The World's - Part 2: The first Game

by jgr80

I blogged yesterday that I lost the announce gig but was promptly reinstated. So I had been watching the tournament for a few days just waiting to get the call. My first game was to be Friday at 4:30. Finland and Latvia.

So like any good script reader, I was practicing the night before. Some familiar names, lots of unfamiliar names and I didn't want to make a goof of myself by not pronouncing them correctly. This was necessary. The names weren't easy.

Didn't take lots of practice, but it was still important to go over.

I get a call in the morning.

Now I'm a bit of a nighthawk. I was up late for no real reason other than I didn't have to be up all that early.

The call comes at about 11:30. The call wakes me up.

It's the tournament organizer.

ORGANIZER The announcer for the early game is at the doctor. We need you here now. The first announcement is in 10 minutes. Can you do it?

JGR80 Yes I can.
JGR80BRAIN No, you can't.
JGR80 ... yes... I... can...

JGR80 The next bus comes in a few minutes. I can be there in like 30 minutes.

ORGANIZER I'm sending a car.

The game is between Slovakia and Slovenia. Eeek, no practice.

So now I'm not prepared for my first game and have 3 minutes to fill in the blanks of the script and make the first announcement. I'd love to say that I had the wherewithal to pull it off without a hitch.

There were many hitches. Big ones. Big enough that if the hitches were on a wall or cliff somewhere, they would not only be big enough to support the weight of a climber, the climber would have enough room to set-up base camp.

Not only did I not know the names, I didn't realize the mic I was using was not the kind of mic I'm used to using. Doing the broadcast thing with radio and tv, I'm fairly used to using a directional type of mic to read into... Nope. Didn't realize this til halfway through the first.

The announcer's mic, which clearly makes sense in an arena, is a noise reduction mic. The kind rock bands use. So the singer can get pretty clear vocals and not pick up the sound from the other instruments. Which is why rock band vocalists sing with the mic in their mouths. Because it doesn't pick up sound very well even a few inches away.

I held the mic a few inches away until about half way through the first.

No one in the arena heard the starting line-ups, or any of the other huge spiel at the beginning of the game.

The second game was better. No hitches.