Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s
Attended the Tampa Bay Lightning-Toronto Maple Leafs’ game at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night. A rather sloppy affair between two teams still figuring out who they are and where they’re going.
Steve Stamkos picked up his first NHL point, on a gift assist on a nice goal by Vincent Lecavalier. Mike Smith looked good in net, again, for the Lightning. And once again, Toronto let a game slip away they probably should have won.
But those things are secondary to what really struck me last night…and struck me is the apt term.
Why is everything so freaking loud at hockey games? No, at any sporting event? With every stoppage-in-play, and, the gods help us, during the intermission, the peppy staff at the ACC had to fill every millisecond with someone shouting at me.
Either it was a sponsor contest (which you’ll notice no-one ever loses), or an advertisement for some lame Hollywood movie, or some stale on-ice intermission contest. Hey, I fully understand that pro sports is a business, and any chance to make a buck will be seized upon, but why do you have to shout about it?
High volume level is associated with high energy level, though the two are not necessarily the same thing. When you’re talking (shouting) to 19,000 fans at a hockey arena, you have to project, not only in volume, but in approach, in order to grab their attention.
But you’re not barking through a paper cone, you’re yelling into a modern-day high-tech microphone that’s pumped through the mega-ton speaker system suspended throughout the building. Why shout? And if you feel the need to pump up the volume, to whip the crowd into a frenzy, learn some mic technique. Back it off a bit when you go for the gold, don’t overwhelm the mic, thus the speakers, thus the crowd.
Took my four-year-old boy to a Toronto Raptors game late last season. The wife snared us good seats. The kid likes basketball (there’s no accounting for taste) and was pumped for his inaugural NBA experience. He spent the majority of the evening with both hands on his ears, shielding himself from the relentless aural onslaught. Even NBA Commissioner David Stern has recently pondered why the volume level is so loud at basketball games. Not everyone attending these games are 14-to-32 and have already blown out their hearing thanks to jacked up ipods.
The trouble with basketball, and there are many, is that sometimes the boneheads in the arena see fit to play some music/sound effects during play. As if this were all one big video game. I’ll rue the day that mentality permeates its way into the NHL.
The Toronto Blue Jays feel the need to employ a local media personality as the in-game host during certain games. Naturally, he yells. A lot.
A bunch of us used to attend St. Michael’s Majors’ OHL games at the venerable St. Mike’s arena in uptown Toronto, when the team still played out of that old barn. It would crack us up, and annoy us, during breaks-in-play, when the teenage lackey in the sound booth would crank up the volume on some LCD slack-jawed corporate rock song, which would rattle around that small arena, creating the worst din imaginable.
Did this pump up the crowd more? Doubt it. Was it done for the players’ benefit? Maybe. Athletes don’t tend to have the most inquisitive tastes in music. Would the in-game experience have been lessened with the subtraction of said music? No.
I’m all for the P.A. announcer having a personality, and using it during the course of a game. Mike Ross of NHL Home Ice was once the P.A. voice for the Ottawa 67’s, and by all accounts, he knew how to work up a crowd.
It’s all entertainment, and it has its place. Sometimes, the dude in the booth can go overboard. About a decade ago, the P.A. voice for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League used to editorialize after each play.
“Dave Sapunjis with the catch. 14 yards. First-and-Ten Stampeders. Nice catch by The Sponge”.
Okay, alright. The hometown bias. I get it. Don’t like it, but I get it.
“Tiger-Cats return the punt for 21 yards. Looked like clipping on that one”.
What? Not your place, buddy. Go back to your mom’s basement and play radio.
But at least the guy didn’t shout.
- Mick “Tommy Can You Hear Me” Kern
Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s
