O Canada! He sang anthems for 40 years
OBITUARY: RICHARD LONEY
VANCOUVER — Richard Loney, the former, longtime national anthems singer for the Vancouver Canucks, has died.
Loney started singing the pregame anthems during the first Canucks NHL season in 1970-71 and continued in that role for more than 40 years, the team said.
“I was lucky enough to hear him sing O Canada so many times during my playing career,” team president and former captain Trevor Linden said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to his wife, Marion, and his family and friends.”
Loney didn’t just sing for Canucks fans.
He also added his voice over the years at games involving the B.C. Lions, Vancouver Whitecaps, Vancouver Giants and at Seattle’s Safeco Field when the Toronto Blue Jays would visit the Mariners.
Another highlight of his career: Singing in Russian when the Soviet Union came to the Pacific Coliseum to face Team Canada during the 1972 Summit Series. He said in 2011 that for that song, he had to learn the words phonetically, tapping the talents of a friend who was a linguist at UBC.
“I knew what the words meant — they’ve changed them since. It was too nationalistic, too motherland. Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh,” Loney said in that interview, breaking out briefly into song. “I could probably go through it if you gave me five minutes.”
And how did Loney get his Canucks gig?
“I was doing a lot of singing with the Vancouver Opera and teaching, so I went to the first three or four games and remember the very first game and saw Our Pet Juliette [singer and host of CBC’s The Juliette Show] who sang the anthem,” Loney told vicnews.com in 2011.
“She did fine. She was blond and had a beautiful long dress. She looked great. Then four or five games down the road I thought: Maybe I could do this.”
Loney contacted the club, and it took up his offer.