'O Canada' booed loudly ahead of 4 Nations Face-Off final

BOSTON - Chantal Kreviazuk is defending her performance of the Canadian national anthem Thursday night.

The Winnipeg-born singer was booed loudly while performing O Canada ahead of the 4 Nations Face-Off final against the United States at TD Garden in Boston.

While booing anthems has become common practice at Canada-U.S. sporting events over the past month to gripe over cross-border tensions, some viewer comments Thursday focused on Kreviazuk's shaky performance and change in lyrics.

Kreviazuk, who said the jeers did not faze her, sang "that only us command" instead of "in all of us command" in protest of U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated remarks about making Canada the 51st state.

She also agreed that her performance was not perfect.

"My voice probably sounded not as stable, and it was because it made me so emotional," Kreviazuk told The Canadian Press in a phone interview Thursday night. 

"I was singing for our pride, for our honour, our sovereignty, our history — the good, the bad — and the future."

Kreviazuk also posted to her Instagram story an image showing the phrase “that only us command” written on her left hand, accompanied by emojis of a Canadian flag and a flexed muscle.

The lyric alteration was something she had "thought about a little as the day went on" and she couldn't shake the idea.

"My philosophy as an artist is always to itch the scratch," she said. "It felt like I would have been unsatisfied had I not itched the scratch and so I just stayed with it, and ultimately, it won the moment for me."

"I think that it's poetic justice that we won after I said that," she added following Canada's 3-2 overtime win.

Some viewers were critical of Kreviazuk's performance on social media. 

"Chantal, baby, what is you doing, this doesn't even sound like O Canada!" Lexi Jordan posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"I'm Canadian and I'd boo her too. Have we run out of people to sing the national anthem? That was awful..," Dylan Hodges posted on X.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was then sung in full voice by the sold-out building for the championship game of an event that's a table-setter for the NHL's Olympic return in 2026.

The boos for "O Canada" followed similar treatment of the U.S. anthem at professional sporting events and 4 Nations games north of the border, jeers that began after Trump threatened tariffs against one of the U.S.'s closest allies.

Trump has also continued to muse — including Thursday morning on social media — that America's neighbour should become the "51st state." 

The president spoke with the U.S. team by phone for five minutes before the pre-game stake. 

Boos filled Bell Centre in Montreal both times the American national anthem was played ahead of games earlier in the tournament. Those jeers hit a crescendo Saturday before the U.S. topped Canada 3-1 to qualify for Thursday's final. 

O Canada was tepidly booed by some fans Monday at TD Garden before a 5-3 victory over Finland that booked a spot in the championship game. 

— With files from Joshua Clipperton and Abdulhamid Ibrahim

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 20, 2025.