A Great American Sports Moment

Rene Rancourt, a fantastic American singer, has sung the national anthem over 200 times for the Boston Bruins. He has started and finished the anthem every time. But this time, he knew he wouldn't be able to finish. Rancourt always practices the national anthem in the bathroom before every one of his performances. But that night, he couldn't even finish his practice session in the bathroom; he was too choked up.

Wednesday, the Boston Bruins played the Buffalo Sabres in a regular season emotional hockey match in which the Bruins ended up clinching a playoff spot, but losing in a shootout. It doesn't matter that they lost because to Boston, it was more than a hockey game. Wednesday night was the first time that thousands of Bostonians gathered together under one roof since the terrible bombing at the finish line of the Boston marathon. And what happened before the game was just overwhelmingly emotional, patriotic, and amazing act of unity and togetherness. For the 5 minutes before the game, when Rene Rancourt began to sing, everyone in the stands forgot about the color of each other's skins, forgot about everyone else's fault, stopped judging everyone and realized that everyone in the stands has so much in common. They sang with passion and gusto. It was one of the greatest moments in all of Boston Sports history.

Boston has never really had to deal with something as bad as this, but Boston is strong, and Boston will never give up and we will never be broken. The people of Boston believe that they are the centerpiece of America, and that's why we get so much crap from everyone, but Bostonians really come together in times of need and prove that they are a great city and they are just as important as anyone else when it comes to the making of our great country.

On Wednesday night, we realized that Boston is brave.... Boston is admirable.... Boston is together..... Boston is Strong.