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

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?