As the NHL’s Nashville Predators took on the Carolina Hurricanes in the final game of the six-game playoff series, Scott Stapp was one of the featured guest singers and he hit the ice to sing one of Creed‘s biggest hits, “Higher.”
Preceding Stapp’s performance and the puck-drop of Nashville’s win-or-go-home game, 13-time Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Cece Winans delivered an impassioned rendition of the ceremonial “The Star-Spangled Banner” at center ice.
Things got a bit rowdier later on, and we don’t mean the clashing of padded, stick-wielding athletes skating around at top speed. During the first intermission, Stapp, supported by a backing band, took his turn at the Bridgestone Arena in Tennessee with the game knotted at one-to-one.
Decked out in a yellow Predators home jersey, wearing No. 92, Stapp gently sang the immortal words to Creed’s smash hit “Higher” off the diamond-certified 1999 album Human Clay.
A 15-second clip of the performance was shared on Twitter by Tom Williams, guitarist for Long Island, New York hardcore group Stray From the Path and self-professed lover of all New York sports, most notably the Rangers NHL team, per his bio.
The video has already gained considerable traction online, as Williams pointed out in a retweet of his own clip. While expressing his own apparent surprise that the clip landed coverage at a leading golf website, he also bemoaned the Predators’ loss in overtime as the Hurricanes went on to win 4-3 and will advance to the next round of the playoffs in pursuit of winning the Stanley Cup title.
“It also just hit me that this is 100 percent the reason why the preds [sic] blew it last night. When Scott Stapp came out I should of [sic]put my life savings on Carolina,” he tweeted.
Watch the video clip below.