When the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team played her rendition of "God Bless America" before the game on December 11, 1969, an unusual part of her career began. The team began to play the song before home games every once in a while, and the perception was the team was more successful on these occasions, so the tradition grew. She made a surprise appearance at the Flyers' home opener to perform the song in person prior to another game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on October 11, 1973, and received a tremendous reception. The Flyers won that game by a 2-0 score. She again performed the song at the Spectrum in front of a capacity crowd of 17,007 excited fans before Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals on May 19, 1974, at which the Flyers clinched their first of two back-to-back Stanley Cups, winning that playoff series against the Boston Bruins 4 games to 2, with Bernie Parent shutting the Bruins out 1-0 in that game. Smith also performed live at these Flyers home games: May 13, 1975, where the Flyers beat the New York Islanders by a score of 4-1 to win Game 7 of the Stanley Cup semi-finals, and on May 16, 1976, before Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals where the Flyers lost to the Montreal Canadiens by a score of 5-3 and were swept by Les Canadiens in that series. The Flyers' record when "God Bless America" is played or sung in person stands at a remarkable 76 wins, 20 losses, and 4 ties.
Little did Philly fans, or most people in general know (to the best of my knowledge, I wasn't around in the 70's) that she also had a little gem of a song called That's Why Darkies Were Born (America's third anthem?)... now we would jump all over this as racism (nonRAL) but when you actually read the lyrics, it seems like Smith is touting the black American as an hard-working unsung heroes, at least that's how we'll interpret it.
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