Second time around

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.