Fans were left speechless after this unexpected anthem moment
The Centre Bell did something Monday night that nobody scripted. Before Game 3 between the Canadiens and Hurricanes, the microphones cut out, and the building took over.
The American anthem was supposed to ring out clean. The mics had other plans. So 21,000 fans in Montreal picked it up themselves, line by line, until the audio crew finally caught up.
Jakub Dobes stood on his blue line for it. Then he went out and stopped 35 of 38 shots in an overtime loss that pushed the Canadiens into a 2-1 series hole.
The clip spread fast across hockey social media. Cory Lavalette of The North State Journal flagged it first, calling the crowd's response one of those rare unscripted moments a playoff building can produce.
-
You could hear it on the broadcast. A few hesitant voices, then the rows behind the visitors' bench joined in, then the upper bowl. By the time the singers' mics came back, the song was already two-thirds done.
That sentence describes itself. The visiting anthem, carried by the home crowd, in a series Montreal is trying to claw back into.
Martin St-Louis and the Habs face a Game 4 squeeze on Wednesday
The hockey part of the night was less kind. Carolina has now taken two straight one-goal games in this series, both in overtime, both by an identical 3-2 score.
Montreal opened the round with a 6-2 win on the road. Everything since has been razor-thin. Three of the four games have been decided by a single goal.
Dobes has been the reason this series is still alive. The 24-year-old has carried a heavy workload, and the shot volume against him in Game 3 wasn't an accident. Carolina is leaning on him hard.
Game 4 goes Wednesday at the Centre Bell. A loss puts Martin St-Louis's group on the brink, with the next two scheduled for Carolina if needed.
The crowd already did its part once this series. The question now is whether the team in front of them can match it before the building runs out of nights.
-
|
YESTERDAY
MAY 25, 2026
| ||||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||