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!
No comments:
Post a Comment