The World's - Part 5

by jgr80

A few days ago I blogged a rather cynical remark about Canadian fans at the hockey games. Here's some pictures from the Canada vs Norway quarter final game. The last game Team Canada was to play in Halifax.

I took these pictures during gameplay in the first period. EDIT: I was told that five or so minutes into the game, the Metro Centre or the IIHF or TSN or someone of such power made the decision to give tickets away. Thousands of them. Meaning barely anyone bought tickets to see the game in the first place.

Many of the international fans that were going to every game-- lots of Latvians, gaggles of Germans, a slew of Slovenians, for example-- had left the city to go back home. Each game had a few hundred of these folks.

And sure, the game was on a Monday during a regular day's work schedule. I spoke to a lot of people who were taking work off to go to the game though.

It's funny that when an event of this caliber comes to Canada - the first nation of hockey - and our team is playing, we can't fill a 9000 seat stadium.

This comes from a so-called "hockey crazed" city that begs for huge events, especially concerts, to come to them every summer-- fighting it out with the other cities in the region, creating unnecessary rivalries about municipal governments. If I were a promoter looking in the stands at this event, I wouldn't be thinking of lots of people coming out to The Commons to see Celine Dion or The Eagles.

Once they did get a few more bums in the seats, the fans were pretty good. They cheered and jeered as one would expect.

At the end of the game, Team Canada - as they had throughout the tournament - thanked the fans. They thanked a little longer this time, as it was their last game in Halifax. Overall, the fans were pretty good when the team needed them. There was a big penalty kill against the USA --lasting nearly 6 minutes-- that would have been real tough for the Canadians to kill without the fans.

The biggest thing about the fans for me, was that they were so negative about everything compared to international fans. The international fans cheered their team no matter if they were winning or losing. The Canadian fans didn't cheer for their team so much as they booed the refs and booed other teams.

As you can see, the stands filled up a bit more by the end of the game.

The World's - Part 4

by jgr80


Stephen Harper was at the Canada vs. Finland game.

At the 2nd whistle or so (because the first whistle was a Canada goal) they showed him on the jumbotron so that everyone could be in awe of his presence. Some people booed. Others looked around to find where he was.

I knew he was in attendance before the game began. So I didn't jump on this right away. I had announcing stuff to do. But it was one of those things I was told for encouragement.


IIHFGuy This is important. It's the Canada Finland game. They both finished first. Do a good job.
JGR80 OK.

IIHFGuy The Prime Minister's here, so you have to do a good job. Don't be nervous.
JGR80 OK. That would make me more nervous if I voted for him. But I don't care.

At about two minutes into the first period, a wayward puck goes into the stands about 10 rows over my right shoulder.

The first thing over the radio is panic.

RADIO the puck hit the prime minister. (pause...)

JGR80(soliloquy) Oh geez. This should make for funny news tomorrow. Did the Finnish player shoot it? Could be an incident.

RADIO (still pausing...) The guy's a right-wing. He shouldn't have been on that side of the ice.

Hardy har har.

...

First intermission rolls around though and I figured it might be neat to get a picture since he's doing non-stop photo-ops when the game is not on. I am the announcer after all. Maybe I can skip the line-up.

I get real close to the head of the line. And the most bizarre thing happens.

My phone rings. Fine. Whatever. The phone rings all the time. I'm in line to get the picture. I'm not answering it. Then one of his handlers makes it his business.

HARPERBODYGUARD Could you please answer your phone, sir?

JGR80 I'll call em back. I don't want to bug the other folks in line.

HARPERBODYGUARD Answer your phone, sir. Please step over here.

He shuffled me out of line. I didn't get my picture. This was the best I could do.


















The puck didn't hit him. He did sit right beside Rodney MacDonald who posed for a total of 0 pictures during intermissions.

The World's - Part 3

by jgr80

Cosmic Carousal is not a hockey blog. Just so happens I've been spending a lot of time at the rink. There are actually a few other writers signed on to post, who will likely never mention hockey unless it is to make fun of my earlier posts. They will be here shortly.

This post is also related to hockey.

There are a lot of breaks in the games. There are the regular ones that anyone who understands hockey would expect... goals, whistles, period ends, etc. But with televised games, there are also commercials.

For all the millions of people watching around the world, there are thousands of people in the game arena. There's not enough time during a commercial to go for a beer. There's nothing happening on the ice. It's just enough time to make those drunk fans I blogged about the other day really upset.

Well, the jumbotron usually gets in on the action. Most of the time its a generic animation telling the fans to "make noise" or "get loud" or "clap hands." Some people pay attention to these (drunk fans), and the others (non-drunk fans) turn to whoever they're sitting with and jock-talk about the game.

Those pesky jumbotron guys likes to switch it up though. They do a 50/50 announcement. They do advertisements. They do replays. My personal favorite is the "Kiss Cam." Insert video here.



This was not even one of the more entertaining episodes of the IIHF "Kiss Cam." It was just the one that I was prepared to video. The things come without warning. I had been planning on it for a few games.

There is always a build-up in tension... Somehow the camera men are able to keep the funniest couple to the end.

During one game, they decided to put the two guys doing the stats work in the penalty box on the cam. Which was only funny to the people who knew them. I was lucky enough to be one of the people who found it funny.

One time they put two drunk male fans on screen. They didn't bite.

One time they put two females on screen. They bit. For about five seconds. It was cool.

Sometimes they put up people and no one realizes they're on screen. Like five couples in a row. No one kissing. The bit nosedives from the jumbotron right to centre ice. Then they go to canned footage of Homer and Marge making out at various times throughout The Simpsons.

But one time... they put a couple up on screen... one of the first ones, too, so it wasn't the big finish by any means... The guy on camera turns to the camera man, looks straight into the camera and says "SHE'S MY SISTER!" Dude was horrified. The crowd laughed harder than at anything else in any other game I was at.

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.

The World Hockey Championships - Part 1

by jgr80

The World Hockey Championships are being held in Halifax this year. I stumbled upon this gig, a few weeks ago, where I get to make announcements during the games. There was a bit of an audition and stuff, and I got the job.

During the week, I had been helping my uncle get ready for the lobster season 2.5 hours out of town. I had to correspond over email about the announcing and make trips back to Halifax when I needed to be at the arena.

Then there was the practice game. The TV guys are all there to make sure everything runs smoothly, the performers are doing mic checks, the referees are making sure the ice is up to snuff, the announcers are going through the scripts, etc.

And then I lost the job.... only really finding out when I got back to Halifax. Having been on the water that morning, it was a rushed trip back to the city, only to find out I wouldn't be working.

A crushing defeat.

And then on the second day of the tournament, I was reinstated. the 3rd stringer role. Meaning I do a lot of watching hockey from the front row at centre ice while someone else makes the announcements in the chair beside me. And I do a little announcing as well-- there's like 25 games in Halifax, I work about 4 of them.

The tournament is a two week cluster of hockey, celebrities, parties, etc. I find myself thrown into the middle of it without having done much to get there or doing a whole lot to stay. This provides tons of time to observe......

1. John Ferguson Jr and Lindy Ruff would rather sit in seats with the fans at this event than the primo boxes or primo VIP seats.
2. Steve Yzerman walks with his head down in what appears to be either a lack of confidence (unlikely) or he's trying not to be recognized (more likely). He was recognized, and his hand was shaken. He was not wearing any oversized championship rings.
   
3. Pat Burns likes beers at hipster bars. Not sports bars. Not meat markets. He told me so. Over a beer. He was wearing oversized championship rings.
4. Jean Beliveau is an incredible person to see. Just to see. No hand shake. No shared experience. Just a hello. I think my jaw dropped and I responded with an awed primordial grunt of some kind. He did not wear oversized championship rings. Although, I find this reasonable since I only counted 12 fingers.

   From Wikipedia - "Beliveau's name appears on the Stanley Cup a record seventeen times, including seven times as an executive for the Canadiens 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1986, 1993." [1]

5. Drunk fans smile a lot more while on the Jumbotron than sober fans. (these links have nothing to do with hockey, btw)
   
6. 2/5ths or more of the attendance misses the opening faceoff, even when Canada is playing.
7. Pro Hockey players are much dirtier in real life than on TV, figuratively and literally.
8. Int'l fans love their country's team; CDN fans dislike teams from other countries.

I got a bit of a promotion after the last game I announced. Rather than announcing a game with teams who's countries names both end with '-ia', I will be announcing Canada vs. Finland on Monday. A slight change of pace, indeed. The teams both finished first in their pools.

Person Jean Beliveau

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