We've come to accept video webcasting as part of the media coverage now enjoyed by the Moncton Wildcats and their fans but that wasn't always the case.
When I started doing play-by-play with the Wildcats, we were using the Broadcast News channel on cable TV with audio only. Then we went to the Internet with "audio" and finally in 2005-2006, we provided both audio and video of the Cats home games but road games were still just voice description.
With the playoffs looming in 2006, fan excitement was at a fever pitch and the Wildcats were expected to make it to the finals, so management decided, with encouragement (we begged them) from Brian Fisher and yours truly to do a video webcast on the road. The first place Wildcats were to meet the Victoriaville Tigres in the first round. The opening series had to be played in Victo because of commitments at the Moncton Coliseum.
On March 23, 2006, with computer and camera in the truck with the team's hockey tear, Fish(as he's best known) and Lloyd Kay, our support staff, headed to Quebec to prepare for this new adventure in hockey broadcasting. I travelled with the team. Fish had contacted the local Aliant representative, then got in touch with the Bell people in Quebec to have the proper terminal installed in the arena. The PR director with the Tigres was our contact person but he wasn't quite sure what we really intended to do.
Fish and Lloyd took over part of the press box at the Colisee Desjardins, instructed the Bell tech where to put the connection while I tried to explain to the PR director what exactly we had in mind. Fish got his required IP number from Aliant and we were ready to run a test. We had the folks in the Tigres office log on to the Wildcats website, sure enough, there was the Wildcats logo that Fish had put up. We weren't convinced that was good enough, so we had the Aliant rep in Saint John and the office staff of the Wildcats in Moncton to double check the feed. Everyone gave us a positive response. We were go for launch at 6:45 local time with a pre-game show, then to the action. All afternoon we kept wondering will it work? Greg Turner was to join me to do color commentary and stats, so when we went to air, he called his wife, who was sitting in front of their computer in their home in Moncton to confirm we had pictures and sound and we did.
Some of the other journalists covering the series we upset we were taking so much room in the press box. In fact we were working in an area not more than four feet wide, with a computer under our feet, Fish and his camera just to our right and a pair of Cavendish Farm banners behind us for an intermission backdrop. Lloyd's job as to push a button on the computer when Brian Fisher said so, so a graphic would come up, he could turn the camera around while Greg and I set the game scene. Everything worked! We got through the first period, then Lloyd did his thing with the graphic again, I took off my headset, picked up a hand-held microphone and did an interview with the fathers of Jason Demers and Josh Tordjman, who had switched teams during the Christmas trade period. With two minutes left in the intermission, up went the graphic again and Greg Turner did the period summary while I got the headset back on for the second period. We had a member of the QMJHL staff join us as the second intermission guest.
In short our efforts were a total success, the only problem was the score of the game. The Tigres surprised the Wildcats winning 4-2. The players, the coaches, the owner, the fans and the broadcasters couldn't believe it - what a disappointing start to the playoffs. There was really no need for concern, Moncton took the second game 8-2 in Victoriaville, then came home to win 10-4; 9-4 and 7-2 and take the series 4 games to 1.
What we didn't realize was the interest we had created with webcasting. Fans of the Cats literally around the world were logging on to see and hear the games. You'll recall there were 21 playoff games before the Wildcats claimed the President's Cup for the first time on May 14, 2006 at the crowded Moncton Coliseum.
The numbers watching the games continued to build as the Wildcats continued their historic march to a first ever league championship. By the time the playoffs ended we recorded over 220,000 hits on the website. Aliant had to keep broadening the band in order to accommodate the viewers, from as far away as Japan, Russia, New Zealand, and Cuba just to mention a few.
The greatest disappointment came in game 5 of the final series against Quebec. We knew there would be lots of hits and planned the band to include 25,000 but the game went to overtime and just as we were ready to start the first overtime period, the entire system crashed from overload and no one saw Martins Karsums score the game winning goal 13 seconds into OT, so let me help you relive it. With the face off a centre ice, the puck went back in the Wildcats zone, just inside the blue line, Phil Dupuis picked it up and headed down the left wing, Karsums roared down the right side and just before he crossed the Quebec blueline, Dupuis faked the Rempart defenceman and fed Martins a tape to tape perfect pass. Karsums fired the shot and it rang off the left goal post but came right back to the middle of his blade. There was a split second hesitation as if Martins was saying to himself, "Guess I better put this one away." He fired a shot to the top left hand corner clearly beating Quebec goaltender Cedrick Desjardins. The Cats had gotten redemtion from the gut wrenching loss of the pervious evening and were set to come home with a 3-2 series lead and a home ice victory for the Q championship. Gotta love the memories.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment