So, we just saw Carly Rae Jepsen perform, and this is crazy, but hers was one of the best Canadian national anthems ever, no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes. All joking aside, Carly, 33, proved why she was the prefect pick to represent her home country at the NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 17. Ahead of seeing the best and the brightest of the NBA go head-to-head, Carly serenaded those gathered at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Though it wasn’t filled with dramatic flourishes or extravagances, Carly’s rendition was simple, sincere, sweet, and from the heart. Way to go, Carly!
Though there were two members of the Toronto Raptors voted into the All-Star Game (Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry) there weren’t any actual Canadian players involved in the game. No Tristan Thompson, Chris Boucher, Andrew Wiggins, or the like. So, it seems Carly’s performance was for all the Canadian fans watching at home. Granted, when someone thinks of Canada, the first sport that comes to mind is hockey (though lacrosse, funny enough, is the country’s national summer sport) basketball has a huge following in the Great White North.
“I think because of the Raptors being the only team north of the border we get to say that’s not just the Toronto Raptors. That’s Canada’s NBA team,” Ed Robertson, lead singer of Barenaked Ladies, who performed the anthem at the 2018 game, told For The Win. “That’s the North. When you play the Raptors, you’re playing against the wind and the snow and hardy people that can survive in the forest with their bare hands.”
https://twitter.com/Supreme_Gifs/status/1097305418164953088
Carly Rae Jepsen, interpretando el himno de Canadá. #VamosAllStar pic.twitter.com/YmXEOwkDsN
— #Vamos de Movistar+ (@vamos) February 18, 2019
Though, it’s not all forest, bare hands and hockey. Sometimes, Canada is about infectious pop-songs, like the massive hit that made Carly Rae Jepsen a household name. “It’s interesting, the songs that people connect to,” she said while speaking with Billboard in 2017, five years after “Call Me Maybe” became one of the biggest songs in the world.
“That song, for me, has always been a little bit about how you wish you would have the confidence to act in real life. It’s the more fantastical side of things, where you go up to a complete stranger and do something wild that makes you feel alive. I think that everyone has a secret part of themselves that wants to have the confidence to do that.” Like the confidence to kill it at the NBA All-Star game? She has plenty of that.