The Buffalo Bills are honoring their fans to the north by having the Canadian national anthem performed at their home opener next week, and amid rising cross-border tensions with the United States.
The team on Wednesday announced that the Toronto-based musical act Barenaked Ladies will perform “O Canada” before the Bills' prime-time game against the Detroit Lions on Sept. 17. They’ll be followed by Hawaiian-born actress and singer Auli’i Cravalho performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The game will be the first regular-season outing played at the Bills’ new $2.1 billion Highmark Stadium. The team previously announced that U.S. pop band OneRepublic will perform during halftime.
The Bills' nod to Canada comes as the team continues seeking to build its fanbase across southern Ontario and Toronto, the nation’s largest metropolitan center, which is located about a two-hour drive from Buffalo.
This isn’t the first time the Bills have played both anthems during games at Orchard Park. The Bills under late owner Ralph Wilson once hosted an annual Canadian fan appreciation game, which was scheduled near Canadian Thanksgiving, which falls on the second Monday of October.
The featured outings were discontinued about 20 years ago, and before the team played a series of annual regular-season games in Toronto over a six-year span, ending in 2013.
The NHL's Buffalo Sabres have had both the Canadian and American anthems performed before each game no matter the opponent in a tradition that began with their inception in 1970. The Bills and Sabres are now both owned by Terry Pegula.
During the NHL playoffs this spring, hockey fans memorably chimed in en masse by singing “O Canada” when anthem singer Cami Clune's microphone stopped working.
The Sabres and Bills rely on Canadians to attend their games. Though recent numbers aren't available, Canadians have made up as much as 15% of the Bills season-ticket base. Meantime, thousands of Canadians have filled the Sabres arena especially when the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens are playing.
Border crossings in Buffalo, however, have dropped at similar rates to other U.S. communities neighboring Canada since President Donald Trump returned to office with remarks about making Canada the 51st state. The nations are now in the midst of a trade war, with Trump antagonizing Canadians even further by recently using an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Canadian residents made 25% fewer return border crossings and spent about $2.4 billion (CA$3.3 billion) less on travel to the U.S. in 2025 than they had the year before, according to Canada’s national statistical agency, Statistics Canada.
