Toronto Raptors fans booing U.S. anthem ‘bigger than basketball’

They booed Vince Carter a lot harder, longer and more vociferously. There was some hate in those moments at Scotiabank Arena.

When Toronto Raptors fans booed the American national anthem Sunday afternoon — a first in my experience, going back to the building’s opening for basketball in February of 1999 — it wasn’t like that.

It was more mild, and it wavered. When they booed Carter 20 years ago, they really meant it. On Sunday afternoon, it felt like even the people doing the booing couldn’t believe the shape their lips were forming or sound that was coming out of them, and why.

Since the same fans cheered enthusiastically for Kawhi Leonard, the one-time Raptors star who left for Los Angeles after one season in Toronto, where he helped lead the Raptors to the 2019 NBA title, it’s safe to assume it was nothing personal.

Nope, this was a public gathering of nearly 20,000 Canadians (18,874, to be precise) speaking out against their American neighbours at the outset of what is shaping up to be a potentially devastating trade war. Canadian goods have been hit with 25 per cent tariffs when they are exported to the US. In response, Canada has announced the same treatment for some U.S. goods entering Canada. You understand the gesture, but in basketball terms this is getting fouled by Shaquille O’Neal vs. you fouling Shaq: Not all fouls are created equally or have the same impact.

Add in that it’s happening as U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted his musings about Canada becoming the 51st state to declaring it a strategy: “We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use,” he said Sunday on his social media account.

“Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada – AND NO TARIFFS!”

It’s both awkward and terrifying. Even when the Canadian anthem was sung with several degrees more passion than the usual ‘is-this-over-yet?’ vibe, with the lyric ‘free’ emphasized and a hearty collective cheer at the end, it felt strange. Like, a nice sentiment to be sure, but it’s not going to keep the furnace on when the auto sector shuts down, or whatever.

But enthusiastic Canadian anthems happen before every playoff game, for example. Booing the American anthem?

“They don’t even do that in FIBA,” said Raptors veteran and Canadian national team star Kelly Olynyk.

American players react

“Yeah, I noticed it,” said Raptors veteran wing Garrett Temple, who is in his 15th NBA season and second playing in Toronto.

“[My] reaction? ‘Wow.’ And then you just think about why they’re booing. There are a lot of things bigger than basketball going on in the world right now. At the end of the day, we play in an arena that’s in Canada and they’re Canadian citizens, so they have a certain feeling about the trade situation going on, the tariffs. The people that booed let their thoughts be known … obviously unexpected when you first hear it. And then I understand what’s going on. You put two and two together. Free speech, right?”

Still, booing the U.S. national anthem feels really weird, but these are weird times, with all kinds of other adjectives probably more appropriate than that.

“Obviously it has an impact on a lot of people in this country and in this stadium,” said Olynyk. “It’s their opinion. I felt bad for the girl singing but they cheered her at the end, so I was happy for that, they did a good job. It’s the state of the world right now.”

Fittingly, or ironically perhaps, one of the best on-court moments in a game full for them from a Raptors point of view in what ended up being an impressive 115-108 win was a multinational effort.

It involved Toronto’s Austrian centre Jakob Poeltl diving on the floor to battle for a loose ball against the aforementioned Leonard, winning it and flipping it to RJ Barrett, one of three Canadians on the Raptors roster, who flipped it to Gradey Dick, a son of the U.S. heartland in Kansas, for a wide-open three. The shot put Toronto up by 13 with seven minutes to play and was the first of three straight triples by the Raptors that helped keep the Clippers at arm’s length.

The Raptors have won eight of their past 10 games and stand at 16-33. It took them 40 games to win their first eight games. The Raptors remain tied for the fifth-worst record in the league, for those concerned about end-of-season lottery odds.

The Raptors held Clippers stars James Harden and Leonard to 13-of-38 shooting while Toronto shot 51.8 per cent from the floor and 52 per cent from three against the NBA’s second-rated defence.

But it still all felt odd, like a distraction from something bigger and scarier.

It will interesting if the booing of the U.S. anthem becomes standard in Canadian arenas. It happened on Saturday night at the Ottawa Senators-Minnesota Wild NHL game.

Nearly 80 per cent of the Raptors roster is American. It feels impolite to be dissing their anthem one minute and then cheering Florida’s Scottie Barnes a minute later.

Traditionally, the Americans most likely to be booed at Scotiabank Arena are the refs. Most fans are out to cheer for the Raptors, watch the other team’s stars and escape from their own troubles for a few hours.

The problem is it’s hard to envision how those problems away from the arena aren’t going to be magnified for just about everyone paying to be there. How long and how bad the pain gets — financially or existentially or both — who knows?

It took Raptors fans more than a decade to get over their antipathy for Vince Carter and a half decade after that for the differences to be fully put aside and his jersey to be retired to the rafters earlier this season.

Here’s hoping that any reasons Canadian basketball fans might have to be upset with our U.S. neighbours — or, more accurately, their current government — will be resolved a lot sooner than that.

It’s hard to be optimistic on that front, but the alternative isn’t appealing either.