With pre-tournament games for the World Cup of Hockey scheduled to start Thursday, the NHL has released the anthem protocol for the upcoming competition.
From the NHL:
The national anthems of the respective countries competing in each game will be played as part of the pre-game ceremonies in each of the WCH pre-tournament and tournament games. For Team North America, the national anthems of both Canada and the U.S., will be played before their games.
With respect to Team Europe, after careful consideration and consulting with team management and the Players in its leadership group, a determination was made to forego any form of musical tribute prior to Team Europe’s games. Participants from Team Europe were strongly of the view that notwithstanding their commitment to work together as a team toward a common objective in this tournament, their passion and loyalty for their own respective homelands and anthems made any surrogate musical tribute somewhat artificial and therefore unnecessary. Accordingly, only the anthem(s) of Team Europe’s opponent will be played before that team’s games.
The tournament officially gets underway on Sept. 17.
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