QUEBEC CITY - Anze Kopitar didn’t want to talk much about the abandoned anthem. He wouldn’t say if it sounded good or bad. And he sure as heck wasn’t going to hum a few bars, so that we could hear it for ourselves.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I’m not that great of a singer.”
All Kopitar would say was that the instrumental song, which was created for Team Europe but which the players decided against even if it meant not having an anthem, wasn’t necessary. Team Europe might be the only participant in the World Cup of Hockey without an official anthem — North America will play the Canadian and American anthems before their games — but it does not mean the players are any less unified.