When singer Nicole Raviv ran into technical difficulties while performing the national anthem at Game 4 in round two of the Stanley Cup playoffs, New York Islanders fans helped out by singing along until her mic was fixed.
For Game 6, the Islanders were back in New York, and Raviv got another chance to perform. This time, the microphone worked perfectly, but the crowd of nearly 14,000 hockey fans at Nassau Coliseum still joined in to belt out “The Star-Spangled Banner” with her ahead of the game between the Islanders and the Boston Bruins.
Check out the rousing rendition in the video tweeted out by NHL on NBC Sports. Raviv realizes the fans are singing with her once again and tips the mic toward them, encouraging the sing-a-long:
The Coliseum comes together for the anthem.
#Isles pic.twitter.com/7HCVMjM2To
— NHL on NBC Sports (@NHLonNBCSports) June 9, 2021
Wow!
“Once I felt the energy, I kind of just felt the moment and handed it off,” Raviv said of the experience during an appearance on “Fox and Friends.”
Raviv tweeted about the moment, “My heart is full. The coliseum will forever have the best backup singers in the NHL.”
My heart is full. The coliseum will forever have the best backup singers in the #NHL.#LGI pic.twitter.com/iOj0KqI3YL
— Nicole Raviv (@thenicoleraviv) June 10, 2021
The video has circulated widely on social media, and while Raviv was not expecting all the attention, she’s happy to have shared the special moment with fans.
“I definitely felt larger than life,” she told Newsday. “It feels like a memory of a lifetime. It was just a beautiful moment for me as a singer to sing with the Islanders fans, with everyone else in the building. Not everyone gets to experience something like that, especially after a worldwide pandemic where we didn’t know when crowds would come back. And last season’s playoffs ended virtually, and they were in a bubble with no fans, so really this was the first time I was able to experience something like that. And it really just felt magical.”
Raviv has been singing the anthem at Islanders games since the start of the 2019-20 season. She thinks involving the fans in the anthem may become a tradition.
“We will definitely try to involve the fans as much as we can and make it a collective experience,” she told theNew York Post.
The Islanders won Game 6 and advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinals, where they’re playing the Tampa Bay Lightning — so we might get to see Raviv lead fans through the national anthem again.
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