Honestly, I was expecting to publish these poll results as the Boston Bruins visited the Flyers in Philadelphia in a Game 5 match. Obviously, that won’t happen, as the Bruins did an impressive job of sweeping the Flyers out of the playoffs while Philly must answer some tough questions.
As it turned out, the first Kate Smith/Lauren Hart “God Bless America” rendition after news broke about Osama bin Laden’s death turned out to be the last one until next season.
The question we posed was: should the Flyers retire their traditional mash-up of Hart’s live vocals and video footage of Smith’s rendition or should the team maintain the status singing quo? Before we get to the poll results, here are a couple comments from PHT readers. (Note: these comments haven’t been edited.)
“cptman” voiced disapproval regarding a change:
Meanwhile, “snoboarder92201” thinks it might be time to move on.
(You can read more comments in the original post.)
OK, now that we have some responses, let’s take a look at the results.
(click to enlarge)
So, readers think the Flyers should go with a Hart-only “God Bless America” rendition by a very slim margin (less than five percent more). It’s doubtful that the very independent Flyers franchise would allow a poll like this to influence their tradition anyway, but this isn’t an emphatic movement to do away with the old setup.
It is interesting to see that more people believe that the team should make a change, especially since such a move could be controversial in some circles. The “God Bless America” tradition already makes the Flyers’ pre-game ceremonies special, but some think that it’s time to let Hart handle it on her own.