With the Stanley Cup finals all wrapped up, I wanted to induct something that was appropriate for the occasion. The playoffs are of course a time when celebrities come out of the woodwork to show support for their favorite team. Ever wanted to know what cool famous person thinks the New Jersey Devils are the bomb? Just watch any old playoff game from the swamp and you’ll get your answer. If there is one type of celebrity that always seems to make an appearance at your favorite (or not so favorite) team’s playoff games, it is singers. And what better place for them to rock their favorite team’s colours than right on the ice as they sing the national anthem (usually just the one representing their home country). Thank God for that too, because the way some of these singers put their own twist on the national anthem, if they ever attempted to sing the other country’s anthem, there’s a good chance Canada and the U.S. would go to war.

Before we go any further however, I have to be honest with you. Full disclosure: I hate country music. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it. I hate the twangy guitars. I hate the goofy lyrics about farm animals and haylofts. I hate the belt buckles that look like something Ric Flair would have worn in his heyday. I hate how every freakin’ song sounds exactly alike. I hate going to outdoor barbecues, and the host plays nothing but “new country” on his iPod, and no matter how no one is interested in hearing this crap, he or she refuses to turn on the radio. So if I sound like I’m being biased, I absolutely freakin’ am!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to this week’s induction. Before Game Four of the 2017 Stanley Cup final between Pittsburgh and Nashville, the Predators invited country star Dierks Bentley to sing the American national anthem. Now, I admit Dierks is no Roseanne, and he is no Carl Lewis, but this is pretty bad. Just take a listen…

You know this rendition is going to go badly when the first note sounds like the infamous “brown note” that apparently makes you soil yourself when you hear it. I thought “The Star Spangled Banner” is considered a hard song to sing because it gets higher and higher. If you’re starting off so low that tubas can’t mimic your notes, you know you’re not going to be hearing Mariah Carey circa 1991.

As always, the only people in the entire world whose opinion truly matters – Twitter users – had a field day with what we could call “The Star Mangled Banner” (patent pending). Kevin D. Breslin wrote “Dierks Bentley sounds like a dying catfish.” Zack Fitzgerald declared that “Singers like Dierks Bentley are why audio engineers get paid mega bucks.” And David Henry believed “Dierks Bentley sounds like he just got out of bed.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.