...it's so bad, it's good.
From a weekend of watching that offered many, many magical moments for Canadians, my favourite was watching and listening to Canada's big eights crew of rowers singing the national anthem.
Many gold medal winners cry, many smile and wave as the flag goes up and the national anthem is played. It is always a moment of real emotion for the winners, especially the unexpected ones like Carol Huynh who picked up a wrestling gold.
But these nine men offered up something different.
This was not smiles and giggles.This was not athletes going through the motions, mouthing the words because they know they're on TV.
These nine men (including cox Brian Price) sang like they'd just spent the last few hours in a pub,
with a gusto, passion and joy you rarely see put into our national anthem. There were enough of them that their voices came across as a male choir, easily heard above the instrumental soundtrack.
But they were horribly out of tune, completely out of sync, and several of them added their own melodic embellishments like 8-year-olds singing Happy Birthday.
And it was great.
- Rick Hughes
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