Our friend Jason pointed us toward this weird bit of trivia from
WFMU's excellent Beware of the Blog. In an article about bla bla
Hyperpatriotic songs this past November, they featured a track called "Thank You Canada," performed by a little American schoolgirl named Shelly, who expresses a grateful nation's thanks to our northern neighbor for helping some of the hostages escape Iran in 1979. (Scroll down the WFMU page for the nauseating mp3.)
"In recounting the many glories of Canada," Jason says, "at one point she says 'I do love hockey.' And I'm like, well, that's nice, but come on — what are the chances that an eight-year-old American girl in 1979 was a big hockey fan?"
Well, in the case of this particular little girl, pretty good. Because that little girl was Trenton, Michigan's own Shelly Looney, the same Shelly Looney who'd go on to score the gold medal-winning goal for the US Women's National Team at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, the first time women's hockey was part of the games. Against Canada, naturally. Also a silver medalist in the '02 games, you can read all about Trenton's Pride at the bottom of this
Detroit News page about Olympic Michiganders.
So it looks like she wasn't just blowing sunshine up Canada's ass with that hockey line after all. (Plus, her parents named her after Canada's dollar coin!)
Speaking of cringe-inducing performances of patriotic songs, here's a montage of various
public executions of "The Star Spangled Banner." In fairness, it's a difficult number to perform. There's an argument to be made in favor of the challenging anthem, one that rises up to confront those who might hazard to sing it. But it's not an argument we'd make sincerely.