Bruins anthem singer finalist had to hurry back to bartending job after singing home opener

BarDown Staff

Todd Angilly , (Courtesy: NHL.com)

The bad boys of Boston are looking to pick up where they left off last season by continuing to be a force out of the Atlantic, but there is one glaring difference in their team. While personnel changes happen every year, there was no member of the team longer tenured than TD Garden anthem singer Rene Rancourt.

Rancourt retired at the end of the 2017-18 season after over 40 years of singing. His iconic mustache and bowtie combination has become a part of the Bruins identity, and it was an emotional goodbye when he sung his last “land of the free and home of the brave”

Congrats Rene Rancourt on 42 years of singing the anthem! The Garden Legend sang tonight for his last (regular season) game!

A post shared by Boston Bruins (@nhlbruins) on Apr 8, 2018 at 5:02pm PDT

So what’s next for the Bruins? Do they have a successor already lined up?

Nope, it’s much more entertaining than that. The Bruins announced that they would be using the 2018-19 to decide properly, and that they’d have multiple finalists come out to give it a go.

First up, 43-year-old Todd Angilly.

Angilly is an opera-trained singer, something that become fairly apparent quickly during Monday’s home opener at the Garden. Angilly has actually sung the anthem before at the arena, and also at Fenway Park, but he explains that nothing quite had the magnitude as this Monday afternoon performance.

The following is an excerpt from NHL.com:

"I'm shaking right now," Angilly, 43, said. "The only reason I say this is to make the point. I've studied at the New England Conservatory and all that stuff. I've been on stages. But this is different. This is a whole different [thing]. Yeah, I'm still buzzing. It's really weird. There was a couple times out there I thought I was going to start yelling or something because they were really getting into it."

While anthem duties were going to fall to someone, Angilly is a particularly interesting candidate. One of several finalists, Angilly sung the anthem ahead of a Bruins tilt with the Ottawa Senators with one very endearing quality. Underneath his suit jacket, he was wearing his bartending uniform. He had to work that night.

Angilly, a native of Warwick, Rhode Island, is a probation officer by day, but when the evening rolls around he puts in shifts at SportsDeck – a bar located within the Gardens. After singing the anthem, Angilly had to hurry back to the bar to help out his coworkers. After all, the home opener is a very busy night.

While we aren’t going to compare his story to the other candidates, some of which likely have nuance and special connections as well, Angilly’s story is one of a guy that you just can’t help but cheer for.

We can’t show you how he did, you can instead find the video here, but we can show you Angilly singing at Fenway Park.