New Jersey Devils’ National Anthem Odyssey

For years, the New Jersey Devils featured a fairly stable set of National Anthem performers, with Arlette of course the de facto “Official Anthem Singer”. The past few weeks have seen a significant departure from the club’s historical approach to honoring our nation.

So, I think it is safe to say that to many hard core Devils fans, as we listen to the National Anthem in the Prudential Center, the question of the month might be:

“Where’s Arlette?”

Last night, as I rose for the National Anthem and heard yet another performer introduced, I thought to myself,

“Hey, did I miss Andrew Gross’s tweet a few weeks back about Arlette being out with an upper body injury?”

Why might I think that, you may wonder? Well, during the past few weeks we’ve seen quite an array of disparate Star Spangled Banner performances at The Rock.  If I am remembering correctly, the lineup has included some of the following individuals.

• A very talented teenage girl who often sings the Canadian National Anthem, whose name I unfortunately can not recall. I do remember however that her performance is excellent, she has both outstanding diction and an incredibly clear and pitch perfect voice.
• Taz Niederauer, a budding teenage hard rock guitarist. He has incredible talent, but anyone who, as NHL.com put it, shreds the National Anthem, may not be operating within a genre commensurate with a respectful piece like the Star Spangled Banner. Part of me thinks Francis Scott Key might be turning over in his grave listing to that particular rendition. It certainly was interesting and, as I said, the young man clearly is an excellent musician.
• Ken Danekyo’s son, Shane Daneyko.  A representative from the New Jersey Devils’ family.
• A New Jersey State trooper, in honor of Law Enforcement Night.
• A courageous wheelchair-bound young boy of Indian descent named Sparsh Shah. If you search this young man out on YouTube, you’ll see he truly spans a wide variety of musical tastes. Quite versatile!

This assortment of performers of our National Anthem lies in stark contrast with the New Jersey Devils’ traditional approach of having an “Official Anthem Singer”.

These recent events beg important questions such as the following:

Does anyone know where Arlette is?  Will she ever be back?  Is she in the process of being pushed aside a la John Amirante with the Rangers?  And will we ever see the likes of alternative anthem performers such as Max DeFrancesco or Chris Georgetti again?

Only The Shadow knows…….

Hopefully, the answers to these and many other burning questions will be forthcoming before the end of the season.

And, most importantly, hopefully we’ll soon start to see the New Jersey Devils make the types of hockey-related personnel moves which will encourage writers like me to focus more on the Devils and hockey itself, rather than writing soft pieces on the National Anthem performers. It’s been a rough season. Let’s hope for some better days ahead.

Next: New Jersey Devils Must Remain Patient

Finally, for those of you who don’t get it, a lot of this is tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps all of it! Let’s face it, only humor, be it gallows humor or mindless humor, can help us get through this season!  Here’s to Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian and Blake Speers. Please get here soon. We need you.

Go Devils!