She’s been doing it full time since 2015 and still to this day, when Justine Tyrell steps on to the turf to sing the Canadian National Anthem before every Calgary Stampeders home game, her heart races and hands shake.

However, she says while standing out there, the focus of tens of thousands of football fans at that moment, once she gets the first note out and the crowd begins to join her, the nerves fade. It’s a moment Tyrell says she takes a lot of pride in.

“Thinking about all the people that would have loved the honour to get up there and sing such an important song and to be able to share that moment is huge,” says Tyrell who was the winner of a contest held by the Red and White to find a permanent anthem singer in 2014.

“It’s a role that I have a lot of pride in. To be able to do that is really special.”

– Justine Tyrell

Anyone who knows Tyrell’s incredible story from those auditions would not be surprised at how well she is able to take the mic and belt out the nation’s anthem with such confidence.

Rewind to 2014, when the Stampeders put out a call to candidates to submit videos of themselves singing O Canada. From those submissions, game-day staff narrowed the selections to a chosen few who then auditioned for the role. Tyrell and another young crooner were shortlisted for the gig and alternated games in 2014, with Tyrell emerging as the final choice for the full-time role.

The story doesn’t end there, however. Tyrell recalls an incredible story leading up to her final audition in front of Stampeders staff.

“I was actually in the hospital the night before the audition and I quite literally left emergency the morning of the audition,” says Tyrell.

Suffering from a kidney infection, she was determined to not let this opportunity slip away. As she located her car in the parking lot, she found out it had been vandalized and her driver’s side mirror taken off.

“I cried pretty much the whole way to McMahon Stadium,” says Tyrell.

“I re-did my makeup in the car and called my mom and said ‘I don’t think this is going to go well.’ And she said to just go in there and do it.

“It was pouring rain that day as well so I looked heinous and I’m trying to use an umbrella as a microphone as I’m singing out on the field and the umbrella is getting blown around by the wind.

“It was terrible and I was sure I came off as a total train wreck.”

Despite the adversity, Tyrell impressed the judges and was given the chance to sing for the Red and White faithful.

The young singer, who tours locally and in parts of BC with her own full band and has an album on the way, credits the mentality with which she has gone after her musical career with being able to overcome setbacks.

“In situations like that, you don’t get to sit down and explain the story and what you’re going through,” explains Tyrell. “Everybody’s got something.

“I try to use the same mentality when I have a big show to do and I’ve had whatever go on the night before and the day of. I can’t sit there and give people a sob story, you just have to go out there and do it.”

It was an opportunity she didn’t want to look back on and regret that she walked away, not having tried.

Today, she is honoured to lead CFL fans in the nation’s anthem that represents all that this great country has to offer and is a staple for sports fans everywhere.

It’s a job Tyrell takes very seriously, knowing the respect such a song commands.

We’ve all seen the blooper reels on nightly sports highlight shows, the cocky celebrities or famous divas who try to put their own spin on the anthem and ultimately fall flat on their face.

Aside from her pre-game routine, which includes putting on her headphones and going quiet leading up to the moment she has to go out to the field, Tyrell uses an app to find the correct key and is sure to keep a moderate tempo so the crowd can easily join her.

“When I was going through that final audition where I was having the crappy sort of lead-up to it, I think I was nervous and I really wanted to give it everything.

“I kind of over-sung it and the feedback I got when they offered it to me was that I had the voice, the delivery, the passion and everything but they did request that I dial it back a bit.

“They asked that I take a more classic approach and I prefer it that way. To me, that is the way it’s meant to be sung.”

A self-described casual fan in the beginning because she didn’t quite understand all the CFL rules, Tyrell now sees herself as a diehard fan of the Stamps, thanks in part to her role as the team’s full-time anthem singer.

“It’s a role that I have a lot of pride in. To be able to do that is really special.”