The Phoenix Back-Room Blog

Just passing by...

2007-11-10T10:55:00.001Z

I'm ummed and aahed about writing something. Must have started and stopped 10 or 15 postings. Heck, half of this ended started as a comment to Richards post. So, for once in my life, I'll try to be brief.

It has been a very difficult decision to make and I leave a whole bunch of great people and wonderful memories. I genuinely that believe we've built the best Match Night in the league by a country mile. And whats more we've done it on few resources, a modicum of talent and a metric shitload of hard work. The enormity and pressure of what is required can never be understood by someone looking on the outside in and the fact that everyone has not only risen to the challenge, but excelled is a tribute to them. I'll miss working with Richard a hell of a lot more than I'll ever let on :-)

One thing I do want to make clear is that the reason I've made a clean break is to simply make sure I get out of the habit of checking the Forum, dealing with the web site and so on. Its a hard thing to do after so long (heck, I'm here, and browse the Forum still) but I figure I either draw a line somewhere or end up hanging around like a smelly ghost.

I had a blast and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

EEERRRRRRRRKKKKKKKK!

Rounding Up A New Posse

2007-11-07T14:49:00.000Z

And so it came to pass, the Three Musketeers became two, and then became one.

The game against the Sheffield Steelers on 28th October was the last game on the mic for Mike. He and his bride-to-be are stepping down from Phoenix duties to concentrate on their own business, and the end of an era has been reached. First it was Fishcake, stepping down at the end of last season, and now Landers has gone, leaving The Rev to soldier on alone. Sort of.

Well, not really alone at all. Andy Costigan has stepped up to take the mic for the time being, until a new announcer is appointed, but the Three Musketeers has become a fully-fledged posse now. With the new visual aspects of the match night came a few additions to the team, and now that these new faces are becoming more and more familiar, the match night operation as a whole is really coming into full swing.

The camera crew has been expanded, and we have had an up and coming young talent added to our cohort of lensers. Joining Peter Pallister (callsign "Millhouse") and Jennie Fenton (callsign...er..."Fenton") on the cameras is James Walkling (callsign "Garth"), who joined us as a runner but quickly graduated to camera operator and has so far shown quite a knack for it. The vision mixing duties are being predominantly done by Jon Galione (callsign "Lion" among other things), the music playout is done by Tracey Allan (callsign "Tracey" - not much imagination there I'm afraid) and Carl Johnstone has expanded his repertoire to include our video and graphics playout. He doesn't get a callsign. We don't even let him have a headset.

So, what started out as a three person operation has grown into an eight person operation, and we're still bringing on board some new faces to serve as runners. The job continues, the roles get bigger, and the new crew members are keen to make their mark on the match night. And they will. The legacy of Landers and Fishcake will never be forgotten, it will be built upon.

We moved the production desk!

2007-10-25T09:51:00.000Z

Surprised Richard hasn't blogged this, but on Tuesday night we moved the production desk. He asked if I'd come along to help, and foolishly I accepted. That said, I couldn't make the 6:30pm start so offered to help from 9pm or so when I could get there.

So I turned up at 9pm, with Richard, two of the camera guys (Pete and James), Ron from Comtec and Neil already there. They'd already labelled all the connections and disconnected everything, took apart the platform, and were just finishing assembling it in the new location. So we moved the equipment back onto the platform and whilst Neil and Ron screwed seats back into place, we started working on the cables.

Now it might not seem like a big deal, but we have cables running from each camera position to carry audio and video, into the production desk. There's then cabling running out to the plasma screens and speakers. This had all been bundled together and fed up to the location where the desk was.

We had to unbundle and untangle this mess of cable, and re-run it to the new location, fortunately when it was originally laid the guys had had the foresight to leave enough length that they would reach the new location. I think it took me and Pete (with help from others) around 2 hours just to sort out the cabling. (Extra kudos to Pete, who did all the spiderman work on the beams around the edges of the rink!)

Whilst we were doing that, the equipment on the desk was reconnected, and cameras and stuff setup around the rink so everything could be tested properly. Then as we fed up each cable it was quickly connected (due to the earlier labelling!)

By the time we had everything tested it was well past midnight, and then we had to pack
everything away again. At around half one we'd packed tidied and loaded and headed for home.

So the production desk is now situated in the corner of the rink...

Karmic justice from the Hockey Gods

2007-10-05T08:27:00.000Z

Last Saturday night, many members of the match night crew were down at the O2 Arena in London, watching the LA Kings versus Anaheim Ducks. With the lighting failure that we'd experienced the previous week at the start of the Phoenix v Panthers games, we were keen to see how the NHL handled their game night entertainment, and we were pleased to see that the NHL do the same thing that we do. They popped their lights too.

So, during the resultant darkness, Mr Landers, Tracey and myself (via the wonderful technology of the mobile telephoning device) had a collective smirk at the notion that it's not just us little fish who get problems like lights that won't turn on. It has to be said that the NHL guys covered well, and on the TV broadcast you can't tell there's a problem until the presenter mentions it, they're padding so effectively.

Last night we're crewing our first game back after the 'NHL break'. Phoenix at home to the Stingrays. All is going well, until the Hockey Gods decide to punish our weekend smirks by pulling the breakers and killing the power to the entire rink, less than two minutes before the end of the first period. Not just the lights, the entire lot. No cameras, no plasmas, no communications, nothing. For the best part of an hour.

Damn you Hockey Gods, damn you!

Of NHL and why the customer is rarely right

2007-10-02T09:40:00.000Z

Went down to the O2 this weekend, with Tambo and Chelle, to see the Ducks and Kings kick off the new NHL season as part of NHL Premiere. It was a nice weekend for myself and the other half, quite relaxing after a hellish September which has left us completely drained.

The weekend did see the disappearance of something I quite liked keeping going - Saturdays home game against Edinburgh was the first I had missed since the Phoenix returned to the ice. I don't think any of the Match Night Crew was still holding a 100% record (possibly Carl) - even people like Neil Morris, Andy C and Dave The Scorer had missed games. But such is the way of things, as the games were announced long before the EIHL schedule was set. I had tried to minimise the impact by only getting tickets for the Saturday and booking early trains back for an anticipated Sunday home game but c'est la vie.

Like I said, I needed the break. I've become increasingly frustrated with all things Phoenix over the past few weeks - trying to grab moments to do stuff, not having time to do the things that need to be done, things not being delivered as promised, failing to deliver things I had promised to other people. Juggling 95 chainsaws at once and most of all, getting increasingly short-tempered with a section of Phoenix fandom.

There seems to be a subset within the Faithful who think they have some kind of divine right to pass judgement on what we do and then sit back and fold their arms. I've been in a Customer Service job - and I'm being absolutely honest, came out of it despising humanity in general. The single biggest mistake that people in this kind of job make is trying to please everybody. We're human, so when someone criticises, we take that to heart, and try to do better.

The trick to surviving is to realise a) when you are doing the best you can under the circumstances and b) that you will never, ever please all of the people all of the time.

I found it especially instructive when we were taking flak about the match night music. I realised that quite a bit of the criticism came from people who don't go to every game. How you can someone say, with a straight face, that something is wrong when they aren't there to see it? It explains why - in a number of cases - we got asked to play music that has already been on the playlist for a year and a bit!

We got astonishingly hypocritical postings - one of my favourites was about the opening sequence, which Richard had sweated blood over. A posting criticised the use of the Aardvarx, saying we could have drafted in the ENL or juniors. Without ever mentioning the fact that the poster is connected with the juniors - no conflict of interest there, then!

I can't say it enough. The Phoenix is not the Storm. The much vaunted Storm opening sequence that ours gets compared to cost a five figure sum and didn't have any hockey in it whatsoever. Ours cost buttons, was sweated over and updated like you wouldn't believe and got slammed by people who haven't the slightest Scooby Doo what is involved.

As a crew, we worried and fretted and then thought - you know what? Sod it. A bit of perspective makes a difference. One person doesn't like our music. Tough, because I can see 400 people clapping to it. The team like it. And I realised that no matter what I did to rev up the crowd, no matter what Richard did to get people going, the people moaning would simply sit on their hands anyway.

So to heck with them and work with the people who want to make a difference. You can lead a horse to water.

I'd be inhuman not to admit that I did feel a slight bit of vindication when I saw how the NHL presented things, and many of the tracks and techniques that they do are things that we do on a smaller scale.

There is a danger in taking customer feedback too seriously - especially as it is easier to sit behind a keyboard or a telephone and moan. The office gets it particularly bad, I know for a fact that when the rink has suffered yet another delay, Mags and co have been subjected to abusive phone calls. That isn't on.

Trying to please everybody all the time is a zero sum game. Because eventually you will end up with one customer, all the rest having left. And that one customer will never be happy, so they will dictate even more.

What you do is simply the best job you can. And if people hate it so much - why are they turning up every week to experience it?

I hate the argument "if you think you can do better, do it!". My clients can't do what I do - that is why they pay me. But they do have the right to pass judgement on my work.

But if putting on a match is "just" playing some music and reading out some words, walk a mile in my headset, or that of Richard. If filming a hockey game is so easy to do, we'll add you to the list of people who can cover for absences.

New Phoenix Site

2007-09-29T21:39:00.001Z

Yay we got it out. OK it isn't quite finished, but a good portion has been done and we've at least now got a platform to build on.

As well as the usual gang who help with the site, I've got a couple of other people to thank. They're not Phoenix fans, they're guys who I work with, but they both gave me a little help.

Firstly Paul Rushton, he did most of the core template for me, achieving in a couple of hours what would've been a couple of nights for me. For the Man Utd fans out there, Paul runs a site called UnitedLinks which attempts to bring the United news from all over the web into one place.

Secondly I need to thank Rob Clarke who gave me a couple of hours of help to get the subscription stuff setup for Phoenix TV.

Where is your head at?

2007-09-21T18:02:00.000Z

Have I mentioned that I really, really, hate computers. Last night got in, tried to finish the new look Gallery off, stopping when my face hit the keyboard through tiredness. I'm only half-joking.

Now I've spent a few hours trying to get the layout fixed, and it won't. And I have to go out. And that means the thing I thought would be done yesterday will now be done tomorrow, as well as making me slave over a hot printer to get the photos ready.

I could scream.

Match night production

2007-09-21T08:52:00.000Z

For those that didn't already know (you mean you didn't see the photo linked from the forum?), for the last couple of weeks I've helped out on match nights with the production. My "job" has been to look after the output to the plasma screens, so that's putting up the flash screens during the game, running videos and all other stuff like that.

So the first week I helped we were down at ground level, and things went fairly badly. In particular we had a problem with the Mike's mics, the wired mic didn't work properly, and the radio mic kept picking up interference.

So last week the crew from Comtec did some work re-wiring, thanks to their hard work the technical problems (bar a problem with a speaker or two) were pretty much fixed, leaving us to concentrate on what we had to do.

However in my mind the biggest improvement was moving us to the back of Block 6. Being at the higher level we could see the ice better, you can spot stoppages in play, and why play has stopped. It makes it easier to pick the right music, get any on-screen stuff ready and run it all at the right time. The other big advantage of being up in the blocks is that we can hear the audio output, so keep the sound levels balanced (sound at ground level was particularly awful) and actually see what's on the plasma screens!

So all in all I think everybody was much happier with last weeks match night. We know we've still got things that aren't quite right and areas to improve. Some of that will come with a little more experience, and as the basics become routine I'm sure we'll try new things.

Oh yes, and for now at least, my job is going to be running the screens every game.

Listening. Or not.

2007-09-16T22:04:00.000Z

Kind of interesting reading the feedback (both on- and offline) for the last couple of weeks. We've taken flak for things that we haven't actually been doing, told off for not doing things that we actually have, been praised for introducing music that has actually been on the playlist for a year and a bit and been told to stop playing tracks that we don't have and never have had.

We should have used music that other rinks have copied from us in the first place and we should copy other rinks in an effort to be individual.

All in all, apparently we are all doing a grand job. Or a rubbish one. I'm not sure which any more.

Welcome to the web team...

2007-08-31T08:11:00.000Z

We've finally made the decision that we want to increase the size of the web team. Although myself and Mike have managed fairly well up until now, the club are pushing us to do more and more with "the internet".

Also although we get a steady stream of content from the club, we've been severely lacking in articles for the features section of the site over the last season. I'm no writer, and Mike and Richard have scripts to write and video to edit these days so rarely have time to contribute.

So as most of you will have spotted I recently asked for more volunteers on the forum. The response has actually quite surprised me so I'd like to thank everybody who has volunteered.

Firstly the writing team, Ben Haddock (Silent Ben) will be contributing news and round-ups of the UK hockey scene in general. Chelle O'Grady will providing interviews from anybody willing to give us one. Finally, Jim "Tambo" Piper will continue to provide his coverage of the international and European hockey scene.

So onto the more technical side, I've had several offers of help - and I plan on taking them all up. However each person needs to be shown the systems and inducted into how we do things. This takes time, so introducing them will be a more gradual process. Anyway the first person I'd like to welcome is Kate "Lifson" Glover.

From scratch to Opener in 21 and a half hours

2007-08-30T23:38:00.000Z

Last night at 10.30pm at the Altrincham Ice Dome, the cameras started rolling for the new Phoenix Opener, by which I mean the opening video sequence that plays with the lights down before the team steps onto the ice. At 8.00pm this evening, after a marathon ten hour stint in the edit suite with Cameraman Jon (who also edits), I shut down the computer with three completed versions of the Opener finished.

I'll preserve the mystery until after it's been shown this weekend, but the quick snippet of insight that I'd like to share before collapsing in a vaguely continent heap is that if you are lucky and honoured enough to be able to surround yourself with people who'll put themselves through hell and high water for you, there is no end to what can be achieved. That 21 and a half hours proved it, and hopefully the fruits of the labour of so many fine people will be enjoyed by even more this weekend.

Right now I'm shattered. I've had about four hours sleep in the past 36. My vision is going blurry, my head is foggy, I can barely keep my eyes open and focussing on this screen is a challenge. But for all the grousing that I'll no doubt do over the course of this coming season, I wouldn't change it for anything. Season 07-08 is here, bring it on...

Today is a good day

2007-08-28T20:35:00.000Z

I was going to write about some of the signing stuff that has happened, but I'm too tired. Maybe later in the week.

What I am going to write is that precisely one year ago today I proposed to my girlfriend. I bought her an orchid to celebrate. She bought me a silver chain. And then we shopped for a hotel for our honeymoon having been messed around by our first choice.

And then, my mate Alan sent me a message to say that my favouritest live band in the world, Terrorvision are reforming for the third time to play three gigs, one of which is in Manchester. Seeing as Terrorvision are the answer to the question "If you had could have any band in the world to play a gig for you and your mates, which one would it be?", I was jumping around the room and squealing like an absolute loon.

I've had a crappy few weeks, work-wise. But right now, I'm the happiest bloke in the world.

Shirts and Logos

2007-08-02T06:35:00.000Z

As briefly mentioned, the new shirts are out. As anyone who saw me on the ice last year, I am quite obviously no arbiter of fashion, but I like them.

Well, I would, as they are heavily based on the one-off shirts from last year, which got an overwhelmingly good reception last year and were highly sought after in auctions and as replicas.

Therefore, I find it somewhat amusing that many fans of other clubs have been having a go at the shirt. Especially, in a sort of irony, the Steelers.

Let us consider that for a moment. The Steelers are saying our shirts are rubbish. From a club that thinks teal and orange work together. A club that designs its shirts under the influence of a cog addiction. Have a browse through some old Steelers logos, the text style changes, or runs up/down the girder then down/up, the bloke behind the girder is regularly redesigned, or becomes the focus, or is moved.

Steelers fans criticising another team for producing an ugly shirt is like The Elephant Man pointing at someone and shouting "Oi! Big nose!"

(Amusingly, I've also seen a posting from a Coventry fan saying the Blaze logo was better than ours. I genuinely wonder what planet the guy lives on.)

Obviously, I'm biased by my fandom, but I really do like the imagery that the Phoenix office has generated. The posters look spectacular and exciting. The "game face" logo is sharp, clear and unlike just about anything else in hockey. Many hockey teams go for the overtly cartoonish, like the Anaheim Ducks or the new San Jose logo.

The Phoenix "dynamic logo", to give it its true name, is two tone, simple, vibrant stuff. Not cartoonish, but still distinctive. It scales well, from a full size hockey shirt down to a small image on a polo shirt. In short, it works better than 99% of logos, across the whole spectrum of merchandise and uses.

A little story

Which reminds me: the name for the logo. It has been referred to as "Game Face" for a while, and it pops up in discussion and on the forum. This is because the original T-shirt was marketed as such, "putting on your best Phoenix game face".

I'd love to say that "gameface" was the product of a lot of thought and many meetings, possibly involving flipcharts and whiteboards. Nothing could be further from the truth. What actually happened was I received a bunch of merchandise images through the email, with the instructions to put them online for sale in the merch section of the website.

Each of the images was labelled something like "t-shirt 1 front", "t-shirt 1 back" and so on. So I had to come up with some name that would be meaningful to the customers. This wasn't too difficult, simply use the text on the t-shirt, "JustICE", "Made in Manchester" etc etc. What stumped me was the new logo one, which I loved immediately but had no text.

It won't surprise you that I play music while I work at the PC, and I had iTunes on in the background, throwing out some random RAWK. I'd played Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness" and the next track is called "Violence Fetish" and the intro to chorus runs...

"Step right up and be a part of the action
Get your game face on
Because it's time to play

So there I am, pondering it, and the phrase stuck. I uploaded the images, emailed the Phoenix office and said something like "I've called it 'Game Face' - no doubt you'll have a better name for it. Let me know."

They never did.

Where's that Republica track?

2007-07-30T20:36:00.000Z

With the fixtures out, some fantastic posters and the launch of the new shirts, its time to begin cranking it up once more...

33 days to go. Raaaaaaah!

Top Interview Tips!

2007-07-26T17:55:00.000Z

No 1 in a series of 1. Probably.

I was part of an interview panel today, so I have the following top tip for anyone who is going for a job.

If, after about three minutes, one of the interview panel turns his notepad over and writes "If we employ this guy, I give it six weeks before I stab him", then it isn't going well.

"Learning! There's learning going on!"

2007-07-12T12:42:00.000Z

Yet another non-hockey blog. Skip if disinterested...

Last weekend, I did what has now become my annual pilgrimage to Bishops Castle for the Beer Festival. Accompanying me were my two Best Men for next years wedding, Geoff (my comedy Shallow End partner) and BCBF virgin, Richard.

To say the three of us are stressed and tired is a large understatement. So this weekend is an utter godsend. It isn't about consuming copious amounts of alcohol, the beauty of it is that Bishops Castle is out in the middle of nowhere, miles away from anywhere significant. I simply pitch a tent and then have some nice beer in a beautiful part of the world and for 48 hours simply watch the world go by.

Geoffers is experienced in the whole camping thing. For me, it is the one weekend a year I forsake the creature comforts - although like the temperamental artiste I am, I simply demand the use of an airbed - and Richard must be the only person in the world less experienced than me. Geoff brought his usual six man living accomodation - so large that I suggested we park my car in it and then, drive out of it on the Sunday morning to confuse everybody else on the campsite. Us pair had "Tesco specials" - three man tents, couple of sleeping bags, mats for 20 or 10 quid. Richard had tried putting his up beforehand as practice, I gather without success. Probably because, as I found out when getting the gear together, he hadn't actually found the instructions...

Accomodation sorted with only one brush with nettles by yours truly, and we headed into town with light hearts, heavy wallets, empty bladders and a selection of very fine hats. Bishops Castle is tiny, but it does have five pubs, two of which brew their own beer. For the Festival, you pick up a printed list of beers on offer at each pub (aka "the menu") and just pick a drink you like the sound of. The idea is not to get drunk, I'm a complete lightweight in that department anyway, but with fifty different beers to try, you sample in halves and take your time.

We started at the Three Tuns and it was then that Geoff and I discovered that for a beer and camping weekend, Richard hadn't been camping... and didn't like beer. He's a cider man, you see. Thankfully there was a large range of ciders and perrys to try, so he wasn't left out. Although on the menu of beers, he simply marked on a scale of "maybe, urgh, oh God no, vomit, projectile vomit". Manfully, he tasted every beer we bought anyway, it was easy to judge his preference by measuring the time between the sip to taste and the "urgh!" as it hit the Reverends palate.

"Who is playing footsie under the table? Oh, its a cat! Thank God for that!"

There were a few bands on, the Crown and Anchor put on a sort of blues band who had clearly been thrown together for the weekend. A drummer with a Rastafarian teacosy on his head, a keyboard player at least double the age of everyone else, Fat Billy Corgan on bass/vocals, Generic Bloke Probably Called Dave on lead guitar, and on other lead guitar, Wayne the Ginger Ponytail, who did the old guitarist thing of playing solos while pulling a face that looks like someone trying to pass a poo the size and shape of a bowling ball.

Incidentally, blues has the advantage of allowing a band to stretch three lines into an 11 minute jam. "Doing Dishes" was one such track, and by the time it had finished, I said "If the next one is called 'For Christs Sake, Hoover the Carpets', I'm outta here".

Geoff retired early, so Richard and I headed to the Six Bells for a couple more halves and the walk back to the camping site. We simply sat and looked at the stars for a while, Richard taking some photos that at least looked good on the mini-screen. After retiring to the sleeping bags, the flaw in our pitch became apparent at this point, as we were on a slope. I had set my bed up horizontally, therefore after climbing into my sleeping bag, I immediately rolled off the airbed and halfway down the hill.

"My God! They're rebuilding Portmeirion!"

Saturday. Off to the slowest cafe in history for breakfast. Under new management from last year, but still a long wait for food - in previous years, the kitchen has had to nip to the local Co-op to restock on bread, bacon and so on. The full English breakfast with mug of tea is well worth the wait though. A short potter around Bishops Castle (bought "Howard the Duck" on VHS for 50p! Bargainous!) and then we set off to actually find the Castle. Which was easier said than done, as we purposefully strode this way and that, up hill, down dale and through a maze of twisty passages, all alike. Eventually, more by luck than judgement we found... a wall. An old wall. A historic wall. But none the less, a wall.

So we ended up doing Karate Kid moves on a big log.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the Castle Hotel with its lovely big beer garden, meeting up with a couple of friends from another online forum. (Normally there are 10-20 of them, but for various reasons it just didn't happen this year.) A glorious late afternoon at the Six Bells, and I managed the feat of getting sunburnt.

"It sounded less like a fart, and more like an injured Wookie"

The only real problem with BC is the lack of decent food. There is plenty of barbecued burgers if that is your thing, but with a veggie in tow, it isn't a constant option. The curry house was right out, so we ended up at The Poppy House, a rather upmarket restaurant. Imagine, if you will, a classy place, and three scruffy gits wearing very fine hats waiting patiently for a table. It was no surprise that the waitress took us right through into the back room. Which was, in fact, very nice complete with sofa and chair. It was, however, slightly disturbing when us three sat down and the waitress lit the candle in the middle of the table. One wonderful steak later and we returned to the campsite to rest before heading back to the Castle for the evening shift.

There is no way of being subtle about this, but 48 hours of Real Ale and Perry meant that together, we had the capability to turn the air... green. We found a table away from the other diners for safetys sake (theirs, obviously) and talked and drank as the sun went down.

There is a bit at the end of the recent Top Gear episode where they drove through Alabama, and Jeremy Clarkson gives this wonderful speech about how he has driven Ferraris, Lamborghinis and all kinds of exotica, yet he wouldn't swap any of it for the thing he was doing right now, his current adventure through America, in beat up wrecks, with his mates. As we sat in a Shropshire beer garden, on Saturday night, in clouds of our own wind, wearing very fine hats and giggling like naughty children, I knew exactly what he meant.

A tragi-comic

2007-06-19T21:54:00.000Z

Warning, the following posting contains swearing. So anyone who is easily offended, please go away now. Unless you are 14 years old, at which point you will be eagerly reading on.

So, Bernard Manning is dead. Good riddance to racist rubbish.

The amount of after the fact justification and tip-toeing around the issue is amazing. So lets demolish those arguments one by one, viewers.

"He made me laugh."

Lets get one thing straight, Manning was possibly the finest technical comedian this country has ever produced. By technical, I mean in terms of timing, crowd control, stage presence and so on. Hugely experienced, he could and did bring all of that to the table every single gig. He cancelled one gig in 60 years. I totally respect that. When doing straight TV stuff, he was awesome. They showed a clip of the Comedians last night, telling a joke about a bloke in a zoo. I laughed out loud at a beautifully timed joke.

Manning had plenty of jokes, thousands. I laughed at a lot of them. Which is why when he starts on the "two black fellas....", "this Jew...", "a pair of poofs" stuff it was so utterly unnecessary. "He made me laugh" and "he's racist and misogynist" aren't mutually exclusive.

He didn't need that. He was much, much better than that.

"The world moved on, and he was left behind."

A comedians set always changes. Old jokes can be dusted off, classic gags work any time, any place. A set evolves and is shaped by the world around it, by audience feedback, by writing, by refining. A gigging comic will end up with an arsenal of jokes, ready for any situation and as mentioned, Manning had thousands.

A couple of years ago, I was priviliged to see Mick Miller. A comic of the "old school", he did the defiantly "alternative" XS Malarkey in Fallowfield. He didn't have to do it, God knows the money wasn't anywhere near his usual amount. But Miller wanted to see if he could connect to a different audience, he wanted to see if he could do it. His set was a complete triumph, proof that funny really is funny no matter where, no matter what the audience. It takes skill, but it also takes desire. Miller got a whole legion of new fans that night, myself included.

So to say Manning didn't have the ability to change is wrong. He had the ability to tone it down, he had the repertoire to enable him to drop the hate stuff. He chose not to. The times did not leave him behind, he decided to stay there. In a world of hate, in a world of casual racism. A deliberate choice.

And then spent time bemoaning the fact. Endlessly slagging those who he perceived as usurping him. As Manchester found a new generation of comics (Caroline Aherne, John Thomson) he airily dismissed them, claiming most of the time to "never have heard of them".

He wouldn't have. They didn't exist in the 70s.

That is why I have no sympathy for him. I am left with a feeling of what might have been. All that talent, that hard work, that vast array of experience, knowledge... wasted. Not only his talent, but the opportunity to pass that on to other comics and to inspire people to take up comedy. How much of a gigantic loss is that?

"He packed out clubs up and down the country"

And Westlife sell a lot of records, which tells you all you need to know about popularity being a barometer of quality. I do find it interesting that while the likes of Chubby Brown will sell out nights at the 2,700 seat Apollo and Eddie Izzard sold 18,000 tickets for two nights at the MEN, Bernard didn't do anything like that sort of sized gig. Always Working Mens Clubs, always 250 seats or less. To put that in perspective, thats the sort of numbers the Manchester Comedy Store or Frog and Bucket do most weekends.

"You are just one of The PC Brigade."

Interesting, this one. First off, I am quite defiantly non-PC. I do all sorts of jokes, poking fun at everything. Crucially, I can tell the difference between being poking fun and out and out hate.

Second, why does being anti-hate automatically make me one of the killjoy ban mob? Why is being anti-racist "spoiling someones fun"?

Finally, just because something is offensive, does not mean it is automatically non-PC. In fact, as this rather excellent article demonstrates, want appears to be non-PC is precisely the opposite. (Although Little Britain walks a fine line.)

From his self-penned obituary: In fact the Queen once told me with a smile, after a Royal Command Performance, how much she liked my act. If it was good enough for her, it should have been good enough for anyone.

So, Bernard, how did she react to the one about the "P**i, the poof and the two n*****rs going into the bar"? I'd love to have seen her face when that one popped out. (Although, I have no doubt Philip would have enjoyed it.)

Again, from his self-penned obituary: "I was an equal opportunities comedian. Unlike them, with all their little checklists and taboos and easy targets, I never discriminated against anyone or anything. I was quite happy to get a laugh out of any situation. All that mattered to me was whether the gag was funny or not."

Easy targets? Easy targets such as minorities. Easy targets such as cockle-pickers whose only crime was to be Chinese in Morecambe Bay. Easy targets such as people who daren't answer back - cowed into submission by Mannings incredible ability to flay any target in his audience. To be black, gay, non-English or even to sneeze in his presence made you fair game in Mannings world. Fair game to be belittled with cruelty and humour for the benefit of the mob. There is a word for people who do that - bullying.

The above quote from the man himself isn't quite true. Because when it came to the subject of jokes about his wife, or his mother, both of whom he was close to and loved dearly until they died, they were off limits. Too close to home for the bully.

I sometimes have to explain that audiences are welcome, encouraged into comedy clubs - but thanks to Manning, there is the residual prejudice that to watch comedy live is to run the risk of being torn apart, embarassed in front of your friends. Not that it doesn't happen, but it happens far, far less frequently than you expect. The best comedy performers respect their audience, take them to places they might not want to go and think about things in a new way. For far, far too many people, Manning simply reinforced their prejudices and never challenged their views, instead reinforcing them with iron words.

"But how does Manning differ from (insert comedian here)?"

In some cases he doesn't, and I don't like those comedians either. (Jim Davidson was smart enough to keep his obscene stuff away from the telly.) In the case of, say, Jerry Sadowitz, then the offence is a whole new kettle of fish. Sadowitz delights in pissing his audience off, pressing any button he wants to get his effect. Manning reinforces the prejudices and avoids anything he doesn't like. Retreating into the confort of the familiar.

The closest is Ricky Gervais, and he walks a very careful line. Generally by being clever enough to make himself the butt of the joke. If you play the idiot, then what you say is idiotic, and if you say bad things, then it shows them as idiotic. That is how the Alf Garnett character worked. Garnett would say unsayable things, and be shown up for it.

"But Mike, have some respect for the blokes family."

Whoa, hold on there. Who has had a go at them? Who brought them into the discussion? Clue: Not me. If someone had a pop at the family right now, that would be out of order, but noone has, and I don't think anyone intends to. So trying to deflect the criticism and comment by bringing in innocent bystanders to support your point is just plain wrong.

When Graham Chapman died, the world was a less funny place. When Spike Milligan died, the world was a less funny place. Now Bernard Manning has died, the world has one less joke teller.

And finally.

"It was always an act. They were always just words, a script, and he didn't really mean it."

I'd just like to say 'Good riddance Bernard, you racist misogynistic fucker.'

And if anyone is offended by that, remember they are just words, its just a script, and I don't really mean it.

Closure on 2006/07

2007-06-07T21:39:00.000Z

Well, as the linky on the header says, two thirds of the Match Night Crew are back. It wasn't an easy decision. It is no secret to anyone who was around us that Richard and I were totally fried by the end of the season. I was so totally focused on getting through that nightmare schedule that I don't think I had a proper conversation with people for the last couple of weeks - I know Neil dropped into the box a couple of times and I hardly said a word.

Ironically, moving into the Ice Dome made things tougher. We'd got into a rhythm on the road, and some of the obstacles we faced made us able to cope with what was thrown at us with a half-finished Ice Dome.

I think part of the frustration was that we had waited so patiently for our own home, looking forward to being able to settle in and instead of being able to relax and enjoy it, we were continually faced with lots of problems. None of which were anyones fault, but it meant we found we were just constantly battling little, niggly problems night in, night out. With no time to rest and fix them in between games, it drove us all quietly mental. Little breakdowns in communication and misconceptions strained things quite badly between everybody.

Bridges are being repaired, our natural optimism conquers all. The weirdest season possible is in the history books - time to move onward and upward.

The Phoenix is a 12 month operation - the on-ice staff are recruiting, the off-ice staff prepping for the new season, whether it is merch or for us, game night. Finally we get our reward for hanging in there, which is a chance to really show what we can do, to play with the big toys like a screen and video. Richard is prepping bits and pieces, figuring out how the Match Night should run. To give you an idea of the complexity, so far his draft plan of how a night should run consists of 10 A4 pages. And that is before some of the other ideas get bandied about, or we actually get down to the nitty gritty of scripts, playlists, videos, so on and so forth.

We're approaching it a bit differently this year. Last year was a ride, a journey in to the unknown. It was probably a good thing that we were so naive about it, because we would accept things that this time around we won't. This coming season will be more professional, more planned. Much less seat of the pants, fewer workarounds and cobbled together fixes. I hope it will show. I lie, I know it will show.

For a start we'll have a production area to call home, the deck of the Serenity as Richard has allowed me to christen it. At the very least, this should allow us to sort of "plug in and go", without worrying about setups and all that jazz. Theoretically, we should be able to turn up, switch on and do the show - if that blessed day ever arrives, we'll simply moan that its all too easy these days, and long for a dodgy cable to deal with or something.

Unfortunately the Three Musketeers will become two for 2007/08. Fishcake won't be our button monkey for the season, as for entirely understandable reasons he's taking steps away from the laptop and mouse. Since stepping into the audio role a few games in, he's been the perfect foil for Richards stresses and my ineptitude. The Boy Fish has had a lot of input into the playlist, with success - and he managed to drop "Boom! Shake the Room!" from the playlist without Richard noticing, so full marks there. Its been a lot of fun working with him, and he leaves big stinky shoes to fill. I look forward to us fluffing a cue next season, and him leaning over and saying "Get a grip you bunch of cocking amateurs!" and quite rightly so.

We saw him off in the only way we know how:

(Viking funeral. Any excuse to burn something.)

So long, and thanks for all, Fish.

Sometimes the RAWK flows through the veins

2007-06-04T21:21:00.000Z

Basically, I'm very tired, a bit down and spent the evening doing stuff, being a bit lackadaisical and listening to Mylene Farmer (a lovely French songstress, specialising in haunting stuff.

Anyway, approximately ten minutes ago, my inner metalhead thought "Fuck this for a game of soldiers" and put on some Terrorvision.

You can only feel sorry for yourself for so long.

New Video Player

2007-04-18T12:47:00.000Z

So the first of the teaser videos for next season has gone up, and as it wasn't particularly time-sensitive, I took the extra time to get the flash-based video player up and running. This is a job that I've been putting off for the entire season as after I've done all the myriad of other little things it became easier to just convert it to WMV to meet the deadline.

Anyway no rest for the wicked - next job is to go through and convert a load of the video stuff we've carried on the site to flash format and make the Phoenix TV section what I originally promised it would be...

Phew, that's over then

2007-04-12T10:31:00.000Z

The morning after the night before. Or more accurately, the month after the month before. Or something.

Haven't readjusted to normality yet, as we've had some tidying up to do. I finished off the much delayed junior website, then ended up taking some pictures of the Aardvarx's first training session in the Ice Dome, with Guest Coach Derek Campbell.

(Richard was a total puck bunny, and had a grin as wide as the English Channel all night.)

As Richard mentioned, none of the crew assignments have been decided for next season. It is by no means a done deal that we'll be back. I'm not going to go into much detail, but suffice to say that a few times things have got a bit tense, dealing with unavoidables like scoreboard failures is part of the job. But dealing with avoidables shouldn't be, and a number of occasions the three of us have had to bite our tongues as getting frustrated and angry is no condition to have to go into running a show.

In hindsight, there isn't much I would have changed from the way I did the gig. I'd probably still make the same mistakes and learn from them - as long as you don't do it again, then all is fine. There is no manual of how to do the job, you just do what you feel is right.

We had a lot of advantages - Fishcake, Rev and myself know each other well and there was no meshing of personalities required. Each of us has to implicitly trust the other. We know the game, we know the demands on the players and we know how to balance that against the demands of the club - sponsors, presentations and the like. A different crew, more experienced in presenting a show might have put more pressure on the players to do their bit - there is a time to back off from the guys and sometimes a time to back off on the presentation as well.

The playoff game was a good example - no need to exhort to make noise, as the fans did it for us. They couldn't make more noise and all encouragement would have done is pissed people off. The fans were awesome over the last few games, and overwhelmingly loud, positive. Bodes well.

Like I said, next season is no certainty. There would have to be a couple of fundamental changes in the way things are organised in the run up to a game. Now we are in the Ice Dome, I feel we three have to push ourselves more - it is, after all, our show. We're the ones in the firing line, in front of 1500 people and when someone else outside our small circle screws up - we sometimes get it in the neck.

One thing I know we have to do is stop listening to one or two lone voices. Because one person doesn't like thing X, doesn't mean everybody doesn't like it, or it doesn't work. I don't like cheerleaders, but if cheerleaders work, and the fans want them, then tough, work with it. Same with a mascot. Same with a piece of music.

One of the things that wound me up was complaints about the sound - we would have five people saying it was bad, two of which would say "too loud" and two of which would say "too quiet" and the last one saying "not clear enough". It wasn't easy and we did have problems, but sometimes I think we shot ourselves in the foot a bit by trying to constantly micromanage anything thrown our way.

To end on a positive note. We may be able to finally do some of the things we want to do. We can inject personality into things. Richard might finally be able to do the video stuff he wants to do, the two clips so far have had a fantastic reaction. (Quote from Brett Clouthier, waiting to go onto the ice and watching the intro vid: "Awesome!")

But the next few weeks might be a bit bumpy.

It is a bigger mistake to never do something, rather than to take a chance and fail.

I am immensely proud of the job we did, am proud to be associated with the people who did it. And I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Legacy

2007-04-02T21:35:00.000Z

I always hoped I'd be remembered for contributing in some small way. Not, you know, world peace or something like that, but by building something, creating something, making people laugh, affecting someones life in a positive way.

I now realise that I will have on my gravestone:-

"Mike Landers - We all remember him going 'ERRRRRRRRRRKKKK'"

Writing

2007-03-29T08:26:00.000Z

For what started as a one-off written for the match programme, I received the proof for a third article this week. And Richard Murray, who creates and prints the programme has done a great job with it.

And I manage to spend a page not talking about hockey, slag off Tom Hanks, drop in an obscure film reference and make a very, very silly joke about breakfast cereal.

Done

2007-03-26T11:30:00.000Z

The regular season is now done and dusted. With the Phoenix's home Play-Off game falling on the same day as the wedding of a good friend of mine, and also with none of the crew appointments for next season decided yet, I've taken my final curtain as Match Night Director. I could write a massive essay about how I'm feeling right now, but I think that brevity will be the best course here, so I'll just say:

Thank you all, it's been a blast. Adios!

The Opener

2007-03-11T22:09:00.000Z

At today's game against the Devils, we finally had the opportunity to showcase the Phoenix video opener. With a back-projection screen hastily hoisted in front of the scoreboard by the technical genius that is Steve Foden, we were able to screen both the fan-dedication piece entitled "Proud" and the Opener itself, with all the lights out and the music blaring loud.

A few communication hiccups along the way meant that the team skated out before they were supposed to, and the lights started to come on a touch early, but I don't think anyone cared about that. Hopefully the fans liked the screening of the videos - it's not something that we can do for every game, so fingers crossed it went down well.

My ultimate aim is to have a game where nothing goes wrong on the entertainment side. We're getting there, step by step. There are always things that can be improved, and always things that go wrong, but the 'golden rule' is that if the paying public don't spot what went wrong, then we dodge the bullet. Even so, I still fret over each and every mistake that we make, either individually or as a team. A fretless game, that's my aim!

Very good, young padawan. But you still have much to learn.

2007-03-05T14:35:00.000Z

As Richard blogged, yesterday against Panthers I got a temporary promotion. In that I was Match Night Director, as well as announcing. Which means I had to coordinate the camera crews, liaise with Fishcake over the playouts, plus deal with all the other bits and pieces that happen, added in to the usual stuff over the mic.

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it all that much, particularly when dealing with the camera crews. I am, quite emphatically, Not A Hardware Guy. I'm lucky if I manage to plug something into the right place two times out of three, so when faced with XLRs, AVs, DV500s and so on, I assume the glazed expression that I've come to recognise when talking about ASP objects, recordsets and DTD's.

So when in doubt, delegate. Steve and Jon have been with us all season, they know the score. Milhouse and Fenton have been with us since the opening of the Dome, a whole week and a bit. But four games worth. So they know what they are doing. And, perhaps, most importantly, I don't, and am stuck in the announcers box so I can't do anything about it, so get the heck out of the way and leave them to it. Just a reminder to change tapes, check the DVDs and so on. They've already bought into the Match Night Crew philosophy, which is if we can't be the best Match Night Crew in the league, we can certainly aim to be the gayest. To whit, such radioed comments as the one I got when I asked for a hotdog the other night - "We'll send you some meat to get your mouth around."

Just as I thought I would only be dealing with the things I already know, a normal game, Neil and Steve told me that we were going to have a blackout, light show and big intro. Or I as called them, a "what?" and "eh?" and a "oh". This may seem like no big deal, just lights, music and so on. But the thing is, all this has to be coordinated with the teams, who have their own pre-match ritual. You can ask, quite nicely, for a team to go on the ice on cue, but you are truly in the lap of the gods whether they actually listen to you. And are you going to try and stand shouting "No! Not yet!" in the way of Wolfie as he strides towards the ice?

Anyway, we worked it all out, and the people involved went along with it all. I managed to remember to say the cues into the headset for the lights and music, and yell the welcomes onto the ice into the microphone. God help me if I get it the wrong way around. The two most frantic times of the game for the crew are the five minutes before the start and the five minutes after the final buzzer - that is when we have to deal with mascots, sponsors, presentations, as well as dragging players out of there game mindset to smile for the cameras - a tough thing especially after a defeat. These are also the times when it seems people pile onto the radio, when the three most focused people in the building are myself, Richard and Fishcake. For those two to three minutes, we simply have to be left to it.

A quick word in praise of the players. What we ask them to do is difficult, emotionally. Either one of them gets dragged out from their focus on the game to smile sweetly for the mascot, or at the end they have to hang around, exhausted and do the same for the prize winners or birthdays when I couldn't blame them for just wanting to get the hell off the ice and into the dressing room especially after a defeat. (It must rub it in as well when the guy you are standing next to is walking away with a couple of hundred quid for winning the 50/50.) In fact, in a couple of instances, a player who has been due to hand out the prizes has been ejected from the game, which sent us into a panic, until said player popped into the announce booth with five minutes left, washed, changed and ready to have his photo taken.

The game itself went well from my POV - instead of Richard calling out the playlist next to him, I arranged with Fishcake that he was in control until I requested a read. Because Fishcake is stuck inside the temporary office, he can't see the near corner for faceoffs, usually Richard acts as his eyes but last night we had Les Heighway in that role. Les usually is one of our runners, is a fully qualified ref of years standing and knows things inside out - if there is query about how players or officials might react, Les will know the answer.

My announcing was poor, again. Combination of nerves, plus concentrating on everything else meant I wasn't paying full attention to my own job. I manage to screw up three reads in a row - most people won't have noticed, but I noticed and I got very mad with myself. I've not been as comfortable with the role at the Ice Dome as I was at Deeside, possibly something to do with being away from the rest of the crew and therefore feeling a tad exposed. It annoys me that with half of the seasons games done, I haven't called it perfectly yet and with the general tiredness and grind of this crazy schedule, I just feel I should be a bit slicker by now.

Must say I wasn't entirely surprised to see Richard in for the third period... though we kicked him out of the temp office for being a member of the public. Wouldn’t mind, but it was a night off, and he still looked stressed out! Maybe winding him up about it wasn’t a good idea…

All in all, I got through it with my sanity intact (baa, wheep, dribble etc.). Did I enjoy it? In the cold light of day, yes, on average. Would I have done things differently? No. Do I want to do it again?

No.

At least, not with the announcing duties as well. It is too much for me to cope with, as my eyes have to be on the game and the crew, plus listening and shifting gears far, far too much to do the announcements properly. Richard can have the Golden Headset back, and I'll quite happily return to being the microphone monkey. I know I can step in, and I know at some point I'll have to, but Richards job is safe.

(Still, no Fishcake on Wednesday. So Richard is on the Golden Headset and the Laptop of Doom! Knowing Fishy, he'll have set the playlist up to simply go "Doggy!" every time Richard clicks on something. Muhahahaha!)

There comes a time in every man's life....

2007-03-03T23:46:00.000Z

Tomorrow's home game against the Panthers will be a landmark one for me, as it will be the first home game of this season that I've missed. The Aardvarx annual awards bash is scheduled for tomorrow, but with the changing of some Phoenix fixtures I suddenly found myself needed in two places at once.

I considered trying to cram both events into my day, but the timings just wouldn't go, so I had to make a choice. In the end it's a simple choice - I'm the GM of the Aardvarx, and the Match Night Entertainment Director of the Phoenix. I work with a skilled team at Phoenix and with one other person at Aardvarx. No brainer.

After this evening's game, Mrs Rev and myself were in my car along with the camera kits, and Fenton, Millhouse and Jack Sparrow were following behind in the Fentonmobile (top speed 60mph downhill with a back wind). As is fast becoming the case, we lost them somewhere on the way into Stoke. Anyway, to the point: on the way back we'd called ahead to Steve The Cameraman, and then met up with him in the Uni car park to transfer the kit from our car to his. Tomorrow at the game, Steve will be taking charge of the camera positions and looking after the crew. Fishcake has the laptop for the music, and Landers has been e-mailed the scripts. For the first time all season, the match night will run ahead full steam without me.

It's odd for me because I don't know what I'm feeling. It's an odd situation. I see myself as an integral part of the match night, but at the same time I know that Landers and Fishcake are comfortable and confident in their roles to the point that they don't really need me anyway. The new camera crews are coming along stormingly, making real progress very quickly, and it's not long before they'll be at full tilt too.

I guess I feel like a father watching his kid riding a bike without him holding on to the seat. You know deep down that the kid has been ready to pedal on their own for a while, but you wanted the safety net of being a little in control. Even though the safety net was for you, and not really for the kid.

Do I trust Landers, Fishcake, Jon, Steve, Millhouse, Fenton, Jack Sparrow and Les to get the job done well without me? Absolutely I do. Do I trust myself not to worry about it all the same? Of course not.

I'm a control freak, no doubt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially since tomorrow, when I'm not fretting at the Phoenix game, I'll be fretting at the Aardvarx bash instead.

Then on Wednesday it's back to business as usual.

Match Night Crew, enjoy the holiday away from me. You've earned it.

"Vegetarian, eh? Oh well, you'll grow out of it."

2007-02-26T12:28:00.000Z

Home then. Arrived at about half two, greeted by a veritable army of people who had been working to clean the rink up and make it ready for the game. I felt slightly guilty about missing out on those duties, although having said that, I had been doing much the same at home, and doing a load of work since about 9am, so y'know... (As luck would have it, this everlasting string of games coincides perfectly with the heaviest period of work I have had for a couple of years. Whatever gods I believe in, I'm shaking my fist at them.)

First surprise of the night was the bit about us Three Musketeers in the match night programme. Apparently, Richard Murray had seen the photo of us and contacted Andy C for a bit of a write up. We didn't know anything, but it was a nice little bit, written in Andy’s usual style. ("Go on", he said, "tell me which bits aren't accurate! None? Don't complain then!")

Pre-game was surprisingly relaxed. We had a host of new faces, including one bloke who I took the piss out of relentlessly. His badge said "Media Crew". Unusual name, although I've heard of his brother, So Solid.

I spotted the game clock, cunningly to be raised on a forklift and next to Jon the Cameraman so that he could have his hearing blasted by the end of period buzzer. Switched off, in its wrapping and looking like a blackboard, I half expected some poor bugger to be tasked with writing the details on in chalk. "18.21...wipes clean.. 18.20 wipes clean.. 18.19" Of course, Keith the Timekeeper was valiantly trying to figure out how the thing worked without an instruction manual and, for a short while, without even being able to see it.

Things got a little flustered at the start, Neil doing his address and then there was supposed to be a ceremonial drop of the puck. It was in the running order, then out, then in, then out. In the end, the mascot got to do it - which was quite nice, symbolically, you've got a junior player out there on the Elite teams big night.

The thing I was most worried about was being separate from Richard. By which I'm not trying to sound horrendously gay, what I mean is that at Sheffield and Deeside, Richard, Fishcake and myself have been in the announcing area with the scorer and timekeeper. It is easy to arrange play outs, reads and so on when the person you are arranging with is stood next to you. At the Dome, I'm with Dave the Scorer and Keith the Timekeeper in between the two penalty boxes. Richard and Fishcake were down at one end of the rink, where the ticket office will be. I was in contact via radio and earpiece, something I have never, ever used before.

I think it worked really well - better than I expected to be honest. Richard is used to be in contact with his crew via radio, and he had Fishcake next to him. So as a complete novice, I was feeling pretty exposed. Not through any lack of faith in the ability of the people to pull it off, just the personal terror of the unknown for me. The radio is open to all so I tried to keep chatter to a minimum, but somewhat inevitably, it is the Landers and Rev Show at times as we just can't resist the occasional smart-arsed comment. Steve the Other Cameraman was having problems with his camera feed, which had Richard running a commentary that sounded, in real time "Your feed isn't working, now it is, now it isn't, its a bit dark, it's fixed, nope gone again." I was in stitches in the box, though as I was the only one privy to the conversation, had the people around me looking at me as if I was mad.

Richard got his revenge later, as I messaged through that I was off for a whizz and not to get me to do any announcements for a short while. Richard OK'd it, and a few seconds later, I am, shall we say, poised over the trough and suddenly in my ear comes a very sinister "We know what you're doing...". You have no idea how much self control is needed not to burst out laughing in a room full of blokes who have their trouser snakes in their hand.

Incidentally, I am not one of nature’s drummers, coordination is not my strong point. I hold a mic and say stuff, don't ask me to press buttons at the same time. Which meant I once picked up the rink microphone to tell Richard something, and once pressed the headset button to announce that Basingstoke were back to full strength.

Personally, I felt it was one of my worst announcing days - hesitation, fluffing a number of preset announcements and so on. Although this can be blamed on an amount of ring rustiness, the sheer force of adrenaline and having to cope with many new things at once including the witterings in my ear, it does lead to a certain frustration and anger on my part. It may be that the audience don't notice, but I do. And I think they have. And my head says "you've f**ked that up in front of 1000 people" and I get quite down on myself. On the improvised announcements, like cars parked or something, I've found I have a terrible habit of getting 80% of the way through an adlib and running out of steam. I have no idea how to end it properly. (I think it is because my hockey head is going "get off the mic and back to the game" and my stage experience is going "silence is death, fill, fill, fill".) This gives Fishcake and Rev no idea when I'm stopping, and they can't crash over me with music.

But that is a personal thing - I know the other guys have their own bits where they know they can do better, and I'll fix my own faults with time. Working as a team, I think we nailed it pretty well in the circumstances. I'm extraordinarily pleased with the way the three of us worked together - I know you can always play Richard's nerves with a violin bow - but I just figure you can throw stuff at the three of us and we cope and I don't think you could say that about just anybody. I'm really very proud of what we've achieved off the ice. I just hope it is good enough to continue for next season.

Finally, I'm going to write about the Dome sometime later in the week - but was it me, or did it just seem like a place we've been in forever?

Home

2007-02-25T22:33:00.000Z

Tonight it all got real again. The Manchester Phoenix finally played the first game in the new Altrincham Ice Dome, the permanent home of the team. We lost 4-5 to Basingstoke, but for most people in the building the result won't matter, the fact that the game was played at all is the real victory.

From a Match Night Entertainment Crew perspective, I think it went pretty well. We're a little rusty, so instead of stacking the running order with things like Shoot The Puck, we just kept it simple. And it worked.

It was a little odd at first, having Landers in the announce position and Fishcake and myself at the end of the rink, but with a set of radios spread out between us, we got the job done, and done well.

It was good to be working once again with Jon and Steve, the camera ops, and the new members of the crew - Fenton, Millhouse, James and Jack Sparrow - all fitted into their roles and rose to the challenge of working the match. From an entertainment perspective, nothing went spectacularly wrong, which is a testament to the skills, determination and professionalism of the people that I am lucky enough to be surrounded with.

But above it all, the time has now arrived where we can stand proud and say: We are finally home.

Spam, spam, spam

2007-02-24T09:48:00.000Z

Here is an interesting stat for you. Since 1st January this year, the Phoenix Forum has had 72 new members added.

We have had 360 signups. So 288 spammers, porn marketers, hawkers, traders and general lowlife scum (a whopping EIGHTY percent of accounts) have tried to abuse our Forum. Carl and I are deleting accounts at a rate of just over five per day.

Growing Pains

2007-02-22T14:40:00.000Z

Lets be blunt here - the Match Night Crew are looking at that schedule in March of 17 games in 29 days with horror. I've likened working the match nights to being in a band on tour, with adrenalin rushes getting you through on some nights when outside influences like travelling and working our proper jobs threaten to overwhelm. But the schedule next month is relentless. Richard and I have talked a bit about it on the phone, especially as he was down after the disappointments of the weekend and the solution is simple.

Get focused and professional and realise that we cannot continue to do things as we have so far this season.

The Phoenix has largely been staffed by volunteers, not only for the time away from the ice but for this season. This has kind of worked to our advantage when forced to play on the road, as volunteers doing things as volunteers are prepared to go that extra mile to get stuff done - to perhaps make sacrifices that someone who saw things as "just a job" wouldn't. This has a million benefits, one of which is that we are open and reactive and available to the fans, which helps build the Faithful. The Match Night Crew have worked on a similar basis, take what is thrown at us, do what we have to do to firefight the problem and continue.

That "whatever" attitude has to be reigned back, if not stop altogether. Because, to be blunt, if we keep going like that during the madness of the next month, then we will go absolutely stir crazy. Mistakes must be fixed, absolutely, but right now, the level of "service" off the ice and away from games that has been given to the fans cannot be upheld by myself, Richard, Carl and Fishcake.

To take an average home game, played on Sunday. Sunday consists of arriving two hours before doors open, setup, working the game for 3 and a bit hours, takedown, home. Call it a six hour day. Then Carl or I get home and update the website with press releases, league tables and so on. That is Sunday night or Monday morning. Monday evening, probably another PR, and I get the game sheet and update the stats. Meanwhile, Richard is reviewing game tapes and creating the highlights package. That generally arrives Monday evening, so I try to do them, but it could be Tuesday. Wednesday is another PR, plus the juniors. Wednesday night/Thursday is spent on the Gallery. Friday - probably another PR.

That is a set schedule for just one game, so add in more PRs, bug fixes, info, merchandise and so on and you can see the sort of workload we have.

Now look at the schedule for March. We have home games on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th. Thats five highlights packages (approx 23 hours of work for Richard minimum) plus website and game night duties for the rest of us. It is, to be brutally frank, an impossible schedule to keep up. Because if we are not careful, then we are working on the Phoenix for all of every day, and by the middle of March we will be burned out. And that is before you consider the fallout with friends, family and career.

There are a couple of threads on the forum about music and so on - while it is nice to have the suggestions, I doubt any of them, no matter how appropriate they are, will make it into the playlist. We don't have time to listen to the tracks, decide the bits we like, edit down and add to the playlist. That doesn't mean we don't want to, it just means we shouldn't. Next year, yes.

But looking at the wider picture - this is a transitional time for the club off the ice. I strongly feel that the happy go lucky volunteer attitude that has been so absolutely vital to keeping things together so far will have to change for next season. As a club, we are very responsive, very ad hoc in the way that we deal with fan requests. The thing is - I am not a fan any more. Richard isn't. Others aren't. We're over that line between club and customer. And looking back over the respite of the past month with the advantage of distance, I feel the backroom people are too responsive and too open and still sometimes acting like fans.

To put it this way. I think Jon Hammond was the perfect hockey announcer. I want to aim to take as much of that on board as possible. But did he post on forums? Did he constantly make himself available to fans away from the ice?

So I think that we need to start acting less as fans, and more as professionals. That doesn't mean some sort of holier than thou "I'm better than you". It definitely doesn't mean crapping on all those members of the Faithful who have got us this far ("We're in the Ice Dome at last. Thanks. Now piss off.") But what it does mean is that we stop being quite as open, quite as willing to join in. Because the club and the job being done for the club comes first.

Carl was rightly angry that the picture went out earlier in the week. Because a professional club would never have let that out. What there should have been, if the club wanted it, was a proper photographer passing images on to the club for its own purposes. If the club didn't want it, it doesn't go out. Part of the frustration was that people were asked not to post images, yet stuff was freely being passed around. Hopefully a lesson has been learned.

I don't know if this sounds harsh. I hope it doesn't, and I hope no-one reads this and goes to the Forum saying that I'm being offensive to the Faithful. Having poured so much in over the last few years, it is a hard thing to begin the process of pulling back and receding into the background. My post count has dropped on the Forum, I know Richard has done the same. When I have posted, it's been less of the happy go lucky stuff. We've got a good group of people looking after it, with Carl, Ben, Tambo and Mags dealing with fans on and off line.

But I do feel that over the next month at the very least, for the good of the quality of our job at the Ice Dome and for the good of our health and sanity, we've got a job to do and we're gonna do it and some people might say "Mike's got a scowl on his face, and he won't do X for me when he would have done before" and all in all, that is the way it has to be.

Angry

2007-02-20T13:13:00.000Z

Now I'm angry.

Everybody who helped out at the weekend was asked not to post photos as the club wanted to leave some element of surprise for the big night. On the forum we've repeated that request and also removed some photos from inside the rink.

So WHY in spite of all that did somebody feel the need to post a photo this lunch time?

Gutted

2007-02-20T09:04:00.000Z

Right then, well after having not a lot to say for a while. Then finding that Blogger had a new system that I couldn't transfer to (yet Rev had moved the blog). I'm finally back in here.

I'm gutted that the ice wasn't ready for weekend, so close yet...

That said looking on the bright side, everything was nearly there for the weekend so it's even more likely that the next attempt will happen.

What I really wanted to post about though was closing down the Phoenix Forum on Sunday afternoon.

In part it was that although we got the announcement out quick, it was just that - the details of what was wrong hadn't yet been released. On top of that quite a few people were at the rink helping out so I had concerns that half a dozen different stories would all start to appear. All heard from people who were there, down at the rink. All speculating as to what was going wrong and what should be done.

As was rightly said by bruno on the forum the other part was it was allow people time to absorb what had happened so that they didn't post things they may regret later. Combined with this was the practicality that although I was at home when the game was called off, I had to pop out for a short while and everybody else who moderates the forum was actually down at the rink helping out - so there wasn't anybody to keep an eye on things.

Right then...

2007-02-18T21:54:00.000Z

It's now about three hours since my earlier posting, and I'm still not certain of what it is I'm feeling (although thanks to a plate of cheese and crackers, I've eliminated 'hungry' from the list.)

Having this blog gives Landers, Fishcake, Carl and myself a certain degree of latitude in what we say. Even though we do work for the Phoenix, we're not employed by the Phoenix organisation and as such we're not strictly bound to toe the company line. Certainly we've signed confidentiality agreements and the likes, so you'll not find us blabbing secrets on here, but at the same time we're technically free to post whatever the heck we like on here, and what you mostly get is a mixture of our views, feelings, emotions, fears, prides, contentments and crap jokes. There's an old idiom that says you should try to see the humour in every situation, and Lord knows I've been trying to do that this evening.

Having one of our opening weekend games cancelled is a real body blow. Having both of them cancelled is a body blow followed by a kick in the knackers, and then having your lunch money pinched. That's probably the best metaphor I can come up with at the moment.

I think what's got me the most is the missed opportunity. The Phoenix organisation has had no choice but to put our collective faith (that of the staff and the fans) into the abilities of Ice Associates and the army of subcontractors to get the new rink finished. In some areas (namely online forums, and not necessarily the Phoenix one) Neil Morris is being lauded for his determination and bravery whilst at the same time being lambasted for his naivety in trusting the deadlines that he's been given by the builders. The support of some fans from other teams is coming through loud and clear but so is the criticism and cynicism of other fans, keen to put the boot into Phoenix with an 'I told you so' attitude which, whilst they may well have told us so, does absolutely nothing to alleviate the situation that we find ourselves in.

The Caps game was pulled on Friday, but on Saturday a large group of fans turned out at the rink to help with the clean-up operation. The Media Crew turned out, old members and new, to go through a technical rehearsal. Some of the new members are so keen to take part, they willingly turned up knowing that there would be no game, they just wanted to help out and get a feel for Phoenix and what we do. Some of them are students on a media production course, recruited by me from the University where I have my day job, and they're chomping at the bit to get going. They're so dedicated to their chosen speciality areas that they turned out at Blackburn Arena last Saturday night to film the Aardvarx versus Telford Spartans game that faced off at 11.15pm at night, just to get some further experience at filming sports events. Doesn't sound dedicated enough? Try factoring in that, like me, they live in Stoke On Trent. Not one of them has even asked for expenses, let alone any form of payment.

This very Media Crew, including some names that will soon be familiar to you - Millhouse, Fenton, and Jack Sparrow to name but three - spent their Saturday in the freezing cold new rink scouting out camera positions, setting up our audio and video playout equipment, and climbing ladders and crawling along the wall sills to help put the cables in place that we'll need to entertain the crowd. They helped get a 12x8 screen set up with a back-projection unit tested to see if we could run the Opening Sequence.

This morning, Sunday, their schedule included heading up to the new rink as soon as they were finished on another filming shoot that they were already booked onto. I don't think I need to spell out how gutted I was to have to call them and give them the stand-down order, and how gutted they were to receive it. Nor how gutted I was to help take down the 12x8 screen. Next week the area where the screen was set up will be used for its proper function, meaning that the screen most likely won't be used, which in turn means that the Opening Sequence most likely won't see the light of day. Another thing to be personally gutted about.

I know a lot of people are feeling like crap at the moment, and I can empathise with each one of them. I know that I'm supposed to put on a 'brave face' and knuckle down with the old Dunkirk-spirit that seems to be so prevalent throughout the Faithful, and I don't doubt that in the morning my attitude will be to go out there and make sure the opening night is the best that it can possibly be in terms of the entertainment that the Media Crew, but right now I think I'll indulge myself a little and let my cards show. Speaking personally, right now I feel so fed up with it all. The building anticipations, the last minute plan changes, the shattered illusions, the missed opportunities, I've had my fill. I've come home tonight feeling like this whole process isn't worth it, that I've poured in months and months of effort for no result and it's eating me up. But, like I say, this will pass, and once we get the go for the next attempt at an opening night, I'll be there giving it all I've got. But for tonight, I think I'll stay fed up. It'll probably do me good.

Damn.

2007-02-18T18:56:00.000Z

Opening weekend, two games in two days, and both of them cancelled. Damn.

I feel I have to post something on our blog, but if I'm honest I'm in no mood to. I don't know if I'm tired, angry, disenfranchised, hungry, or just plain good-old pissed off, but I know I'm not in a place to write as much as I should on this page right now. Sorry.

Hack!

2007-02-16T11:38:00.000Z

I'm a regular reader of the Guardian Sport Blog, as well as an avid fan of their sports writing in general. So when they opened the blogs up to their readers, inviting submissions, I jumped at the chance.

Today the best three submissions were published (click the title of this blog entry for a link to the pieces) and although I didn't get my article online, I did get an honourable mention. Not bad for something that was a bit over the 500 word limit, written in 10 mins flat near the deadline and - upon reflection yesterday evening - had some quite horrendous grammatical errors.

Oh, and given the high quality of the three that did get published, mine wasn't good enough. Which is fair enough, as the rugby one in particular is a very astute tactical reading of the game.

So, I'll have a go for next week. With a bit more time, care and consideration, I know I can do better. I've got my topic already and some time over the weekend to have a think about it.

Finally, of course, here was the entry. (Slightly tidied up and fixed, natch.) Note that it is written for non-hockey audience, unfamiliar with the Phoenix, so much of it may be old ground.

-----------------------------
It is common in sport to find stories of teams suddenly finding themselves homeless, through accident or mismanagement. Sometimes the story has a happy ending, with a return to a clubs traditional home, sometimes a club is stuck in limbo or simply dies quietly. But for the Manchester Phoenix Ice Hockey club, the solution was simple - build their own ice rink.

In the late 1990s, ice hockey in the UK wnet through a boom time. With fans packing the arenas in Manchester, Sheffield, Belfast and Nottingham, the Ice Hockey Superleague (ISL) offered a high standard of hockey in brand new facilities. The problem was that the ISL was built on a foundation of sand with large numbers of imported mercenary talent combining with epic financial mismanagement to lead a league to collapse as quickly as it arrived, taking names such as the Cardiff Devils and Sheffield Steelers to the brink of disaster and Manchester Storm and Ayr Scottish Eagles into high profile liquidation.

After the Storm blew itself out, the remaining fans created the Friends of Manchester Ice Hockey with the twin aims of restoring a team in the top flight and finding a new place to play. The first job was accomplished with the help of local businessman Neil Morris, who financed the newly named Manchester Phoenix, entering the brand new Elite Ice Hockey League - which tried to correct the neglect of British talent by reducing import numbers.

There was no fairytale ending. A disappointing season in the Elite League was played out in front of an average of less than 3,000 supporters, rattling around the cavernous (and expensive) 17,245 capacity MEN Arena. The team was nowhere near financially viable in such a building and with the smaller (and delapidated) Altrincham facility closed down, the Phoenix were officially put into hibernation at the end of the 2003-04 season.

For the next two years Morris fought red tape, council intransigence, even politicking by other members of the Manchester ice sports community in order to realise his dream of building a new ice sports facility. Sites both permanent and temporary were considered all over the city, from west near the Trafford Centre to north, in Bolton. Eventually, in early 2006, Morris was able to announce he was going to build the new Ice Dome in Altrincham, for years the area which was the spiritual home of the sport in the city ready for that September.

With the hard part seemingly over, the Phoenix prepared for the new season with an opening date of 24th September in their new rink. Nothing would be that simple - problems with the site forced a three month delay until 2nd December. Committed to playing in the league, the club had to arrange "home" games at in North Wales and Sheffield, forcing fans into 100 mile round-trips. Players had to make the same trip two or three times a week. The equipment manager sat in laundrettes washing used hockey gear, the teams own washing machines stuck in storage awaiting their new home. Then in November, another body blow - the rink would not be ready until the end of January. More trips, more travel - and in January... another three weeks of delay. This forced the Phoenix to cancel home games, caused a fixtures pileup and 14 homes games to be played in the space of 40 days.

On Saturday, after almost three years of struggle, top flight ice hockey will return to Manchester when the Altrincham Ice Dome opens with the Phoenix hosting the Edinburgh Capitals. Despite being played in what is effectively a building site, with no amenities except for toilets and changing rooms for the players, the game is sold out. Such has been the determination from the fans that around fifty of them have been organised to spend Saturday afternoon wiping down seats and sweeping up brick dust in order to make the new home habitable. None of those fans will receive anything more than a thankyou, they will still pay full price to get in to see the game.

But for them, the fact that the team will finally play in its new home is enough.

Freezing the sand

2007-02-13T23:07:00.000Z

This evening, Landers, Tambo, Cameraman Steve and myself attended an on-site meeting with Neil, where we also met up with Sound Engineer Steve, Cameraman Colin and TechnoGeek Ron. The meeting took place right where the players' benches will be by Saturday, next to what will be an ice pad but is currently a huge expanse of freezing sand.

Being inside the new rink was a strange experience. It's not finished yet, not by a long chalk, and we will be playing this weekend's games on what is essentially a building site. There won't be a cafe, there won't be a bar, and you'll have to pee in a bucket (okay so the last part is a lie.) The announce position won't be finished, the camera platforms won't be ready, there won't be a video projector nor a screen to project onto. We're going to be playing in a spit-and-sawdust venue, with only the most basic of facilities in place. It's going to be cold, it's going to be tough, and it's going to be draining.

Bring it on.

Music and stuff

2007-02-04T22:39:00.000Z

Although we are often accused of it, the one thing we are very careful of on the match night crew is not letting our own taste influence the playlist too much. I'm forever throwing songs at Richard with a "this will work!" and he, quite politely "forgets" to add them to the playlist. Which I'm completely happy with, because I know that my taste is a little eclectic.

Anyway, one thing we don't do is be nasty to the opposition. So when we played Basingstoke Bison (called the Basingstoke Beavers until a good decade ago, but never allowed to forget) it was all I could do to not pass on Pop Will Eat Itselfs "Beaver Patrol" on for the next time Basingstoke come to town.

On a slightly related note, shortly after, iTunes threw up Peter Gabriels "Mercy Street", which has probably my favourite lyric in the entire world:

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real

All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebodys head

The last three lines always put a shiver down my spine... such a beautiful way of expressing invention, that could be applied to anything. Including the Phoenix, including the Ice Dome... "Were once just a dream, in somebodys head."

Launching the DVD

2007-01-29T16:25:00.000Z

Last night at the Phoenix's Sports Cafe bash we launched the new "Long Road Home" DVD, amongst other things. Several weeks of editing and compiling work, hours and hours in the edit suite, all reaching a culmination with the finished DVD going on sale.

Of the 25 copies made available at the event last night, 23 were sold, one was raffled, and the other went back to the office with Mags. Fingers crossed Neil will commission another run of them.

I've done a lot of editing work for Phoenix over the years now, but this has been the biggest project so far. The early reviews aren't in yet, but to say I'm nervous is an understatement.

Expanding the crew

2007-01-19T23:44:00.000Z

One of the advantages of having a day job working as a Media Technical Instructor for Staffordshire University is that I have easy access to a pool of up and coming film-making talent. It's where I recruited our current camera operators Jon and Steve from, and now that we're gearing up to move into our new rink with our plans for a larger scale media operation, it's where I'm currently recruiting more match night crew members from.

Expect some new faces appearing alongside the more familiar ones on the Match Night Entertainment Crew when we step through the doors of the Altrincham Ice Dome!...

Nice way to go out...

2007-01-10T22:08:00.000Z

The last game on the Long Road Home - Sheffield, in Sheffield. After waving goodbye to one temporary home in Deeside, it was farewell to the other - Ice Sheffield. A fantastic facility, a model for rinks in this country and, as alluded to before, not one the Match Night Crew are going to particularly miss.

Oddly, the setup was comparatively relaxed - up to a point. Previously, we've had to work around Scimitars games, with five minutes to plug everything in. This time we had a womens game, and a whole ten minutes or so. Luxury.

Or at least it would be, except that there is some reconfiguration of Ice Sheffields sound system going on, and the master controls on the amplifiers weren't working. Apparently the main feed was elsewhere in the building. The way the whole thing is set up is that we have a mixing desk that handles input from the two microphones (one wired for the booth, one radio for the walkabout) and the laptop with the music and jingles. This mixing desk is plugged into the amp at the venue using one of their auxiliary ports and a combination of the volume for that port and the master amp volume is set for game volume. We then use the desk to set interval volume (less, to allow people to have a conversation) but don't really have to worry too much about levels.

With whatever going on at IS, the master volume was off the mixing desk and the difference between game volume and interval volume must have been, oh, about a quarter of an inch. Not good, but Fishcake seemed to cope.

We didn't have the usual timekeeper from IS, so the Steelers guy stepped in. And Dave Bodily, the usual scorer wasn't available, so Andy Costigan filled in the scoresheet, adding another role to his already considerable workload. It wasn't a problem, though the interaction between scorer and announcer is key - Dave and I had worked out a system where he would give me player numbers for a goal or penalty, then fill in the scoresheet - Andy would do the sheet and then give me names. There is no right or wrong way to do it, but in a pressure situation it requires a certain mental dexterity.

Of course the Hockey Gods couldn't let us go without presenting a new problem, and boy was it a biggie. The control pad for the IS scoreboard is wirelessly connected to the two scoreboards and that connection had been dropping intermittently. When it did so, the clocks went to their default state - showing the current time - and the timekeeper couldn't tell whether the game clocks were still running. (Like I say, not the usual timekeeper, so no fault attributed to him at all.) Which meant some grabbing of stopwatches (we were joined by another bloke who ran penalty stopwatches) and some mental calculation of remaining time when the board came back.

It also meant a new one for me - reading out the game time elapsed over the mic. Another case of improvising - Richard quite understandably will not allow "dead air" at a stoppage. It takes three or four seconds for me to confirm the game time and read it out.

So another innovative solution was found. For the first and second periods we do what we call "jingle plays". These are sponsor adverts, followed by music. The aim is to do all the jingle plays by about the end of the second, game depending of course. The solution was to hit the jingle play, which takes about six seconds, then kill the following music to allow me to do the game time read out, then if possible, do the music.

One of the odder things is that the game time elapsed counted up - so I was announcing "28 minutes, 31 seconds", which felt really odd. This, I realised, is because I'm used to a period clock counting down, so in my head it was "11 minutes, 29 seconds" and again, mental adjustment was needed.

As you can imagine, this takes incredible coordination - the timekeeper, Andy, me, Richard, Fishcake and the officials. To do so on the fly and what at least felt to be seamless was quite an achievement and I'm quite chuffed that for a comparatively inexperienced crew, we're already coming up with solutions which not only get us through that dangerous time, but leave the "show" unaffected and the people in the stands enjoying themselves and unaware of the problems below.

Lets face it, we might sometimes give the impression that we're amateurs, pissing around, but that is the way our personalities mesh. People deal with stress in different ways, Richard, Fishcake and I deal with stress by acting stupid. Someone who becomes highly focused and equally highly strung would last about three seconds if shoved in between the three of us. But - as Mark and Lard showed - just because you appear to be winging it, doesn't mean you actually are.

At the end of the game, looking at the people around me, and feeling the way I did reminded me why I do all this. It was just such a rush, a good show, dealing with problems well, a brilliant, amazing comeback on the ice and to top it all off the team that totally collapsed was the Steelers. I'd forgotten how good it felt to beat the Steelers and cameraman Steve, although with a big grin on his face as well, was looking at all us old timers with just sheer joy on our faces. (Although he was mighty pissed off after buying shirt raffle tickets week in and week out, to find that his fellow camera bloke, Jon, had won the raffle!)

The sheer relief that we're finally on our way back to Altrincham is palpable. I'm proud of all the people involved in getting us this far, from the visible people like Neil Morris and Andy Costigan, down to the people you might not notice - Chelle, Tambo, Ben, Jon Curtis. From Carl the Producer running the website to Mags and Mel in the office. Utterly indispensible, dedicated people. The people who have fought and believed and kept going, even when it seemed to have gone wrong.

The Ice Dome will be made of bricks, plastic and wood. It won't be finished, not by a long chalk, when we finally move in. But I fully intend getting people together before or after the game, to stand in the rink, look around, and reflect on what we have helped to achieve. We couldn't have done it without Neil, Andy, Tony Hand, the team, the contractors... but they couldn't have done it without us.

See you in Altrincham!

Oh, that takes me back...

2007-01-04T22:49:00.000Z

One of those odd connections...

Watched the Due South marathon over the weekend, and I've been busy getting hold of most of the music featured in it. Which in one of those "oh, they had that clip from that band, who had the singer from there who produced that one song I really like" led me to the following.

Which not only being bloody brilliant, brought back memories of being a good ten years younger and bouncing around the dance floor of the only rock club in Colne.

Moist - Push (9Mb)

Adios, au revoir, arrivederci

2007-01-02T23:01:00.000Z

And so we bid farewell to Deeside. Sundays game against Mobilx Vipers was the last official visit for the match night crew.

I'd grown quite accustomed to the place. Its not the most salubrious rink in the world, but I like to think the Phoenix Faithful managed to rock the walls a bit. From an announcing point of view it was just about right, with sightlines over most of the ice, a clear view of all the fans, the players tunnel and so on. The PA setup was simple, even on the days we had to rush. The staff always friendly, with room for pre-game meetings and so on. Just a pleasant place to be.

Of course our final game couldn't go without some major problems, and we ended up with two. The first was as the game started. We have four DVD recorders taking the feed from Jons camera (the poor sod in the cherry picker). I'm not sure of the exact destinations of the disks, but at a guess, one for Tony Hand, one for the opposition coach, one for the Elite League and one spare in case of failure. The record of the game has to be made available shortly after the end of the match. So when Les told Richard that all four DVD recorders had failed, it was a major issue. As I understand it, not providing the game video is a fineable offence, and it is Richards responsibility.

So while he sorted that, Fishcake and I ran the opening few minutes of the game before Mr Match Night Director reappeared, presumably having hit things with a hammer.

Then during one of the intervals we had a complete PA failure. I rather suspect I knocked something plug related whilst leaning to answer someones question and nudged something, which killed the entire board. Fishcake and I looked at each other in horror, when Richard thankfully appeared out of nowhere, clutching a new extension lead.

Although we came back in, there was no way Richard would let us continue with a slightly dodgy connection. Because old clumsy arse here would undoubtedly make the whole thing go bang. So he hooked in the new extension lead and we were up. With one problem. The extension was one of those barrel reels, fully coiled and Richard pointed out that as it heated up it would become a large electro magnet, right next to all of our PA. We couldn't unravel it as everything was plugged in, and we couldn't unhook everything because the crowd would notice the pops and bangs through the speakers.

It was then that Richard had an idea that I quite genuinely describe as absolute genius.

He called Ben over and instructed him to go to the drummers in the corner. At the next suitable stoppage they would fire up the drums, the Faithful would begin giving their all... and we could unplug and reconnect the speakers without anyone (hopefully) noticing the pops and bangs - drowned out by their own noise.

As I say, a moment of brilliance.

Oh, and who thought we would make it to 2007 without playing "We're Gonna Win"?

Happy holidays

2006-12-25T01:43:00.000Z

When I was a kid I used to think that the term 'happy holidays' was just a commercialisation of Christmas, and I didn't like it at all. Now that I'm (a lot) older and (a little) wiser I understand that Christmas isn't the only thing being celebrated at this time of year.

So in the spirit of wishing as many people good tidings as possible, I would like to wish you all a:
Merry Christmas
Happy Chanukah
Happy Kwanzaa
Happy Demon Revels and Grand High Climax
Happy Five Years Of Electricity (Sheffield only)

I'm a professional!

2006-12-18T15:29:00.000Z

Interesting thing happened this weekend. First leg of the CC Cup semi-final, and referee Nigel Boniface kicked out the Coventry announcer. Apparently - and I wasn't there - he'd been sarcastically reading out the penalties.

Now, if that happened to me during a game, if I was kicked out by the ref, I'd probably quit the job. Out of shame.

My point of view is simple - something I say should never, ever affect the game. Its a little known fact that theoretically, I can cost the Phoenix an untold number of bench minors. (If a ref asks me to leave the booth for any reason what so ever, I must do so. To not do so would be a 2 minute minor. Which can continue, again theoretically, up to and including the forfeiture of a match.) I can, have and will get in trouble with management if something happens around the game (sponsor reads done wrong or something like that) but I can't afford to affect the happenings on the ice.

The announcers job is schizophrenic. You've got a certain list of things that have to be done from an official point of view. Goals, penalties, etc etc. Then you've got certain things that have to be done from a club point of view - reads of 50/50, upcoming games, MOM, etc. And finally you've got the "gee-up" role. The tricky thing is to balance all three, without letting one take over.

The "game" part of the job is the one where you have to be totally professional, to the point of being unemotional. Each penalty must be read clearly and slowly, and even when the crowd cheer the "plus a 10 minute misconduct" you can't afford to react to it. One thing I have noticed, by the way, is that the officials seem to have a feel for the announcements as well - how many times have you seen me end a read and the puck get dropped. I don't know if it is deliberate, but I'm impressed if it is.

Then you have the "show", the music, the presentations, the silly dancing, the revving up of the crowd. A couple of times this season we have been in the situation where the Phoenix have won a thriller, and the entertainment crew have been down because of things going wrong, and vice versa.

The aforementioned balancing act is a tricky one. At Ice Sheffield, I was getting heckled by a Panthers fan for the simple reason that I wasn't doing the "any noise for the Panthers?" thing. Originally I did, thinking I had to be fair and balanced. But actually, as Andy C pointed out, I don't have to do that at all. It is merely a courtesy, and to be honest not one I'm particularly keen on anyway. Its not my job to get the opposition fans going. And how many times have you heard the announcer extend that courtesy but in a really sarcastic manner or hardly at all? ("Anynoiseforthemumblemumbleand ANY NOISE FOR THE HOME TEAM!") Thats worse than not doing it at all, in my opinion. Screw that, either do it properly, or don't do it at all.

Said Panthers fan was getting more and more het up, eventually pulling the old "its a league rule" on me. Which is, of course, absolute bollocks. So she would shout at me, I'd give it the old "Come on Faithful, make noise for the Phoenix", grin at her, rinse and repeat as she got more and more wound up.

Which is where the balancing act comes in - because in the heat of the moment, it is very easy to let that emotion get the better of you and forget that you have a job to do. Imagine you are giving a bit of back and forth (maybe a sarcastic wave for instance) and a penalty gets called. In such a situation, you have to come from an emotional, revved up high and instantly slam down to an placid, professional calm.

(Which is usually Richard leaning over and going "Leave it Mike, she's not werf it.")

Then back up for the interval stuff. Not sure wandering around in the crowd worked this Sunday. I certainly over complicated it. But we're a bit stuck, as everyone is worrying about the condition of the ice at Deeside, so we're looking at moving things away from the ice surface. Shoot the Puck is over and done with in two minutes, but I'm not building an atmosphere between the fans. I think I will sit down and write some scripts. Work it out a bit more.

Don't let anyone tell you different - a large part of doing the announcers job is attention seeking, and I'm blatantly guilty of that. That is why its hard part is sometimes trying to suppress that part while people are pushing you into a crowd with a mic. At the moment, I worry about all the things that could go wrong, and I think I need to spend time planning much, much more. *shrugs* However, not a single person has paid money to see me, or Richard. Thats the key and that is the mistake that announcers have made in the past - it isn't about them.

Anyway, I suppose the key word I'm grasping desperately for is is "professional". Despite all outward appearances to the contrary, Richard, Fishcake and I are professional. I subscribe to the Les Dawson school of thought, "to look this bad, you've got to be pretty good". Which means while outwardly we're bobbing Santa Hats to a bit of Rammstein, but the the music is being cut at the right moment. The sponsors reads and jingles are being played.

And we're not being kicked out because we're getting the game and the show mixed up.

Now that is just wrong

2006-12-13T22:11:00.000Z

We've got a tin of Roses in the office where I work. Christmas is a time for a massive tin of choccies, and its tradition.

However, I wish to make a complaint. The makers of Roses have decided to change the wrappers for their sweets, and put the Roses logo on them. Now, ordinarily this would be a minor change.

But like I say, tradition. I've had a tin of Roses every year for the past two and a bit decades. I've got muscle memory to be able to instinctively seperate the Caramel Barrel from the Strawberry Creme without even thinking about it.

And the logo, plus a very tiny colour change, means I'm scrabbling about, all confused.

It's just not right.

Hello? Is this thing on?

2006-11-30T15:54:00.000Z

Hi.

I'm Mike Thorpe - the spiky haired oik that lives in the box with Richard and Mike Landers, controlling the music and other sounds. But not prancing around as much as those two.

To avoid confusion with having three Mikes in the box (Landers, Thorpe and Rophone) they call me "Fishcake", which is a name I've been using on various forums for years. (there's no deviant story behind it, it's just long and waffly and not really very interesting)

I'm hoping to provide a mix of old and new music for stoppages/fights/intervals of any kind. I'm always on the lookout for new stuff (and old stuff?) to play but slowly deleting all the insufferable cack one at a time so Richard doesn't notice ;-) So if you have any requests, let me know, but make sure it's suitable for a family audience, and also that it's not going to kill the atmosphere by being a slow dirge. I'm specifically looking for more dance/techno/drum&bass to spread the music spectrum out a bit - stuff that would normally be filling dancefloors of various clubs nationwide. Let me know what you like, and if you see me around, feel free to say hello!

Sudden roadworks

2006-11-26T21:03:00.000Z

OK, so we've got the prospect of another two months on the road. I can't say I'm happy at the prospect, but I have a couple of philosophies in life, defined by movies quotes.

"Whereever you go, there you are."
"Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'"

Basically, shit happens. I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday being pissed off, before moving on. Nothing I can do about the delays on the Ice Dome, nothing I can do to fix it. So do the job at hand, and wait.

Thankfully we were at Deeside this weekend for the visit of the Stingrays. Despite being a less salubrious facility than Ice Sheffield, everyone on the match night crew prefers to work at Deeside. Its a better atmosphere, we have less problems, we work well with the Deeside staff. All in all, it is simply a happier place to be.

Of course, the best thing is that we in the announce box can see everything perfectly. As Fishcake said before we started "It doesn't feel right. I should turn to ninety degrees and cover one eye to recreate the Ice Sheffield experience." It makes things one hell of a lot more relaxed, because an IS game ends up with us barking at each other, just to try and keep an eye on the ice.

However, IS has taught us how to do equipment swaps and setup in ten minutes flat. Which came in handy yesterday. At doors, we were running off the internal Deeside PA system. This is the system that in place for the first home game, vs Sheffield, which was inadequate for what we were trying to pump through it. After that first game, Steve from Comtec installed additional speakers above the seats and wired them through the roof and down to our announce box.

Think about it - sending an engineer out to fit and fix a rink that isn't ours, simply so the folks can hear the music better. No-one can tell me that we're less committed to providing a proper night out with decent sound just because we don't have our own place.

I digress. The key to this auxilary setup is the "Big Red Box". I'm no techie, but I do know the Big Red Box is an amp for those additional speakers, capable of giving us the additional oomph required. Problem was, the Big Red Box was stuck in traffic, and arrived after doors opened. So, if you noticed the sound dipping in and out, it was because we were hooking it up and rechecking levels. We didn't quite nail it until some way into the game.

Such are the little obstacles that we face.

We tried a couple of new things. First was the interview with Neil. For me, it wasn't so much about what he said, but to actually get the guy out in front of the fans, so that the Faithful could show their appreciation for what he is doing. The guy lives the team as much as any fan in the first place, but when you factor in the financial commitment involved, its been a tough few months, and especially the last week. Too many clubs pay lipservice to their fans, but without the people in the stands, Neil would have given up a long time ago.

And without Neil, the people in the stands would have given up a long time ago as well.

The second was our tribute to the builders - the idea was that if the rink wasn't supposed to be ready until the end of September, and it still isn't ready now, then September hasn't ended. And Richard suggested playing Green Days "Wake Me When September Ends". I'm not sure it worked, possibly too maudlin a song (although less so than my suggestion, "Better Be Home Soon" by Crowded House) but you learn by trying.

As I've probably said before, we're trying to inject a little quirkiness and fun into the music. Its easy to get cliched - pull out YMCA, We Will Rock You and a few current hits and you've got your playlist. Richard, Fishcake and I love our music, so we'd rather play things that we like and we feel would work. So why not reach for stuff people haven't heard a million times? Why not change the playlist around? It got to the point that I could predict the next track the Storm would play. And as long as you do it with thought and respect, then people notice.

Which is why I was disappointed to hear that Coventry played "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". Oh, Phoenix. Its a bird. Aha aha aha ha. I see what you did there. Thing is, what have we done to deserve it? We don;t have a rivalry with the Blaze, so simply having a pop for the sake of it is a bit gratuitous.

We won't have a pop back. Because we're better than that.

(Someone spotted we played "Resurrection Joe" and liked it. All the thanks we ever need!)

Should we bung "We Are The Road Crew" on next week? We should soundcheck to it!

Finally, the other great thing about Deeside. After packing up, the match night crew meets up has a coffee or tea at a set location. Its absolute vital as unwinding time, just to shoot the breeze and generally take the piss out of each other. Well, I say each other. Usually Richard. Or Neil if he shows up. It might only lasts half an hour, but it always gets us through the drive home with a smile on our faces.

Because at the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun.

Two more months

2006-11-21T23:41:00.000Z

In the run-up to the last of the "Long Road Home" games before we move to our new rink, we learn that the new rink has been delayed once more. Ice Associates, the contractors building the Altrincham Ice Dome, have issued a press release to announce the new handover date of January 28th 2007.

What this means is that instead of looking forward to moving into our new home, we're now faced with around nine more games on the road. The hours of travelling, the setting up and putting away of kit. The stresses of a live match night in a strange environment. The shouting, yelling, hustle and bustle. The stress, the anger, the adrenaline, the nerves. The joy and the pain of two more months on the road.

Bring it on.

Good times, bad times

2006-11-20T21:57:00.000Z

Its a pretty exhausted Phoenix off-ice crew at the moment. Dog days of the year, the novelty and excitement of having the team back and travelling to new places has worn off. So things slip into routine, and what is normally exciting sometimes becomes a chore.

I'm tired, and I don't mind admitting that. Phoenix takes up so much time, plus I do have a regular job to hold down, as well as little bits of work that I do on the side as part of my own business. Caroline is the same, juggling lots of balls at once, and now we have the complication of a wedding to plan.

To give you an idea of my weekend, work Friday, come home, more work, upload Phoenix gallery (having had to edit photos at the last minute), then up, off to Accrington for a mates wedding, reception, drinks, back home, sleep six hours, eye test, off to Sheffield for meeting with some people who are helping with the wedding, then into Ice Sheffield for the production meeting, then the stress/adrenaline of a game, then home for 1am.

I don't think I even said goodbye to everyone properly. I just remember going "muh muh muh" to Fishcake who was looking equally tired.

"A wedding? But they are fun!" I hear you cry. yes, they are. It was a good day, a good do, a big laugh and remember how it takes it out of you? I couldn't attend the stag do properly, as we were playing Coventry that night, so I went with the guys in the afternoon Laser Questing. And after what seemed like half an hour of running around, we realised that we ain't quite as young as we used to be.

This may sound like a whinge. It isn't, not really. Because everyone involved in the Phoenix is the same right now. I find myself having similar phone calls:

"Bad day?"
"Yeah."

And then we realise that we're all suffering the same way, the same lethargy. We don't even bother venting anymore, because we're all in the same boat. After the game, we began packing up. Neil was waiting at the back of IS, and I moved some equipment there. And we just stood, and stared at the wall in silence. I don't think we've ever been in that kind of vicinity for so long without actually saying anything to each other.

Thats why I when I think "Bad day", I realise yep. Probably is. But, I don't have the pressure of building a rink and funding a team. So quite frankly, if I'm gonna blow off steam, I'll do it elsewhere - because my problems aren't worth squat compared to his.

Perspective is the key. I've blown a couple of announcements? So what - he's got fans ringing him up and whinging about nothing. So I shut up, because to moan would be stupid and selfish.

For game time, the adrenaline pumps and for that four hours or so we all live off it and put on a good show. I understand now why bands go crazy on the road touring - its an impossible high punctuated by stretches of either nothing, or stress. The Match Night crew are like a band, each has a job to do individually that integrates with the other.

Its times like these that I'm grateful that I'm surrounded by the right people. Fishcake and Rev are handling the sound - Fishy ran the playback for the first time on Sunday against Nottingham. John and Steve run the cameras and despite being novices to the game, are hooked completely. They're good blokes. Richard gets a little over-stressed at times, but he's under so much pressure its difficult not to. He has to deal with the needs of 9 people, maybe more, as well as keeping an eye on the ice.

Good job that when he had his hair cut off, it grew back grey. I don't think we could tell the difference any more.

Its at times like these that you appreciate the little things - Jon Curtis turns up with tea and coffee during the game and its a godsend. (Although me mistakenly taking all the sugar and milk was a giggle.) It is not be the fact that its tea, its an old thing I used to do in the trenches of tech support, pass a brew to a guy having a bad call, just to get them aware that they aren't enclosed in a tiny space, but surrounded by people who are helping out behind the scenes. A cup of tea provides that little bit of sanity in a mad situation and is always, always, totally appreciated.

As I half said, half ranted at Paul, an old friend running the home penalty box - this is the price of being "in the know". This is the price of being an "insider". You turn up two and a half hours before faceoff, run around like blue arsed flies setting up, live on raw energy for the game, about half of which you actually see, and then from a terrible vantage point, fret, worry, improvise, cajole, marshal and then pack the whole thing up and go home.

Oh, and every mistake you make is seen by a thousand people. So get it right because you'll only be slated for it the next day on the forum.

Which is why I'm really, really pissed off with people having a go, not at me personally, but the club, and the volunteers. The Sheffield game last week was horrible. Lets look at it from a realism point of view. A volunteer crew, in an unfamiliar rink, with 1500 people to squeeze in in fifteen minutes.

I kind of half expected that the crew would get hassle from opposition fans - they don't know the pressures they are under. But from Phoenix fans? Come on. I'm not going to go into great detail, but some people ought to be totally ashamed of the way they behaved. Not because everything worked perfectly, it didn't. But taking it out on people who are doing their best under trying circumstances?

That crew that night deserved a fucking medal, not the whinging and carping afterwards.

And yes, I am tired of the moaners. Especially those who sit behind the comfort of a keyboard, don't go to games, yet feel they can have a pop at people anyone. Can't come? Shut up then. I pay more attention to one complaint from someone who was at a game, than 500 compliments from people who weren't. I'm sorry that not everyone can make it right now, but I'm catering for those who can. And making them happy. Everyone else can wait their turn.

People moaning about the ticketing, the team. People sitting back, hitting Google and looking at a photograph and feeling they have a right to pronounce on the rink, call Neil and the contractors liars when they haven't the first damned clue. I don't give a shit if someone works in the construction industry and comments on the construction of the Ice Dome. Because I'm a web developer, doesn't give me the right to tell Microsoft how to run its websites.

We've had to deal with some real, real problems, especially at Ice Sheffield. I'm not going into too much detail, but you know the old cliche about not slagging off someone in the toilets, when there is a locked cubicle behind you?

I can be really quiet when I want to.

Like with the rink - its amazing how much people think they know what is involved, when actually, they haven't the first clue. An Elite team has to do so much off the ice, we have a lot of equipment, mics, cameras, DVD recorders, mixers and desks, batteries. Then merchandise stalls, season tickets, photographers, all that stuff. A small army behind the scenes that we actually hope you never notice, because if you do notice, then something has gone wrong.

Yet when we're slagged off by some bloke who is involved in an ENL side, we've got to smile sweetly, and mentally add him to the list of people who will be up against the Wall of Fame when the revolution comes.

Other stuff - the MOMs were delayed on Sunday because the photographers had been locked by persons unknown in their area. Again, last Sunday, the lights dimmed during the ENL game. We were on the media gallery, and everyone started yelling at us. There was even an announcement taking the piss over the PA. Noone would come up to see the problem, we had to go down there.

Guess what? It wasn't anything to us. Did we get an apology? No. Especially as we had been accused, over the PA, of doing something that we hadn't. That is totally out of order, and completely unprofessional.

Re-reading this, I know I sound tired and moany and whingey. I love what I'm doing, it is still a rush, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. But right now, people are tired, and stressed. And some Phoenix "fans" need to get their heads out of their arses and give people a damned break.

Phone call

2006-11-14T20:07:00.000Z

"Hi Mike, what are you doing?"
"I'm watching WarGames on More 4."
"Good film, that."
"Yup, the film that made me what I am today."
"A computer programmer?"
"Nope. Hunted by the US Military."

The controversial 'no-goal' this past Sunday

2006-10-26T23:51:00.000Z

Following all the hoo-hah about the Nottingham 'goal' that referee Boniface washed out, the press releases from the Panthers and the posting of the footage on the Phoenix site that shows what happened, there is one party involved in all of this that has so far kept quiet but can no longer hold their peace.

In a statement issued this afternoon, the match puck has publicly declared "I did not have relations with that goal."

In a separate interview, netminder Jason Wolfe's catcher mitt is quoted as saying "I know where the line is drawn, and I do my best not to let my good friend cross it."

With the US Midterm elections just around the corner, you know it makes sense:

Vote Puck/Catcher '06. A winning combination.

The lessons we learn

2006-10-20T16:14:00.001Z

Four down, most of the season to go...

We're now four home games into the new season, and so far so good. The results on the ice are sort of going our way, the team seemed to have gelled pretty well. Off the ice, we're getting there too.

As Mike's intoned in his recent posts, starting a season on the road is a double edged sword. You get the pressure of not being in your own barn and having to work around other people's schedules, but you get to view the whole thing as a big learning curve ready for when we get into our own rink and rock the place.

I think 'learning curve' is the best way of describing what we're going through at the moment. From Day One we've had the aim of delivering the best match night experience that we can for the fans, and that's what we're striving to do. Whether we're managing it or not is in the eyes (and ears) of the beholders...

My personal role is the Match Night Entertainment Director. Once we're in our own place, I'll be the one calling the shots on the music and video playout, cueing Mike's announcements, and overseeing the entertainment side of a match night experience. I'll have a small staff working under me, and fingers crossed it'll be a pretty tight ship. Until we get into our own rink, we're running on a skeleton crew, good luck, the wind in the right direction and a bucketload of determination, and that's it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bemoaning my lot. I have the privilege of working alongside a crew of incredible people. Mike Landers has been the most patient presenter I could have wished for, and Jon Galione and Steve O'Neill have been outstanding in their professionalism as camera operators and general riggers - the videos you've seen of our home games on Phoenix TV are a result of their ever-improving efforts. Throw in the efforts in the technology department from Steve Foden and Ron Gilmour of Comtec and we're in a much stronger position that I was hoping for at this stage, and that can only be a good thing.

As mentioned above, the whole thing is a learning curve. A couple of weeks back I posted on my other blog about the valuable lessons we'd been learning so far with the match nights, and now that we're a couple more games in, it's time for me to share these lessons with you all! Enjoy!

1. Never rely on having a soundcheck. If you need a soundcheck, do it offline through headphones. The only time you can rely on getting a soundcheck is when you're in your own building. If the ice is being occupied by an ice dancing class who are there right up to doors open, they won't particularly appreciate you blasting some Metallica out, even if you're just 'checking your levels'. I can't think why.

2. Never trust anyone you don't know to do something vital. Unless you can't do it yourself. Nobody wants to see Mike and myself in tutus, so we'll let the ice dancers entertain you in the intervals.

3. Always make sure everyone in your crew knows who is working when. It saves from having an on-a-break camera operator wandering into a still-live area and wondering why he's being yelled at to get out.

4. Always make sure that everyone who needs to be at the production meeting understands that 4.00pm means 4.00pm, it doesn't mean 'turn up when you feel like it, after all we have tons of time and it's not a pressure environment at all and yes I love having the extra stress of you faffing about doing whatever the heck you feel like when I'm trying to coordinate a f**king show.' Or words to that effect.

5. Always make sure that everyone understands that if they speak to me whilst I'm cueing faders, they will die a terrible, terrible death. Terrible death. Mark my words.

6. Keep the Energy Vampires away. I learned this phrase from a gentleman by the name of Larry Blake, who is a sound mixer used regularly by film-makers such as Steven Soderbergh, and it refers to people who are hanging around a production area who aren't anything to do with the production. People like to come along and see what's going on, they like to be around production people who are working, and it's off-putting as hell. They draw your attention away from the task at hand, and they drain the energy away from a production, hence Energy Vampires. Always make sure you've got someone who's sole job is to keep them away. Use garlic and stakes if necessary.

7. If you're using more than one camera position, always set them up next to each other, white balance and iris check them together, fit them with batteries and then move them (still switched on) to their filming positions. Then, when you come to edit the footage together, you'll stand a chance of having images that can go together, rather than looking like someone attacked one of the cameras with a pastel crayon.

8. Always take something to drink and something to snack on with you. You're 'live' for four hours, so you've got no chance to take a break. But don't overdo the liquids if you're not going to have the opportunity to take a whizz. Peeing under a mixing desk is generally frowned upon.

9. Find some method that you can use to momentarily de-stress you. For me, employing someone that I can smack with a hammer is ideal, but since they made it illegal I now just take deep breaths and do a lot of swearing.

10. Listen to the advice of people who wish to give it (when it's appropriate time to listen) but don't always take that advice. Judge for yourself whether or not you should take it - what works for some won't work for others, and there's no sense in changing something that's working in order to test someone else's ideas. There are some very experienced professionals out there, but there are also lots of well-meaning amateurs. Beware.

11. Find time for a debrief after the event, even if it's over a cuppa at a motorway service station afterwards. Everyone needs to unwind and realise that you're a human being, and not the snarling bastard that they've just been encountering for most of the day.

12. Remember who's in charge. If it's someone else, you're working for them. If it's you, then everyone else does as you say. That's the rule. You can even order them to dance for you. Embrace the power.

Those are the lessons that I and my crew have been learning over the past few weeks. Mark my words, there will be more lessons, and once we've finally nailed it, finally got it right, finally reached the point where it's all spot-on and in-the-bag, it'll be time for the Play-Off Finals....

Tense, nervous hockey?

2006-10-17T21:33:00.000Z

Great game this week and things are beginning to flow a little bit. We achieved the remarkable feat of actually having the sound up and running, with not one but two microphones, in just twenty odd minutes. Everything was nice and relaxed, going well, time to hit "play" as the fans come in and...

"Why is the music so quiet?"

Somehow, something had happened. A button pressed or not pressed. Either way, the output was far too quiet and yet again we didn't get a smooth start. Eventually the right button was pressed, which meant everyone got a huge earful of AC/DC.

Oops.

It was more relaxed this week, and to be honest from my point of view, a little too relaxed. Call it cockiness, but I made several mistakes in mic technique through a little over-confidence. Its inevitable - what seems difficult at first then feels simple, until you begin to take it for granted.

But we're getting there, and I was pumping the crowd up some more, it felt good and loud - Deeside might be half full, but I'm not being all self-congratulatory, the noise from the fans is amazing.

Managed to watch the game a bit more, actually seeing the team come together and Tony Hand has built a really nice team to watch. They play hockey the right way, puck possession, skill, speed. Against a tricky opponent, and with Zero Tolerance, the game was fast, free flowing and entertaining. We have the right product to sell once we get to Altrincham.

Finally mention to Dave Bodily, our scorer, who had taken note of all the hassles regarding the Phoenix Faithful patch. He presented me with this so I could pin it to my shirt and proclaim that I was a bigger fan than anyone. I'm still laughing about it now.

Next week, Ice Sheffield. And the story of Iggy.

Whew... long week

2006-10-14T08:41:00.000Z

Back to Deeside last Sunday, and a new set of things to deal with. After the problems we had at the first game, we took our own PA equipment to work in tandem with Deesides - at least thats how I understood it. I am not a Hardware Guy, quite emphatically so. Which may sound odd when I can (and did for a short while) build PCs for a living, but to be honest, if I pick up a soldering iron by the cold end 7 times out of 10, I count that as a win.

(I will, at some point, blow something up on the desk. Its a natural gift.)

We had a proper hour worth of soundcheck (well, it was supposed to be an hour, someone let the fans in 10 mins early so we had to hit "play" in a rush) and the camera guys were providing footage for www.icehockeyleague.tv. So we had Jon in a cherry picker... which he didn't know about... Steve in between the penalty boxes plus extra boxes and cables. And the radio mic didn't work for reasons unknown, so I was on a handheld. Which was a bonus, actually, because instead of Richard fading the radio mic in and out, he simply set the level and I would switch myself on or off. Instead of having to sync to each other, he could rely on me to come in and out according to the music - one less point where things can go wrong.

Lessons this week? Its very easy to focus on the immediate vicinity and not keep an eye on the entire team. Demonstrated most effectively when Jon had a problem during the first period, and we didn't spot it. Neil did, from his side of the rink and was frantically trying to phone us - except Revs phone didn't have a signal and mine was switched off in my bag.

I believe that we have a proper comms system (headsets or walkie talkies) waiting for the Ice Dome, so that will help.

On the plus side, the sound was nice and clear, Fishcake was invaluable help, we got to explore the odder parts of the playlist (Bomb The Bass' 80s classic "Megablast" got an airing, which will send Amiga owners of a certain age into nostalgic reverie), the game was won and the crowd were loud. Can't wait to see what 2,500 are capable of, because the 500+ in on Sunday made some real noise.

Or as we cal them now, the "Phoenix Faithful". I've always thought we needed a name for the fans to congregate under, like Sheffield have the (Manson) Family. "The Faithful" sums it all up rather well and as a nice touch, the fans who are able to make it to the games on the Long Road Home are recognised by a special patch, worn by the players and given to the fans. It is an important thing to recognise the people who have given this team its purpose and to build that relationship between the players and the people who support them. It is very easy to go "we've got a team and a rink, you don't matter anymore except as consumers" but that would betray everything that everyone has worked for.

Which is why I reacted so angrily to comments on the Forum this week. To be blunt, I'm tired of the whingers. I'm really quite tired of people who sit back and sneer from the sidelines. They could be tolerated, and in some cases listened to, prior to the team taking to the ice. But right now, one voice who doesn't come to the games is not worth as much as the 500 voices who do. It is as harsh and as simple as that.

Will the Phoenix Faithful patch cause some people to think they are a "better" fan that someone who, say, wants to come but can't until we get to Altrincham? Yes.

Is that the clubs fault? No.

End of discussion. And I know, and I'll put frickin' money on it, that some of the people who complain about feeling "left out" would be the first to lord it over other fans. (And others who feel "left out" are precisely the sort of person who would stand in the kitchen at a party as an ostentatious display of apathy.) Of course that doesn't apply to every specific person who complains about it, but look me in the eye and tell me that, generally, I'm wrong.

That doesn't give anybody the right to complain when the Club does do something to recognise the people spending time and money travelling to Deeside and Ice Sheffield. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the twisted logic is saying that the Club shouldn't show its appreciation.

"Easy for you to say, Mike. You're an insider now. You're one of 'them'."

Anyone who has spent any time with me knows I'm a headstrong so and so. And the idea that I suddenly compromise everything I believe in for a shot at glory behind an announcers microphone or a website had better work harder at judging character.

Because I've built bigger websites, and I've done bigger gigs. The only difference is that this gig, and this clubs website is something I love doing. The only glory I'm interested in is the deep satisfaction of doing something I love about something I love.

So if I get defensive and angry on occasion, then tough.

Second time around

2006-10-02T13:54:00.000Z

The Hockey Gods have a particularly cruel sense of humour. Last week, many of the problems and stresses were caused by the lack of private soundcheck time at Deeside. Its just something we have to put up with, and is an entirely reasonable restriction given the circumstances. This week, scheduling had decreed that we had even less time, as the Scimitars took on the Slough Jets immediately before our game. Timing was so tight that the Giants and Phoenix had to warmup on the other ice pad, and we prepped a pre-game that was anticipated to last about half an hour, including equipment swap over.

So it was with some incredulity and black humour that after Richard, MikeFishcake and I were working out the plan for a smooth, quick changeover, that I noticed the Scims Zamboni had broken down at centre ice during the first interval of the Scims game.

I laughed the laugh of the condemned. It is my coping mechanism. A vein began to throb in Richard's temple. I think it is his coping mechanism.

All in all, post swap over, post sound check, we had a full five minutes worth of warm-up and were pretty much flying blind. To be honest, I think a little bit of hockey experience came into play - you know it is supposed to run in a certain order, and with a script out of the window, you draw on that to get the order right - teams, mascot, anthem, mascot, go!

Had to do Shoot The Puck from the box - couldn't test the radio mic over there (never [i]ever[/i] trust to luck) but that seemed to go pretty well. And we got a big "woo" for the star prize. Adlibbed a couple of lines (Something along the lines of "A draw! Will the budget stretch to two keyrings?") We can't really do much other than STP for the moment for a whole bunch of reasons, some of them insurance-based, so the "grudge match" formula is the best we can do. I'll try and build on it.

Having messed up the ice dancers last week, we were presented with precisely the opposite problem. Having asked for a single or a pair for a three minute routine, we ended up with two doing about 1.30 - 2 minutes each. And given the music cockups last week, you didn't want to see mine or Richards face when they gave us their music... on Minidisc. What we didn't know, and they did, was that part of IceSheffields playout system is MD but for that split second we exchanged glancesa that simply said "you have got to be joking". The actual bit went well, with two excellent dancers and the young lad chucked out for a second round of applause because he flippin' well deserved it.

It was a flat game though we didn't really have time to notice that sort of thing. Between us, we had quite a little system going - Richard controlling music, telling MikeFishcake to up my fader for the mic, and I'd do the read. MikeF will probably end up as the sound guy in the Ice Dome, when Richard moves to just directing operations overall, so last night was the first time we had worked together as a trio. Went well from my perspective, a lot more relaxed this time and as a team we began to get a little bit well drilled, and somewhat akin to a submarine.

"Range to target?"
"10 seconds, cap'n"
"10 seconds to read."
"Fader up"
"Fader up, aye"
"5..4..3..2..1... FIRE MIKE!"
"The next home game for the Manchester Phoenix..."

Didn't manage to fluff too much, although when we tried to boost the atmosphere, I managed to get totally tongue-tied. It was supposed to be "Stamp your feet, clap your hands and give it up for the Manchester Phoenix." Unfortunately, when it got to the line, I managed to get stonewalled, with every fibre in my body saying "Its stamp your hands and clap your feet, stamp your hands, say it...". After finally getting the words out properly and the fader down, I just collapsed in a heap of giggles.

Overall it just felt a lot more...comfortable. We've got the music playing out mixed in with the reads and jingles and that sounds smooth. I've (subconsciously) settled into the pattern for the announcements for the official announcements. They still need tweaking and refining, but the fraught bits are where we are dealing with other people. If we've comfortable with what we're doing, then that will come with time. The next stage is to begin to work the crowd more, get a feel for the rink atmosphere (easier in Deeside than Ice Sheffield) and start raising the crowd noise. People have noticed that we've got a bit of a nice mix of music for in-game and penalties (had to feel sorry for Richard on reading THF - he works his nads off ploughing through hundreds of songs and the one track that someone picked up on was the only one I suggested!) It would be nice to start bringing that "personality" into the crowd and the game a lot more.

And maybe next week I'll bring a violin bow. Because you can play Richards pre-game nerves with it.

Home, home on the road...

2006-09-25T10:51:00.000Z

(Incidentally, I've written this before reading anything on the Forum since last nights game. I'll head off now and read the deluge of "The other bloke was better!" posts.)

So. First game down for the presentation team of Landers and the Rev. Something that has left me absolutely drained today.

Its amazing that being without a rink shows just how much you at the mercy of outside forces. For obvious reasons, we weren't able to take over Deeside, especially as they had figure skating booked to use the ice until 6pm. Unfortunately, due to the large crowd, doors were due to open at 6pm to. This lead to us trying to do a soundcheck whilst people are making their way to their seats - so I'm busy reading out silly penalties "#87 for Sheffield, 2 minutes for being from Yorkshire" and hoping people don't notice too much.

We have pre-game production meeting about 1 hour before doors open. Ideally you want everybody there, just so that you can go through every aspect of the evening, not just music and announcing, but mascots, shoot the puck, post game MOM, interval entertainment. Where people are, when they are do on, when they are due off. Everything is as tightly scripted and stage-managed as possible, down to the exact minute. Not everyone was there at the time, so it led to confusion at times.

The ice dancers thing was down to a total lack of prep. We're left with a CD at almost literally the last minute with no idea of what sort of music it was, no idea where they were going to be and so on. To be fair, they didn't know what we wanted either - so lack of communication all round.

Shoot the Puck seemed to take 30 seconds and our bloke was rubbish :-). Apparently Rick plays for the Aardvarx, so I blame his coach on that one. For the bit I was most worried about, I ad-libbed OK so that helped a lot. Then into an interview which didn't work at all. (To be fair, how would you react if someone shoved a camera and a microphone in your face and started asking questions?)

Doing the job is funny, and scary and totally seat of the pants at times. I was doing one of the pre-prepared reads about tickets and it says at the end "...MAGS HAS THE DETAILS" and I'm midway through the sentence before realising I haven't the slightest clue where Mags is actually based for people to go to. Is she in the foyer? A room off to the side? She's been too busy with her prep, we've been too busy with ours.

I know that I was gabbling the words too fast. Its a combination of habit from doing standup, nervous energy, adrenalin, the need to react quickly to events and so on. Its damned hard work to have all this stuff going on around you and try to stay on an even keel. Do I need a read at the next break in play... No... Richard is cueing up tracks... watch game for a sec...how is the crowd feeling? Do I need to raise them?... shit....Penalty coming...dump the music... who is it on...away team, find the number... Richard finds the right jingle...watch the ref for the penalty....work out the time...work out the player... now suddenly slow it all down for an announcement. And you have no time to double check things. Its like a roller coaster, exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

If it sounds fairly harsh on myself, and the people in the stands didn't notice, then thats fair enough. Look at the forum for the last few weeks - everyone remembers the bad, the mistakes, the moments of confusing as information is confusing or missing - noone, and I mean no-one - has posted to say "you know what, that set of pages answered every single one of my questions." I'm no different - when gigging I remember the fluffed lines, the gag that didn't work and I never recall the applause for a great line and the lovely ad-lib. I set high expectations of myself and I'm damned if I'm not going to give this opportunity my best shot. I know Richard is the same - on the surface it might look like a laugh and a joke, and I'm boogie-ing away in full view, but underneath I know that if it takes a bit of a shouting session between people to get it right, then thats what it will take. It might be Richard shouting at me, it might be me shouting at him, it might be Neil shouting at both of us, it most likely it will be an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its simly because we're passionate, determined and we care about getting it right.

The dancing? That is a method of getting the energy out of me, trying to relax. Diversion tactic, with the brain processing so much and adrenalin flying through my system, it has to come out somewhere. And if that means doing the YMCA in plain sight, then cool.

So if this sounds down, then it is because I think I wasn't good enough. Thats the way I am. Objective #1 for next week - Do better, the same as it will be for the next few games, hopefully 27+ until the end of the season. We did pretty well, I did OK. Some things worked, some didn't.

A lot of positives came from it - Richard and I know that we can work together properly, he can bark instructions at me and I'll do what is necessary. By the third period, we were clicking into place, faders up at the right points, mics on and off at the right points. We'll get to the point where we're controlling events, instead of reacting all the time. Which sounds odd in such an unpredictable game as hockey, but by the third it felt that I was getting the hang of it, penalties were running smoothly. The odd thing being that as we got it right off the ice, it went wrong for the team. I hope its not a yin/yang thing as the season progresses.

The irony is, of course, that we'll take three or four games to truly click into place. And by the time we nail it at Deeside and Ice Sheffield, we move into the Ice Dome and it will be time to learn all over again.

A week and a bit in the life of a Phoenix back-roomer

2006-09-12T15:01:00.000Z

As our regular readers will know (hello to you both) the Elite League season is finally underway, and the Phoenix have returned to active competition. It's been a hectic week for everyone - for the players, for the fans. for the back-roomers and for the management. Also this week we launched Phoenix TV, which is a multimedia section on the team website, and one of my chief responsibilities is to provide the content for it. Hopefully you like what we're doing there!

For me personally, it's been a knackerising week and a bit - it's now Tuesday and I'm still shattered. I'm not asking for sympathy, that's not what this posting is about at all, so don't worry! However, since some of our critics have in the past accused us of being 'in it for the glory', I've decided to post this overview of the past week-and-a-bit to illustrate what this glory looks like....

Sunday 3rd September was the 'Meet The Players' event at the Sports Cafe, and myself and Ron Gilmour (my fellow Match Night Entertainment Director) were tasked with documenting the event - Ron armed with a digital stills camera, and me armed with a video camera. The presentations by the builders and developers were duly captured, the player introductions documented, and some short interviews carried out afterwards with some very tired, uber-jetlagged players. Monday and Tuesday were all about editing the footage and getting it ready to be sent over to Mr Landers for encoding and putting on the website (as well as doing my day job).

Wednesday 6th September was the night so many people had dreamed of - the Phoenix taking to the ice for the first time in two seasons, with a challenge game against the Scimitars over at Ice Sheffield. Once again, Ron and myself were on the documenting team, each armed with a video camera whilst Landers and Carl The Producer worked on providing live updates to the website from the Media Gallery.

Thursday was edit day for the game footage, trimming it down into a package for Granada TV and then expanding that package into something for the Phoenix TV webpage. Along with doing my day job.

Thursday night was a bizarre one. The customers at a pub not far from the M6 were treated to the spectacle of two men climbing into a pick-up truck and not coming out for an hour. Yep, it was interview time, with me recording an interview with Neil Morris, before heading home to process the interview ready for upload to the site. Again it's Mr Landers who does the actual uploading, working in tandem with Carl The Producer.

Friday saw me prepping the camera kit ready for the weekend's games, sifting through more cds and mpegs of music for the match night entertainment. Again, the day job did put in an appearance!

Saturday and Sunday were filming days in Edinburgh and Hull respectively, getting footage for the website and for our new match night opening sequence.

Monday was editing the footage from the two matches into the pieces that now adorn the Phoenix TV page, and sending them across to Landers for uploading. Last night was checking through some PR material, uploading the Rink Round-Up report to the website (thank heaven for Ronnie Nichol and Jim Lydon writing it this season) and then finally getting to bed sometime around two. I believe the day job may have also been a part of the actual day.

Well, hopefully this has given you an idea of how things are hotting up for Phoenix at the moment! Like I say, I'm not looking for sympathy, more like using this piece to show how we're back in business and we're always on call, 24/7. For those critics out there, if that's what passes for glory, then I'd hate to see what masochism is!

We came, we saw, we rock!

2006-09-07T10:09:00.000Z

Last night was a big night for Phoenix. Sheffield Scimitars had invited the team to take part in a pre-season challenge match, and it was the first time back in competition for a Phoenix team that was mothballed over two years ago. A sizeable Phoenix following turned up to see the eleven outskaters and two netminders take to the ice, and the mood in the place was bordering on ecstatic. The huge cheer that greeted the opening face off and marked the return of the Phoenix was a cheer that sent a shiver down many a spine. The game itself was a cracker, with both teams giving it their all, but Phoenix coming out on top, with a 6-0 scoreline sparking much rejoicing.

With myself on cameraman duties, Landers providing web updates via the team forum, and Carl The Producer in the stands looking after two little people he'd Produced earlier (along with Mrs Carl The Producer), it was almost like it was back to old times.

The Phoenix is back!

The long and winding road...

2006-09-06T12:24:00.000Z

Today is a day that many hoped the Phoenix would see. A day that many thought the Phoenix would never see. A day that some didn't want the Phoenix to see.

Over two years of slog and determination and guts. People have put their time, their money, their heart and their soul into keeping this club going. None more so than Neil Morris who has been knocked down a thousand times and every single time got back up again.

It has been a tough, tough journey. We've laughed, shouted, joked, moaned, smiled, cried, yelled and whispered. I've had to sit back and read people writing us off when they have no concept of what is going on. And then when a quiet email or PM of support comes through, it makes it all OK. Long periods of quiet followed by frenetic activity.

So forgive the self-indulgence, but there might be a few misty sets of eyes in Ice Sheffield around 7.30pm.

Calling all unsigned bands!

2006-08-20T03:14:00.000Z

(copied from my post on the team website - can't hurt to plug this on here too!)

Manchester Phoenix are looking for new and original music tracks to feature in our match night entertainment, so if you are an unsigned solo artist or are in an unsigned band and would like your material to be considered, please send an e-mail to the address below with details of your name, your band's name, your contact information, and a little bit of detail as to your type of music and why you think it would be suitable for a match night. Successful applicants will be contacted with details of how to submit their material.

Please note that we can't use music that has copyrighted samples from other music or other media sources (film and tv soundbytes etc). All material has to be original and not copyrighted to any record label, nor can it be under contract to any other copyright holder for use on or by other commercial projects or companies.

The address to send your details to is richard.allan@manchesterphoenix.co.uk - we look forward to hearing from you!

Now Recruiting: Match Night Entertainment Crew

2006-08-20T03:12:00.000Z

Manchester Phoenix are looking for camera operators, vision mixers and sound mixers to work as a part of the Match Night Entertainment Crew on match days for the forthcoming season at the new Altrincham Ice Dome.

You will need to be reliable, presentable, and technically capable. You will be functioning as a part of a crew, working under a Director. You will need to be quick and alert, with a keen eye for a good camera shot and a sense of timing. A good knowledge of ice hockey would be an advantage, but is not essential.

Applicants should have a background in technical operations, either at professional or student level. Applications from current students based in or around the Manchester area welcome.

Please send your CVs to richard.allan@manchesterphoenix.co.uk

Rebuilding the Match Night Experience, one tune at a time....

2006-08-19T00:56:00.000Z

One of the tasks that has been allocated to me is to overhaul the Phoenix Match Night music collection - the tracks that we play in the stoppages, in the intervals, and before and after the game. This season we're going to be trying some new material as well as still featuring the tried-and-tested classics, and I'm open to suggestions!

If you've got any suggestions for new tracks that you think might work well on a match night, either as a whole piece or as a stoppage track, or if you've got an old favourite you'd like to put in a good word for, post a reply to this comment and I'll take a look at your ideas. All suggestions gratefully received!

Carl's Wedding

2006-08-14T14:17:00.000Z

This past Thursday, our esteemed Producer and web wizard Carl finally got married to his ever-suffering partner Karen in a lovely ceremony at Whitewell, near Clitheroe. The venue was fantastic, the vicar was spot on (funny and serious where required), and the whole bash was hugely enjoyable. I got the chance to get my knees out in public again, wearing a Black Watch kilt, and I was also treated to the spectacle of Landers in a suit, which was rarer than a comet spotting.

No doubt pictures will be posted soon, but in the meantime I'd like to wish the happy couple all the best for the future!

Cheers!

Up, up and away!

2006-08-08T21:42:00.000Z

Never thought I'd be able to go up in a hot air balloon - but when you've got the chance, you just have to do it...

Photo Gallery - from page 2 onwards...

Busy as the proverbial...

2006-08-02T21:18:00.000Z

You can tell things are cranking up. This week alone we've had a new player, a roster change, the new merchandise section with the new shirts and I'm not breaking any confidences to say tomorrow will have another press release and then somewhere in the near future we've got the fixtures, most likely a few more signings and updates on the rink building.

Plus some of the other stuff planned for the site is beginning to come on stream.

When it comes to doing things, the Phoenix has three separate deadlines which are, in order of urgency, "now", "straightaway" or "immediately".

I've spent the best part of two hours updating, coding, checking, questioning, emailing and all because, apparently, like Richard and Carl and everyone else, I'm in it for the glory...

Ach. Not time to open that can of worms. Onto happier things - new shirts look... well, I like the away one a lot. The white home one.. not so sure. Maybe our logo - the beloved Budgie - is a bit lost in the middle? However, as always, pictures don't really do the real thing justice - I have a sneaking suspicion that the home shirt will look really good in the flesh.

Time for bed. Looking at the diary, the next few days just Don't Stop. And I'm not even the busiest of us three, as Carl is getting married next week. I'd rather have my workload than his!

Mike = Michael, Richard = Ralf

2006-07-23T18:16:00.000Z

It was Carl the Producers stag do this weekend, and much fun was had by all. Part of the day was spent at Karting 2000 in Gorton, where our group of 12 mixed with two other groups to form a Grand Prix of 36. 5 heats each, 36 in all, plus two Grand Finals.

I had been quietly looking forward to the day, just minding my own business when suddenly Richard emailed me with:

(click for large version)

Oh dear.

Y'see, what Richard didn't know was that I've been karting a number of times and I'm actually - buffs nails on lapel - quite good at it. Some put it down to my 10 stone frame, I prefer to put it down to an inate talent at the wheel and a distinct lack of self-preservation.

The heat scoring system was 10 for a win, 8 for second, 6, 5, 4 for 3rd 4th 5th in the heats. With four lap heats, you also started in each of the five grid positions. The track had very few overtaking opportunties, so coming from the back was pretty damned tough.

Bearing in mind Mr Allans emailed boast, I feel it was probably a mistake for him to admit that he had never set foot in a go-kart before. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I think Richard scored 26. Me? Three wins and two second places for a total of 46. Which really should have been four wins, but for a silly mistake which let a very good driver through.

I qualified top in our group for the second Grand Final, which I think was the main one and was placed third on the grid of six starters. The pole was the same bloke that beat me earlier. I grabbed second at the start, but got pushed almost into the tyres at the first bend, dropping to fifth. From that point, I managed to have myself a true Moment of Zen as I discovered the best line through the s-bend onto the main straight, and simply picked off each guy in front, before getting the lead by about lap 7 and extending it for the overall win.

So, I'm writing this a) for the record because his email wrote a cheque his ability couldn't cash and b) so that Richard knows:

WHO IS THE DADDY?!

Shiny

2006-06-30T22:09:00.000Z

Well, we have a new look website (clicky the link above). It should have been done quicker, but due to lots of stuff, mainly involving me, it wasn't. So we ended up pulling a bit of a late 'un on Thursday and then Carl did a sterling job of moving things over. And Richard did a lot of content updating. I... well, I'm not sure what I did. I'd like to say "look and feel", but then Abigail and Helen at Comtec did a lot of that, especially in translating my rather vague ideas into something concrete.

I made the tea. Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, we're up and running. The odd thing is, the site is only 70% or so complete. Because we don't have things like action photos, rink photos and so on, we can't actually do many of the things we wanted just yet. There is a whole ton of stuff that I'd like to do that I don't think any club has done yet. Stuff like Richard video on the front page. I've got some of the ideas in my head which might seem like hard work, but are quite simple in practice (hopefully!). Twas ever thus, sticking video on the site is easy, its getting that left hand menu to work properly that takes time.

Basically the new site is currently a bucket, customised so we can pour ideas into it.

In other news - THF5 this weekend. Should be interesting...

Stats, stats, and more stats

2006-06-30T21:18:00.000Z

As you may already know, Phoenix have relaunched the official website today, and whilst Carl and Mike have been at the cutting edge of the HTML and the design and all the other good stuff, I've been beavering away on the archive stuff. Which basically means I've been transcribing stats from one place to another.

Much as I love hockey, I think I'm about to reach the point of no return, where I never ever want to see the words "Games Goals Assists Points PIMs" in that order again....

A little light music...

2006-06-23T22:31:00.000Z

Currently working on some Phoenix stuff - a light relief after a horrendous couple of weeks which ought to see the light of day. While doing that, I'm currently firing my CD collection into iTunes and turned up a few belting tracks I hadn't heard for a while.

The MP3 collection for myself and my better half currently stands at 22Gb, 4,000 tracks. And I haven't even got halfway through my CDs yet. And then we are onto the tapes. So you could say music is important to us.

Most of it is not suitable for use at a Phoenix game. Much as I adore Ministrys N.W.O, I don't really think that its aural assault, somewhat akin to having your skull repeated jackhammered, is suitable for a family sport. It is, however, perfect for blasting down a motorway, car windows down, at 70mph. Ish.

I really do think that Wigwam (click Media | Video | Watch the Video) is a perfect song to have in the run up to the start of a game. Lights down, swirling, that sort of thing. Of course, the fact that the singer is Alison Clarkson - also known as Betty Boo - has a certain frisson for blokes of a particular age. Ahem.

Junior Trials, Day One

2006-06-18T12:49:00.000Z

Yesterday was the first day of Junior Trials for the new development system at Phoenix, with the event being held at the Deeside rink in North Wales. I was in attendance in two capacities - as a writer for the website, putting together an overview of the day, and as a prospective coach for the system. As a result I got chance to have a chat with most of the other coaching candidates, as well as with Tony Hand and Matty Compton, the Phoenix head coach and netminder respectively.

You can read my official report by clicking on the link in the title of this posting, but my unofficial report is here!

The day went pretty well, the kids themselves were already well skilled at all of the ages groups, there didn't seem to be any out and out beginners there, which is a pity because it looks like if I'm accepted as a coach, I'll be assigned to the beginners and the youngest age groups. There were quite a few kids making the transition from roller hockey into ice hockey (you can spot them a mile off from their skating and stopping style) but they seemed to cope well, and personally I'd like to see all the players who took part being able to find a spot somewhere in the Development System.

As ever at these events, I got chance to have a chat with Neil Morris, the Phoenix MD, and he's really looking forward to seeing this all come to fruition. Neil's a great bloke, he's got a lot resting on his shoulders but he doesn't like to show it publicly. I think everyone knows that he's got a lot invested in Phoenix, both personally and professionally, and his desire to make it work is something that makes other people feel the same way too - we all want to see Phoenix as a success, we all want the Junior System to flourish, and in part that's down to how Neil is. Without wishing to sound like a sheep, he's one of the few people that I'd follow anywhere, just because he believes in what he's doing to such a level. Commitment of his kind is pretty rare.

The event also gave me my first chance to have a proper chat with Tony Hand. A lot of us met him fleetingly at the Meet The Coach event a while back, and he seemed a nice enough guy. Yesterday I had the chance to have this confirmed. Tony came down from Edinburgh on his day off to see the event and to meet the coaches, which is something he didn't have to do, but chose to. I don't think anyone can doubt his commitment to this team. Tony takes his hockey seriously, he wants to win, but he's also got a fun side, he's a good laugh and easy to like. He's got strong opinions on where he sees the club and the development systems going, he knows what he wants and he's keen to convey it, but he's also keen to see what others have to say, and to take on board their opinions as well. Having met him and talked with him, I'm sure that Tony's appointment will be one of the best things that this club has done so far.

I also got to meet Matty Compton, the new back-up netminder for Phoenix. He's a Brit who came up through the Deeside system, so he knows all about junior trials and how valuable they are, but what struck me the most about him was his sincerity and his desire to see the club do well. We chatted about how I work in the PR area of the club, and I'm involved in the match night presentation side of things as well, and he's said that if there's anything I can think of for him to do to help promote the club or to keep the crowds entertained, to call on him and get him involved. Top bloke!

23 hours, 58 minutes, 42 seconds...

2006-05-29T17:21:00.000Z

... spent in the air*. 11,344 miles. 7 flights. 6 different airports. 3 timezones. 6 different States. 250lbs of baggage. 6 Shuttle Buses. 10 train journeys. One wedding. Four nasty head colds. Approximately 47 Hummers flipped off. 2.1Gb of photos taken. 7 hours sleep in the last 36.

Yep. When Caroline and I go on holiday, we go on holiday hard.

_{*Runway to runway, not including gate taxiing. Don't ask why I kept this, just seemed interesting...}

Four for Four on Brits

2006-05-18T10:27:00.000Z

So far Manchester Phoenix has four players on the roster for the forthcoming season, and all four are Brits. Joe Miller, Adam Walker, Matty Compton and Tony Hand himself. For all those who were doubting the Elite League's commitment to developing British talent, you can't really question that Phoenix are heading in the right direction!

Elite vs EPL - let's look at the numbers

2006-05-04T19:42:00.000Z

There's a debate raging over on the Phoenix forum, and to a certain degree on THF about whether Phoenix would be better off building up from an EPL team or an EIHL team.

Rather than adding to the fuel there, I'd like to point out some of the figures over here. They're not perfect by any stretch, but should certainly indicate why the club needs an Elite team.

Elite team

Let's be conservative and say 2000 per game, paying an average of £10 a head. They'll maybe spend an extra £3 a head on a bite to eat, and a drink after the game. That's £26,000 per game income. For a 25 game season that's £650,000.

On top of that you've got some merchandise sales - let's say it averages out at a shirt per fan, that's going to be £50 - another £100,000 over the season.

So you have a total income of £750,000.

OK, you've got a wage bill of around £210,000. You've got to buy 2000 shirts to sell to the fans, that's going to cost you £80,000.

EPL Team

We're talking about 300 people coming through the door paying £5. You ain't going to get the old arena Phoenix fans coming because they want to watch top-level hockey. The fans are hard-core though, so they'll all spend an extra £5 per head on food, drink and 50-50 tickets at the rink. So that's £3000 per night.

So again, over a 25 game season that makes a total of £75,000 over the season. Add on the merchandise. The fans are extra loyal so spend more on merchandise - £60 worth each over the season. That's an extra £18,000 over the season.

Total income £93,000

So costs, well the players are all so pleased to be playing at EPL - they'll play for free. You've still got to buy your merchandise that's £14,000.

So?

Ah you're saying you've not included all the costs. No I haven't. But both teams would have to travel to away games, both teams need to insure players. Both teams need equipment. The club still needs to run an office. Say you can do all the other costs for £50K for the EPL team, and just because Elite is more expensive it's going to cost twice as much - £100K.

Where does that leave us?

Well in the Elite League kitty I've still got £360,000 - in the EPL kitty I've got £29,000. So you're about to spend a seven figure sum on an ice rink, and you can put a hockey team in it. Which would you choose?

Hell based on the figures above you could bankroll the EPL team, based on the money the Elite team generates. Of course if you're working to a tight deadline to get the Elite team up and running - would you want the hassle of getting the EPL team running too? Or would you wait until the following season?

The Big Cheese, Numero Uno Honcho...

2006-04-21T14:22:00.000Z

It was the official Meet the Coach and shirt unveiling last night at the Sports Cafe. And if you ever wanted proof about how badly people want the Phoenix back, then it was all there.

I figured that we would be doing well to get 100 people in. So when over 250 crammed into the Team Room to meet Tony Hand, it was a demonstration of the passion that still exists for the team. The fans are desperate to see the Phoenix back - and I use the word "desperate" in its most positive sense. If support counted for points in the Elite League, they might as well give us the trophy now.

A mixed reaction on the Forum to the appointment of Tony Hand as Head Coach - which is undeserved. I couldn't quite articulate the thought properly, but I think it felt like an anti-climax. Nothing to do with Tony per se, just that if it had been Mike Sirant or Ken Babey, then there would have been universal applause for someone who was - in effect - completely unknown. Because TH is such a known quantity, it perhaps engendered a feeling of "is that it?". I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

He could have been forgiven for reading the forum and wondering what the hell he had let himself in for, and a small part of me was genuinely worried about the Q&A. In the end, the questions were overwhelmingly positive.

It is significant that a number of questions were about the Big Picture. The rink, the juniors, making sure the Brits got ice time etc. I've been to club Q&As and they can sometimes descend into specifics about tactics or players. Its kind of unusual, yet hugely gratifying to see so many to see fans thinking this way. The fans have bought into the philosophy, it is not about trophies now, it is about getting the fundamentals right. Players will come and go - but the organisation must stay.

So, I'm an Attention Whore. Sue me.

It was then down to myself and Mags to wear the new shirts. Basically Neil said beforehand as I was in the vicinity - "I need a volunteer to wear the shirts - well done Mike." Wha? Huh? It must be said that as a model with a painfully thin figure, the long hair and the lack of breasts, I'm just a raging cocaine habit away from being Kate Moss.

I like the new shirt design, although it isn't finalised. Seemed sturdy enough material, even if it is made by Rhino. The pre-order queue seemed to be quite long, even at 20 quid a pop. Only thing was I couldn't see that much difference between the Home and Away designs - I rather suspect them to be a variation on the Home theme, with the away shirt being a lot more distinctive. A very subtle thing is the name printed at the top left, under the collar. Very small, but one of those little touches that as a fan makes me say "Do that for my shirt, and I'll give you a big cheque right now."

Neil even managed to get it off me at the end of the evening with only a small amount of blood spilt. I considered throwing a screaming hissy fit, but you know, there's a time and a place.

Of Forums and things

2006-04-11T19:56:00.000Z

OK, I'm going to write a little bit stream of consciousness, so maybe my point will disappear off into the ether.

It has been an interesting time on the Phoenix Forum, what with the resurgence of the old Aces/Phoenix debate. And I've been very carefully having my Phoenix hat on, because I knew that I couldn't really say what I wanted to say.

It is an odd situation to be in - anyone who knows me knows I am hardly in the habit of self-censoring - but in the end, the thing I wanted someone else to say got said. My point was proven, although I am not convinced the people involved realise it.

It is a hard job moderating something like the Phoenix Forum, and a job that will only get harder when the team come back. Basically you always have to tread a line between allowing fans to say what they think and the bigger picture that the forum - being official - reflects the club, to potential customers, to potential players and to sponsors. There was a lot of resistance to an official Forum, and I understood it completely - especially I was likely to be one of those spouting off on a regular basis.

One of the real downsides to being a moderator is that you don't have the wiggle room in a debate - someone can throw unwarranted abuse at you, yet you can't throw it back. You also have to hang fire on locking/deleting a thread for fear of accusation of abusing your moderating powers. (Ironically this leads to threads going further than they should, because you over-compensate.)

On the other hand, you will generally win through cold hard facts, rather than any particularly florid writing. Take me on face to face (and in the right mood) and I'll have you believing black is white as a way of avoiding admitting I'm wrong. On the Phoenix Forum, no chance of getting away with that. But using The Facts is powerful enough to win the debate.

But how do you win a debate? Lets make one thing clear - two people arguing online are never going to agree. It is - what is the phrase - barrack room lawyering(?) - at best. All you can hope for is to win over the lurkers and the readers - you debate in public, and your arguments must stand the test of public opinion. And if you can use Facts and lob in a well timed bit of abuse, all the better. (I'll never forget the only major argument I've had on the Phoenix Forum, where the person in the wrong told me he knew all about something because he'd seen it for twenty-odd games, whereas I didn't know what I was talking about... because I'd only seen it for twenty-odd games - that one was very, very funny.)

So why this post? Dunno, just had to vent. I also moderate another Forum, and I'm just generally tired of the abuse. Or more rather, just tired of not really being able to answer back. Moderators don't have more power than regular users. We actually have less. We have to keep our powder dry. We can't say what we really think. We have to leap into a heated debate at the right time, which is impossible - we are either too late or too early.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you really aren't allowed to tell people what you think. Anyone who knows me will tell you exactly how difficult that is for me to abide by.

The Rumour Mill

2006-04-10T21:21:00.000Z

Bit like a pepper mill, but a lot... roomier.

Anyway, isn't it nice to read rumours about coaches and players coming to the Phoenix?

Not that I could possibly comment on anything, naturally. But hey, its nice to read them.

And it gets even better...

2006-03-28T19:38:00.000Z

Neil Morris will be taking part in the ground-breaking ceremony at the new site tomorrow, so finally we get the photo of him in a hard-hat with a shovel that I've been pestering him for since last year!

What we've been waiting for....

2006-03-26T23:41:00.000Z

I've just uploaded a Phoenix press release onto the official site that will hopefully set a lot of minds at rest and show that the Phoenix will be back next season...

"The Phoenix is about to arise..."

2006-03-24T19:39:00.000Z

That's the cryptic message that Carl, Mike and myself received from our Beloved Leader, Neil Morris, this evening. We've been given the instruction to stand by our beds (not literally) and await the soon-to-be-arriving instructions as to the next phase of Operation Bring Hockey Back (my title - catchy ain't it?).

This is it, hockey folks. Something's coming, and it's going to be big...

What does "Portfolio Accepted" mean?

2006-03-23T20:35:00.000Z

Well it means that, barring final moderation and checking, I'm now officially accredited as an online tutor.

I've been taking the LeTTOL course for the past six months or so. Which has been, quite frankly, terrifying. After all, since leaving school at 16 I haven't actually taken a proper course or qualification. The odd training day, yeah, but not a proper hands-on, head-down and work type course. (Computer wise, I'm entirely self-taught.)

So if you want me to create and deliver teaching online, I'm your man!

Standing up for what I believe in

2006-03-21T22:41:00.000Z

Or how I spent my Monday evening

Tell me now, dammit!

2006-03-10T23:08:00.000Z

It's not something that surfaces often, but when it does it's usually something special. I'm referring to the wonderful moment when someone posts a piece of total hearsay on the Phoenix forum and then asks 'is this true or rumour?'

That little caveat on the end comes in many shapes and forms - 'is this reliable?', 'can someone from the club confirm this?', 'why has there been no comment on this?' etc - but the underlying tactic is always the same. Make a statement, and then challenge someone to confirm or deny it.

So I think I'd like to follow the trend myself:
"Presenting a statement, no matter how inaccurate, speculative or just plain rhubarb, and then following it with a call for someone to confirm or deny is a total waste of time and a real pain in the arse to those who spend a great amount of time trying to keep the public as informed a possible. Truth or rumour?"

Self-restraint

2006-02-27T22:30:00.000Z

There is a topic on the Phoenix Forum called Who would we like to see playing for the phoenix next season.

Its taken all the self-control I have got not to respond with "Tufty the Squirrel.

Um. I've been drinking.

It's all Geek to me..... (part 17)

2006-02-16T23:33:00.000Z

Tonight we had a meeting at Phoenix Towers for a discussion of options for a revamp of the official Phoenix website. Well, I say discussion, but it was actually more a case of Carl and Mike communicating with each other in what can only be described as Geekspeak, and me sitting there smiling, nodding and playing music in my head.

They use strange compuwords that hurt my brain. Me no unstand strange compuwords. Me brain small. Small brain hurt!

Dave Purdy

2006-02-13T19:04:00.000Z

If I should die before I wake
and find myself at Heaven's gate:
If He should say, "Account your time"
These are the things that come to mind

The Jam, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who,
Gilligan's Island, Scooby Doo.
Getting drunk on cheap tequila,
schoolboy thoughts of Christine Keeler.
Finishing off the working day
with a spliff and a glass of Chardonnay.
Long live love by Sandie Shaw.
Kitson at the Comedy Store
The Drones, The Damned, The Clash, The Fall,
The Kids from Fame and The Kids In The Hall.
Biffo The Bear on the front of the Beano,
Saturday nights at Wigan Casino.
Arthur Hailey, Stephen King,
the first time I heard Dylan sing.
Joy Division, Martin Hannet
Another girl, another planet
Hot pants, mini-skirts,
tank tops and Budgie shirts.
Chopin, Bach and Edvard Grieg
The Sound of the Crowd by The Human League.
The 80's films of Nick Nolte,
Basil Brush and Basil Fawlty,
Matt and Phred's - for it's ambience
Didn't you serve me in a restaurant once?
Neil Young and Franny Lee,
Colin Bell and Summerbee.
I say a little prayer sung by Aretha,
wet afternoons with a big fat reefer.
Johnny Cash - I walk the line
My Bloody Valentine
'A taste of honey', 'Love on the dole'.
'The Usual Suspects', Northern Soul.
Super Mario, 'Medal of Honour'.
early singles by Madonna,
Oliver Reed, Mohammed Ali,
The Buzzcocks and the Bolshoi Ballet.
Eating pies on the Kippax Stand,
a long-haired girl with an Alice band,
Hannah Mandlikova, Angel cake,
We came on holiday by mistake!
The Marx Brothers, Private Eye,
Curtis Mayfield, Superfly!
Billy Bragg and Paul Weller,
Newcy Browns and cans of Stella,
UB40's Greatest Hits,
the theme tune to 'Banana Splits'
The first caress, the final B.J.
Morrissey singing, Hang the DJ!

And if His eyes should look away
and I fall short on Judgement Day?
Well, all things start and all things close.
He gave me a life -
and this I chose.

- Dave Purdy, an artist, an inspiration and a good friend. RIP.

Define pain

2006-02-02T22:16:00.000Z

Well, it can be defined in a million ways.

However, the most appropriate at the moment is this...

Look at the Official Phoenix site. Click on Fixtures, then Schedule. Then archive. See all those little entries marked "Stats"? Which give you a breakdown of the game even down to the underwear of each player?

Well that all came form a single database, compiled by me. Output using a whole bunch of code written by me.

And can I find the fecking thing on any of my 20+ CDs worth of backups?

A strange thing

2006-01-18T22:24:00.000Z

Been kind of wondering, in that wacky way that I occasionally do.

Sven Goran-Eriksson got well and truly stitched up by the News of the World, which posted such revalations as Rio Ferdinand was lazy, Wayne Rooney had a tough upbringing, etc, etc. Now the front and back pages are full of minor tittle-tattle about players who are on the move in the transfer window, agents touting their wares. Basically a whole lot of heat, but not a lot of light, because after all "Something may happen" is not much of a story.

So, along comes Mike Newall. Manager of Luton, he came out and publicly said that he had been offered bribes to sell his players. He was willing to back it up. In public. Bribery and corruption in football is a heck of a story.

Odd then, that the papers haven't been focusing on that.

You'd almost think they were complicit in the whole thing.

Doesn't it make you proud to be English?

2006-01-16T11:11:00.000Z

That when the national football team has a more than decent chance of winning the World Cup for the first time in a generation, all the newspapers can do is undermine the team manager by entrapment? I mean, its not enough that no story exists (aprt from SHOCK HORROR! Rio Ferdinand is "lazy". STOP THE PRESS!) but the News of the World has to go out and invent one.

Don't forget that those same newspapers that will be screaming their patriotism from the rooftops in six months or so.

Sigh.

Happy New Year

2006-01-05T23:47:00.000Z

I make no apologies for the swear, but click on the posting title. Because we've got a home of our own to look forward to, and for making it happen, Neil Morris and his team deserve a fucking medal.

Onward and upward

2005-12-30T16:40:00.000Z

We inch ever closer to having a place called home, with even an advert for a new Head Coach on the website. And all even when the ground isn't quite broken on Manchester Square Gardens - I'm awaiting that moment like waiting for a phone call for something important, like a new job. Except that normally you don't have to wait 10 weeks for that. And have to worry that it will all fall apart because you discover a rare species of toad.

That analogy didn't work, did it? Oh, well.

Speaking of Head Coach, it should be a nice indicator of the type of hockey we are looking at. I'm not convinced it will be Paul Heavey - not that I'd mind - just not sure. All I ask is that:

a) The Coach is aware of the history of the Phoenix and buys into the philosophy behind the club. These are fans who have fought tooth and nail to resurrect hockey, who have travelled around the country to support the sport in the absence of the team. Neil Morris has moved any number of mountains to start the club, and then get MSG built. So priority #1 is to see that passion and commitment on the ice. We don't demand trophies, we demand 100% effort every single game. Give us a team that cares as much as the people in the stands do, and they will be made minor dieties.

b) Its not Daryl Lipsey.

Anyway, 2005 was personally full of wonderful moments. Shallow End, gigging at the Comedy Store, meeting the cast of Serenity at the World Premiere, rediscovering lots of wonderful music and comedy from my formative years, saying goodbye to people like Hovis Presley.

Here's to a Phoenix filled 2006.

'Tis the Season....

2005-12-23T13:31:00.000Z

Well, we're coming towards the end of another year, so I'd just like to wish all of our readers Merry Christmas. Even if you're not of the Christian faith, you can still enjoy the telly!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Rev

Reactivation

2005-12-09T22:18:00.000Z

It's no secret that it's been a tad on the quiet side in terms of Phoenix lately, but the fact that I've been called by Neil Morris this week and returned to active duty means that the wheels are turning once again for those of us who work in the press, PR and Fan Liaison realms.

Start gearing yourselves up, ladies and gentlemen, I feel a Phoenix arising....

Random thoughts

2005-11-27T17:50:00.000Z

Its hard not to get stupidly excited by the fact that it looks 90% certain that the Phoenix will be back next season. Like many, I won't truly, truly believe it until the team skate onto the ice for the first warmup at Manchester Square Gardens, but its almost here. Well, when the ground is broken, then I'll inch it up to 95% certain.

I've already had about 350 ideas for stuff we can do on and off the ice for next year. Admittedly the number of rubbish/impossible/silly suggestions is about three hundred... and forty nine... and a half. But at least the creative juices are flowing.

Got really, really pissed off at some on The Hockey Forum this week. The Racers have left the EIHL and a few Fife and Dundee fans saw fit to join the queue to piss on a still warm corpse. I haven't seen something so utterly classless in hockey for quite some time, especially from fans of teams that almost went the same way a few short months earlier. But then Fife were apparently as popular as syphilis in the old BNL setup and teams couldn't wait to leave, so hey, maybe that could be a reason? Surely not, that would be too simple...

But for some people, its not about the peace, it is about the war. From petty grudges all the way up to terrorism and war, some people don't want a solution, they just want to keep the same fights going on endlessly. We're still discussing the ISL/BNL split despite the fact that it was almost a decade ago. Oh and both leagues are deader than tank tops.

The Racers had their faults, but desire and commitment to make it work wasn't one of them. You can't even turn round and say that they did much wrong, from a marketing and openness point of view they led the way. To seem them floored by something that was out of their control is so disappointing.

It also reinforces the need for the Phoenix to have their own barn. Then they control everything, from ice and practice time, down to ticketing and customer service. Its hard, hard work but the "customer" problems become the Phoenix problems, instead of something to bring up at a meeting with the landlord. Double edged sword, obviously, but I find it significant that during the "best" times of hockey in the last 15 years, most teams were very closely tied to the rink ownership.

Anyway, maybe, just maybe the final go-ahead will be announced soon and we can look forward to 2006.

(Oh and if anyone is reading this, put a big screen down one end. We can do so much with it!)

Vindication

2005-11-11T18:21:00.000Z

From the Phoenix site

Soon we'll be able to blog about hockey again.

As it is, I'm getting the beers in for a nice evening in.

I just hope, pray and will keep doing whatever it takes to make sure that the nay-sayers, the detractors and the just plain small-minded whingers that the Phoenix have had to put up with are proved wrong.

Looking back

2005-10-30T15:01:00.000Z

And so, the Big Day arrived. Well, the buildup to the Big Day involved me and Caroline meeting Richard at the Little Chef just off the M6 to pick up a DVD chock full of video clips. At 9.30 on a Saturday night. That didn't look dodgy at all. Thankfully, the DVD worked perfectly, so despite the best part of six months planning, I'm still up past midnight before the show putting the finishing details to the script...

We got to the Green Room about 2.30pm and met up with Geoff. The techie, Jay, was given a quick run through of the DVD and CDs for audio cues and to be honest it was a great moment to see the Shallow End logo projected onto the big screen - a real "well, here we go" kind of moment. Lots of hard work, and it looked fantastic.

Five o'clock and - I'll be honest - possibly the worst rehearsal in history. I was bouncing off the walls with nerves, struggling to concentrate, the script was simply a bunch of unconnected words that would fly out of my head rather than stick in my brain. Things went so badly, I almost tripped over saying my own name. Geoff was positive, but I was a mess and angry at myself with it.

Ackey and Carl arrived at about 7pm as our designated ushers/crowd control fore the evening. Carl had brought a book to read. In the list of "encouraging and supportive things to bring", that was probably near the bottom of the list. Thankfully the nerves subsided somewhat, replaced by ample quantities of adrenaline. I did a handstand. Badly. Seemed like the thing to do.

One of the biggest worries was the financial risk - the Green Room isn't a cheap facility, but the one most suitable for us. We needed a good crowd to even stand a hope of breaking even. 8pm and word gets back that "there a fair few people out there". "Do we know them?" "No."

Hmm... positive.

Geoff and I head backstage... its time.

I go to the loo several times, Geoff even more. I'm dancing to the backing music, then a brief clip from Firefly introduces the opening video and we're off... Geoff banters and comperes then we start the actual script. My first bit gets a lovely big laugh and then Geoff forgets we're he's going.

"Whats the next bit?"
"Its Doctor Who, mate."
"Thats a good sign. Five minutes in and we've lost the script."
"Hey! Whats this 'we' business?"

Adlibbed, a big laugh, applause. Geoff is the first to forget something, which puts me at incredible ease. But more importantly, we've made a mistake and we've covered it. Looking at the DVD, you can almost see us relax. We do the "Ticketbastard" sketch which went really well, and I manage not to cock up the closing few lines. Again, the DVD reveals immense concentration that the audience can't really see (its all in the eyes) and you can practically see me loosen as it all goes OK.

Off into the darker places and the jokes and ideas begin to flow. Incredibly after what feels like five minutes, but is in reality half an hour, its time for Geoffs song. I nip backstage, convinced we've missed something out. I look at the script for a moment, but realise I know exactly where I'm going.

"Lads mags" - with an opening paragraph that never stuck in my head (again the body language is very revealing) but I got through it OK. And more laughs, more gags, more jokes. Cosmetics. Deleted Scenes (heavily rewritten and repaced from the preview, with a couple of proven gags inserted). We're building up to the Quiz.

The idea was we'd give money for best wild guesses at trivia (how much does this aircraft carrier weigh, what is Jade Goody worth, that sort of thing.) The kicker was for a crisp £50 note, we would get them to dance - best dancer according to an audience vote wins. We played "The Birdie Song" and one of the audience members we pulled out was a nightclub dancer, so she started gyrating against the mic stand much to the delight of, well, everyone.

It was a stormer. Or at least it felt like one. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing, there was a stage, a screen, Geoff, a mic, and the audience were out in the inky darkness, laughing when they needed to laugh, watching when they needed to watch.

There are bits that need improving. The oddest thing was walking off after a stonkingly great gig and thinking "we can do better, if we fix this, and sort that bit and then..." The whole thing worked, and hung together superbly. I don't think I've walked off a stage as "artistically" happy as that for a long time. Saying things I wanted to say, in a way I wanted to say them. Stretching myself a bit, playing with ideas. The curtains pulled back to reveal a whole new territory out there, waiting to be explored.

Best news of the night (apart from it being a stormer) was that we broke even at the box office, the Green Room is the smallest venue with the equipment to do what we wanted, and at 164 capacity, plus support staff it wasn't cheap. So to come out ahead, on a Sunday night, for two virtual unknown comics in a non-comedy environment against 9 other shows on the same day - thats as good as we could hope for.

The bar was a blur. I remember talking to everybody, and feeling guilty for not giving them the time they deserved for coming to support. Neil Morris made it, which was fantastic. Rev and Tracey (Caroline spotted more than a few gasps of shock and then giggling from the latter, Rev himself knew the DVD inside out but large parts of it out of context), good to see friends there to show much needed and appreciated support.

I'll update the Shallow End gallery in a bit, but the main feeling is that it may well pop up again somewhere else, soon... ;-)

Pictures

2005-10-17T22:51:00.000Z

More Shallow End pictures, including from the preview

Trial run

2005-10-14T20:52:00.000Z

Well, it has been a hectic week, in about a million ways. The most important thing was Monday night, where we had the first, and probably only, preview of Shallow End. It was at the Limelight in Crewe, a really nice venue, although the crowds outside weren't for us, but for Blues guitarist, Walter Trout. (He's good, really good, but a little too fond of 10 minute solos that go nowhere.)

Anyway, we had the DVD intro that Richard had been working on, finally arriving on the Saturday. I spent the weekend creating Flash animations, to be transferred to DVD. However, a panic on the Sunday night as I the software I had to create DVDs no longer worked. A swift download of er, some other software from somewhere else, and I left it converting while I headed off to work.

Home, and straight onto the PC. DVD full of animations burned. Excellent. Now all we needed was a player. Geoff provided a laptop, but we didn't have the right leads to plug into the Limelights mixing desk. I headed into the loft, and pulled out our old DVD player. Then a headlong dive into the Big Box of Random Cables (every geek has one) for a couple of leads. I find two of the three, and say stuff it, we run with video and mono. Put the animation DVD in and press play.

Which shows a still. I press Next for the next animation. Another still. I panic.

Turns out that the conversion software had taken 15 minute Quicktime movies and created 15 minute DVD movies. Trouble was, for some reason it was 15 minutes of the first frame. Considering the DVD is a large part of the show, we were faced with a problem.

No matter, have to head for the Limelight. By necessity, the show was going to be about a quarter adlibbed, with bits of it read off a clipboard which carried the entire script. More problems, as the projector wasn't working so even Richards snazzy intro wouldn't work. However, we rigged up the telly they use for Karaoke to play that bit.

Some excellent compering from Chris Brooker to warm the small crowd up and then, eyes on the telly. To be honest, a couple of laughs during the intro bit where we weren't expecting them to be and plenty when there were. Oh, and a nice bit of Phoenix as well. And then onto the script.

Call it nerves or settling the crowd, but Geoff did most of the talking for the intro. I managed to interject a bit (Geoff was bantering with a very pretty PE teacher and said "So you've got 14 year old boys masturbating and thinking of you" to which I replied "Christ, sod the 14 year olds, I'm thinking about it.") and then into the opening sketch.

And so on and so forth. We had to replace the DVD bits with what was basically me reading out what would be on screen. We did the quiz where we will be giving out real money on the night, replacing the cash with soft drinks and alcohol.

So what did we learn? Well, the structure of the show is sound. It starts off light and fluffy, heads somewhere deeper and cleverer before pulling back into fluffiness, which is exactly what we wanted. The show makes several points about the world we live in, but Geoff and I were determined that such points weren't to be hammered home like some comics - if you understand, thats cool. If you miss it, fair enough, there is plenty of nice, silly stuff.

A couple of bits didn't work, and thats fine too. In fact, they've already been replaced.

And finally Geoff and I were described on stage as "a marriage". First time either of us had even tried to share the spotlight, yet it instinctively felt right. We've been encouraged to write material together before, but there is a difference between writing as a pair and performing as a pair, especially when standup is such an individual art. But we took the mickey out of each other mercilessly and the adlibbed banter was a lot of fun. Geoff tried to go through the show minus a script, and I had the clipboard and there was a bit when he had a go at me for it. Then about three quarters of the way through, he realised he didn't know what the next bit was:

"Er... um, bollocks, let me see the clipboard."
"Ha! Not so smug now, Mr Memory Man!"

Anyway, we now know that Shallow End works. It really works, as well as we could hope. The only thing to do now is keep marketing and trying to sell as many of the 164 seats as we can. I'm sticking flyers and posters up tomorrow in Manchester, we've got a couple of radio ads, an interview on Key 103 and maybe even a ticket giveaway on Imagine FM. Oh, and hopefully a couple of bits in the MEN.

Shallow End is like the Phoenix. If we can get the bums on seats, we know we've got a good product to entertain them.

Water wings

2005-09-26T20:35:00.000Z

Well, with a lack of hockey on the horizon at the moment, I've been hunkering down to all things Shallow End.

Richard has kindly offered to help out and I've taken advantage of his video editing skills to put together an intro. Its been kind of a weird process - not least because I've had to try and get the pictures in my head down onto email, for someone else to try and understand. Normally when I write comedy, it is words that come to mind, but the idea I had was very visual. I struggled to get the concept down into words.

Or so I thought - as Richard emailed something back in a day or so that not only was in the style I was looking for, but knocked it into a cocked hat. It was so damned quick. I can't draw a realistic sugar lump, but to see stuyff bouncing around the screen, music blaring, in a few hours - blimey. I know people sometimes look at me with surprise when I make a piece of code sing, so bit weird to be on the receiving end for once.

I've got to say that writing the show has reinvigorated me. And terrified me to equal measure - I totally understand where Neil Morris is coming from when he talks about bums on seats. Quite frankly, we need a sellout to make anything like a small profit. 164 seats. Doesn't sound much, but I'm working my nuts off.

But at the end of the day, it isn't about money, it is - to use a horrible phrase - about Art. Saying some stuff I've always wanted to say. Which is very cool.

No matter how much you plan stuff, it always comes down to the last minute. Geoff and I are constantly revising the script and trying to grab practise time - first preview is a fortnight away, and then the next chance we get is to do it for real. And I have one sketch memorised, out of 12. And its the shortest one.

That's showbusiness!