Hockey fans in Buffalo stepped in and sang the Canadian national anthem before Tuesday night’s Game 5 of the Sabres’ first-round Stanley Cup playoff series after the singer’s microphone cut out.
Cami Clune, a former The Voice finalist from Buffalo, appeared to have some technical issues as she began to sing O Canada ahead of the sport.
As her microphone cut out, the group got here together at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y., to sing along and help her out.
“Well that was interesting!!” Clune wrote on Threads afterward. “Thanks all for singing together with me. We’ve the very best fans ever!”
In one other post on X, Clune wrote, “What an evening. Truly grateful for this city. Buffalo all the time shows up. On to Game 6, let’s go!!”
Fans in the group shared video of the moment to social media.
David Alter, a reporter for the Hockey News, took to X and wrote, “Amazing scene because the mic cuts out because the Sabres crowd sings Oh Canada within the anthem singer’s place.”
Matthew Bové, sports director at WKBW, also shared a video on X, writing, “Well that is pretty cool. Anthem singer’s mic stopped working and the fans just perfectly sang O Canada.”
Joe Thomas, whose band Mayday Buffalo also played at the sport, spoke concerning the moment in a video shared to Threads.
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“Before the sport we had a extremely cool moment with Cami Clune leading us all in a moment of kinship with our Canadian brethren,” he wrote within the caption.
At most arenas in america, O Canada is performed when the visiting team is Canadian but in Buffalo, the Canadian anthem is sung before each game, because it borders Ontario.
Clune received a brand new microphone before she sang The Star-Spangled Banner. The Buffalo Sabres lost the sport to the Boston Bruins with a rating of 2-1. The Sabres lead the series three games to 2 and the Bruins will host Game 6 in Boston on Friday.
In 2023, Canadian fans stepped in to assist out their American counterparts during a microphone mishap.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans jumped in to sing The Star-Spangled Banner during a March 2023 game against the Buffalo Sabres on the Scotiabank Areana in Toronto and didn’t miss a beat when singer Natalie Morris’s microphone malfunctioned.
The moment on the Sabres-Bruins game comes after sports fans in arenas across Canada have occasionally booed loudly while the U.S. national anthem is played at NHL and NBA games up to now couple of years — even during a WWE Elimination Chamber event in Toronto last March — in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed on the country and his comments about making Canada the “51st state.”
Nevertheless it wasn’t just the Canadians protesting the U.S. national anthem. The Canadian national anthem was booed by fans on the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025, which got here after the jeering of the U.S. national anthem through the opening rounds in Montreal the week prior.
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