Cheer this

"The Oilers were coming off a Game 5 tinged with controversy. San Jose fans had roundly booed the Canadian anthem at the opening of that contest, and many wondered if the Edmonton faithful would follow suit in Game 6. And they did, swapping boos for loud cheers from the onset of the U.S. anthem in obvious defiance of their American counterparts." (CBC Sports)

Seriously. In Ireland and in London I opted not to talk a lot of the time, for after being told by an Irishman that he couldn't distinguish between me (a Canadian) and "them Yanks", I didn't want to be confused with an American, else I'd have to pull out this argument:
"First of all, it shouldn't matter; second, I'm Canadian; and third: what's your problem with Yanks anyway? Is it their international politics? Because only half the country turned out to vote, and less than half of them voted for Bush, and most of them were probably duped into the vote..."

But then, with such a Bush-league (funny how things turn out) display of ignorance such as booing a country's national anthem, it's hard to want to stand up for this mass of people. Good to hear the Canadian crowd did the right thing.

Interestingly, of the 25 players on the San Jose roster, 12 are Canadian, versus 5 that are American. On the Oilers, 21/33 Canadians and 5 Americans.

There's only the conference finals left to go: in the West, Edmonton Oilers vs Mighty Ducks of Anaheim; in the East, Carolina Hurricanes vs Buffalo Sabres... then the Stanley Cup final in June.