Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar and Grady fame does my favourite version of "O Canada" That video doesn't really do it justice but I've seen him do it live a half dozen times and it rocks like crazy. I'll readily admit it's not as good as Jimi doing "The Star-Spangled Banner" because unfortunately "O Canada" isn't quite as melodically robust as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and also, you know, it's Jimi. But I think that's as good as you can do with a rock and roll version of our national anthem.
I don't think anthems should be played at sporting events but this one is nice. The anthem is started and the fans join in singing the anthem and then the singer is classy enough to step aside and let them sing it.
It's a toss-up for me between the straight, no-frills, no-vocals military-band version (the one they always used to play before John Williams did the arrangement for the 1984 Olympics, after which his seems to have become the default) and Jimi's at Woodstock. I think I remember Beyonce doing a really nice rendition once, too. (Super Bowl XXXVIII?) And, of course, there's Robert Merrill.
In college we played the song with the melody as it existed during it's time as The Anacreontic Song before Key worte his lyrics, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun hearing it as a pub song, and kind of odd to have the melody race to the finish rather than slow down. It's still not ok to question Bush, but Johnny doesn't seem to have that same standard with Obama...
The National Anthem has nothing to do with the sport. Professional sports are not important enough to require the anthem. They don't play it when I get to work in the morning why should they play it before a hockey game? I always hear how the Olympics are a competition between athletes and not countries yet if this were true they wouldn't play the victors anthem. I'm told that they used to play the anthem at movies once, I'm glad they stopped that.
Playing it at sporting events is probably one of the few and rare places the average American is going to encounter and pay respect to the anthem. The net result is general more positive feeling about the country of which the anthem represents. So I say go ahead and play it at sporting events.
I don't really care if Americans play it at their sporting events, but I'd like to see the practice end in Canada. It has been awhile since I've been to a concert but anthems were not played at these in Canada. Is the anthem played before concerts in the U.S.? I seem to recall something about an artist (Sinaed O'Connor?) not wanting to play it before an event and some people, who would never go to one of her concerts, were quite upset.
*shrug* Fair enough, but for me it isn't a proper hockey game unless I stand for the anthem(s) for a few minutes at the beginning. It's a nice moment to pay respect to our country.