Singer Maurice Morin gives his all as he performs the U.S. and Canadian anthems for every Lewiston Maineiacs home game.
LEWISTON – Maurice Morin’s voice rumbles through the early bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He holds the microphone in a white-gloved hand and stands as straight as a flagpole, his posture accentuated by the tails of his tuxedo.
Then, his voice changes.
Sometimes, the 77-year-old crooner forgets the audience and the spotlight. At these moments, he sees only the flag he fought for. Everything else disappears.
At “bombs bursting in air” his voice opens. His tempo accelerates. His diction turns hard.
And then, it’s over.
It’s an almost sacred ritual for Morin, who sings the American and Canadian national anthems at the start of every home game of the local hockey team, the Lewiston Maineiacs.
He wears the tuxedo as a show of respect for the flag. And he tries to interpret the U.S. anthem as Francis Scott Key might have imagined.
Every song should be sung like it’s a poem with a message, Morin said. It’s a lesson he learned as a boy.
Morin was born in Lewiston and moved to Auburn when he was 4 years old. He was still very young when he began singing in church and at school. By 15 or 16, he was singing five nights a week on local radio, splitting his time between two stations, WLAM and WCOU. He crooned pop songs made famous by Bing Crosby and others.
By his late teens, he was in the Pacific aboard a Navy freighter that supplied America’s island-hopping war against Japan.
His experiences there gave him his love of the flag and what it represents.
“I learned about what it all means,” said Morin, who still gets emotional when he talks about it. At the mention of it, he stopped talking and steadied himself against sudden tears.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said.
When the war ended, Maurice returned to Auburn, married his sweetheart, Loretta, and went to work for the police. After 20 years with the department, he retired and became a shipfitter at Bath Iron Works.
Meanwhile, he continued to sing. He learned to sing in close harmonies with local groups and continued to develop as an interpreter of music.
After he retired in the 1980s, he spent his winters on Florida’s Gulf Coast. When the Tampa Bay Lightning team was formed there as part of the National Hockey League, Morin offered to sing.
In French, too
“I figured nobody down there knew the Canadian anthem, not in French anyway,” he said.
Soon he was singing at several games each year. At least once, the crowd surpassed 33,000 people.
The numbers mattered little, though.
“You can’t think of how many people are listening,” he said.
If you do, you can’t perform. Your mind has to be entirely in the song. Every distraction gets in the way, he said.
That’s true for more than the U.S. anthem. According to tradition, “O Canada” is sung whenever a Canadian team visits.
His version is sung half in French and half in English. As he sings, Maurice thinks of his father, who was born in Canada, and of the Canadian sailors he met during the war.
Once again, he is paying his respects, he said.
By the mid-’90s, other singers took over the duties for the Tampa Bay team. Since then, he and Loretta, who have been married for 54 years, stopped going to Florida for their winters. It left Maurice available for the Lewiston job.
He’s a fan of the sport – “the best game in the world” – and the local team. They get everything he can give.
When his microphone went out before a game earlier this season, he gave his voice a new test. He sang anyway. Folks said he could be heard throughout the Central Maine Civic Center, where the Maineiacs play.
“I just opened up and let it all out,” Maurice said. “I guess I’m just a ham at heart.”
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