Anthem-booing fans complicate NHL kneeling debate

P.K. Subban spent seven seasons serving the NHL’s most notorious national anthem-booing fan base. His current coach, Nashville’s Peter Laviolette, witnessed one of that base’s most polarizing episodes.

Fairly or unfairly, Montreal embodies a dynamic of North American nationalism that permeates no other major sport. Its beloved Canadiens are a non-U.S., non-Toronto franchise in a league of predominantly American-based teams. They occupy the continent’s only bilingual major sports market where English is not the decidedly top-dog tongue.

And while their fans are not the only anthem-booing crowd, they keep the trend constant like no one else. They do so actively as well as secondarily when they draw implicit retaliation in American arenas.

This has happened in other sports, though not nearly as often since there is less opportunity for it. Because of the “statements” these fans have made, it is easy to presume why players might avoid unorthodox anthem-time conduct of their own. Overcaution and overcompensation could explain a lot.

The hockey media has made several valid points on the NHL’s avoidance of Star-Spangled statements a la the NFL. Adam Vingan, who covers Subban and Laviolette’s Predators for the Tennessean, tidily summed those observations this past Wednesday.

“The primary reason for a lack of protests in the NHL is the international and racial makeup of the players, which is vastly different than the NFL,” Vingan wrote.

That is all true, and those are objectively logical explanations. But besides the demographics of the players, it is important to consider the uniquely dense Canadian-American crossover of the franchises. To deepen one’s understanding, one must delve into the anthem anecdotes that have littered the NHL’s recent chronicles.

The NFL, the epicenter of anthem protests and where kneeling and arm-locking are most prevalent, is an all-American league. Canada has its own gridiron circuit.

Much like hockey, baseball players combine for a substantial melting pot of nationalities. And the NBA and MLB have seen various sociopolitical gestures of their own on game day.

But Toronto is their only satellite outside the U.S. with the Raptors and Blue Jays, respectively. That is the way it has been since the Montreal Expos transferred to Washington in 2005.

Conversely, the NHL franchises’ geographic spread has never been lower than 20 percent Canadian. It had six teams out of 30 above the 49th Parallel from 2000 to 2011, when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg. And Canada still produces the plurality of the league’s talent.

The league now boasts a Canada-to-U.S. ratio of seven-to-24 teams. One of those 24, Buffalo, acknowledges its close contingent of Canadian fans by playing both anthems at all home games. The Winter Classic always salutes both countries, even when both teams represent a U.S. market.

But fan behavior in many cities on both sides of the border has sullied the strides for solidarity. For proof, Google “Canadian national anthem-booing,” then take your pick of the search results. Some are accounts of American fans jeering “O, Canada.” Others are of Canadians catcalling “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

There is something for everyone to roll their eyes at. St. Louis fans were impolite hosts when the Vancouver Canucks came to town in 2009. San Jose’s crowd was ungracious to Edmonton when the Sharks met the Oilers in the 2006 playoffs.

To their credit, Sharks management and San Jose’s mayor distanced themselves from the boobirds. But as far back as 2001, Vancouver and Edmonton had the same cleanup task when some of their rooters transgressed.

Montreal has since become the face of the topic. Google “Montreal anthem-booing,” then look at the various dates in the findings. It has happened, particularly during the playoffs, in 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2017, just to name a few.

But the most head-turning case came late in 2002-03, concomitant with the start of the Iraq War. Laviolette was the second-year coach of the Islanders when they visited Montreal the night of the invasion. For reasons hard to infer besides world affairs, Habs fans disrupted the song Steve Hanson just wanted to listen to.

As Dave Caldwell subsequently reported in the New York Times, “The fans’ behavior incensed many Islanders, who beat the Canadiens, 6-3. Some members of the team said the booing had inspired them. Five players on the Islanders’ roster and Coach Peter Laviolette were born in the United States.”

Later that week, the Ottawa Senators and all participating Canadian players paid a misdirected bill for the misbehavior in Montreal. Host Atlanta Thrashers and Florida Panthers fans booed “O, Canada,” then emphatically applauded their own anthem.

As then-Panthers beat writer Michael Russo noted in the Sun-Sentinel, all affected franchises apologized. The Habs even pondered scrapping both anthems from their pregame protocol, but the league overruled that idea.

The vapid binational back-and-forth has sadly never ceased. For that reason, it is easier to see why even NHL players of African descent are not jumping to Xerox Colin Kaepernick’s protest playbook.

With many of those players, including Subban, being Canadian, one would think they could find a way to lessen the notion of affronting America. Neither country is squeaky clean on race relations, as one unfortunate occurrence surrounding Wayne Simmonds in London, Ont., during the 2011 preseason confirmed. Therefore a Simmonds, a Subban or a Joel Ward could theoretically make the same statement — both in words and in action — about their country as Kaepernick and his colleagues.

During this year’s preseason, Simmonds and Ward both told reporters they were contemplating kneeling. But Simmonds has yet to follow through and Ward has since stated his plan to keep standing.

However accurate or inaccurate it may be, perception matters. Kneeling when others stand is an innocuous and effective way of illustrating one’s sense of societal marginalization. It is not, as some argue, “disrespectful” because it is not disruptive.

But booing does create a disturbance, regardless of its motivation. And crossover hockey-to-baseball or hockey-to-football fans have seen that of late in fans booing anthem-kneelers. Those sounds surely evoke any number of shameful displays of Canadian or American nationalism from recent memory.

That history can help to explain why the likes of Laviolette are hesitant to act or comment much. As Vingan reported in the Tennessean, the Predators bench boss has said all players collectively chose to proceed as normal.

One would like to think that if Subban had decided to make a multinational point, his teammates would have rallied around him. But the objective fact is he is standing pat.

The league-wide practice of playing one or both anthems is surely not taking leave now. It never has before. When received with class, the practice accentuates the distinctive neighborly bond the NHL gives its two countries.

But when fractions of fan bases create deliberate division, players look to sustain unity. It would not be shocking if any American or Canadian players kneel for the ode to their country. But it would be less surprising if all of them, together with their European colleagues, did so for both songs.

By all accounts, NHLers would rather discuss the issues off the ice than send signals on it. Whether they prefer that because of the less legitimate anthem-centered protests in their sport is unclear, though quite sensible. Odds are they do not want to invite any more of what Texas baseball and Arizona football fans emitted.

But at least the players’ choice is another humble, palatable form of patriotism. None of this lowbrow “my country is wonderful, yours is despicable” messaging from rogue ticketholders.