What, No National Anthem Before the Hockey Game?

I was reading with a great deal of interest the story coming out of Pennsylvania this week of nearly 200 high school hockey teams in the Quaker State being advised to eliminate the National Anthem before the game because it takes too much time to perform and costs too much money.

Ed Sam is the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League said it had nothing to do with the lack of patriotism and everything to do with economics. Sam said ice time is quite expensive and the national anthem eats into the clock. Quoting Sam on television station KDKA, “Ice is very, very hard to get and it’s not cheap,” noting that it costs upwards of $300 per hour for schools to rent ice rinks. Sam did acknowledge that he used a “poor choice of words” but said the national anthem hasn’t been a major issue because “A lot of our teams never really played the national anthem. But some of them did.”

Mr. Sam needs to get his priorities in line.  What does it take to play the National Anthem? Maybe two minutes? If that’s the case, I can come up with plenty of solutions to this problem. Here are a few for Mr. Sam to consider.

1…”Man up” and play the Anthem or I will invite you to the Next Veteran’s Day Ceremony.

2…Play two halves instead of three periods with one intermission. Easier on the Zamboni driver that way too.

3…Shorten the game time by two minutes. It’s just your hockey game but it is MY Anthem.

4…Call me and I will tell the rink owners to go to Hell if they charge you extra for playing it

since you apparently won’t tell them.

5....Let me show you what a real Red White and Blue power play is.