its accuracy is dubious. I've seen some pretty dubious CC on other shows, especially British ones – whoever or whatever does the captioning for the Julia MacKenzie "Marple" series has no clue about British idiom.

[siglinde999]

I don’t watch baseball, but I do have season’s tickets to the PWHL games in town. There hasn’t been much booing, but a lot of us refuse to stand for the American anthem, and we sing our hearts out for the Canadian one. In fact, many of us have finally bothered to learn the words in French. It has become tradition to sing the anthem in both English and French, but for years people tended to sing in only one language or the other, so everything after “Oh Canada” was a muddle. Thanks to Trump, even our anthem is more united than ever.