It's a bittersweet time in the life of actor William Shatner. His comeback drama "Boston Legal" is nearing the end of its run. There's a new "Star Trek" movie on the way, and it appears director J.J. Abrams will have Leonard Nimoy playing Spock while keeping the Shatner version of James Tiberius Kirk out in the vast depths of the final frontier. And with this economy, who knows what happens to Priceline ...

Perhaps it's time to finally honor a Canadian icon. By having William Shatner sing both the Canadian and American national anthems at a Montreal Canadiens game during their 100th season celebration.

This idea was hatched by Montreal journalist Kristian Grevenor, who would like nothing more than to hear hammy, tuneless, spoken-word versions of the anthems delivered by the man whose cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" eclipses both the Beatles' and Elton John's for its staying power.

Tim Parent, a writer with the Bleacher Report, interviewed Grevenor about the online campaign to put the spotlight on Shat:

He says the idea struck him like a phaser blast to the chest after reading an on-line post about Shatner. "I then recalled the love the city showed for Shatner in 1992 when McGill University students forced the school to accept that the Student Union building be named after Shatner, which proved the grassroots love for Montreal's most famous actor."

[...]

"Shatner is to enunciation what (Alex) Kovalev is to stickhandling, it's mesmerizing and unpredictable, impossible to know where he's going next with his unique pause-act talk-singing style. Plus he has a huge larger-than-life presence and people would just get a kick out of this Montreal boy being there."

Has there ever been a goofy "Vote for Rory"-esque campaign to get someone to sing the national anthem at a hockey game? There wasn't one for, like, Sanjaya, was there? The William Shatner Canadiens' anthem petition can be found here, and we naturally encourage you to throw your support behind what Grevenor thinks "would be a moment of great drama, a fusion of two local legendary institutions."

As long as Shatner doesn't show up dressed as a patriotic candy striper and pulls a Lucy Lawless.

H/T to FanHouse.

Related: When Hockey and Hollywood Collide