Worst pregame national anthem ever

[DeeBye]

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Montreal singer Marcil struggles performing U.S. anthem at exhibition hockey game
Caroline Marcil, who failed twice singing the United States national anthem, gets up after falling on the ice at the beginning of an exhibition game.

The singer was slated to perform the national anthems prior to the United States' 5-4 exhibition hockey win over Canada. However, she sang neither after twice failing to complete the Star Spangled Banner when she seemingly forgot the words.

After apologizing to the crowd, Marcil left the ice and headed back towards the dressing room - to a smattering of boos from the Quebec Coliseum crowd of 7,166 - presumably to get the words.

But when the young woman returned to the ice, the carpet slipped out from underneath her, causing Marcil to fall hard. After lying motionless on the ice for a few seconds, she left on her own and television replays showed a despondent Marcil being consoled in the hallway adjacent to the ice surface.

The carpet came to rest at centre ice and American player Doug Weight and an unidentified teammate skated it back to the area where Marcil, the daughter of Rene Marcil, the past president of Hockey Quebec, was to perform. But by that time she had left the ice.

When Marcil left, the decision was made to proceed with the opening faceoff without the singing of either anthem.

Although he felt bad for Marcil, Canadian netminder Martin Brodeur couldn't help but chuckle about her struggles.

"You've got to give her credit, she came back twice and fell once," he said with a laugh. "It's definitely a different way to start a hockey game than we're used to.

"There was a little bit of humour involved. It was just too bad for her. I was just thinking that I hope she's not on Canadian Idol."

Canadian coach Marc Habscheid, on the other hand, felt nothing but sympathy for the young woman.

"We felt bad for her," he said. "It was just unfortunate."
© The Canadian Press 2005

I watched the film of this and it was pretty bad. I felt really awful for this young lady. She messed up the US national anthem twice and fell flat on her tushie. I'm pretty sure she's probably crying in a lonely dark corner right now.