NHL history made with beautiful rendition of "O Canada" in Punjabi

The NHL made history before Saturday night’s Winnipeg Jets game against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Jets were celebrating South Asian Heritage Night at the Canada Life Centre, which featured a beautiful rendition of O Canada sung in Punjabi, a first for the league.

The singers were students from the local Amber Trails School’s kindergarten to grade 8 choir, which is the first school in Manitoba to offer a bilingual English-Punjabi program.

Ahead of tonight's game in Winnipeg, O Canada was performed in English and Punjabi for the first time in @NHL history. pic.twitter.com/jAgB1ghAew

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 17, 2023

This marks another incredible and unique way that NHL teams have celebrated Canada’s diverse nation of hockey fans. Though it may seem like a small gesture, it can help people of every culture find recognition and feel like they belong in the sport.

The decision to sing the anthem in Punjabi makes a whole lot of sense outside of the fact that the organization was celebrating South Asian culture.

Hockey is so popular among Punjabi-speaking Canadians that it spawned the creation of Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi which features play-by-play commentators and analysts speaking the language.

According to Stats Canada, Punjabi is the fourth most-spoken language in the country with about 520,390 people who use it as their primary language.

This isn’t the first time that the Jets have used the anthem as a way to celebrate other cultures. Back in 2020, a choir of kids performed the anthem in the Ojibway language to celebrate Indigenous peoples’ heritage.

Another popular rendition of the anthem was performed in Edmonton in Ukrainian back in 2022. The anthem was meant to celebrate Ukrainian heritage and to show solidarity with the country when war broke out. Unlike the Punjabi and Ojibway versions, this one was performed by a local choir.

No matter what language the anthem is sung in, it stands as a testament to the welcoming nature that Canada stands for and allows everybody to come together, no matter the cultural differences.