Blogs from the Broadcast Booth

Blogs from the Broadcast Booth

In the spring of 2002, I volunteered to do four games as the play-by-play broadcaster with Rogers Television. It had been 20 years since I’d done any hockey broadcasting but it was the beginning of eight exciting years of my life closely tied to the Moncton Wildcats.

Now into the 2010 playoffs, with a strong team expected to battle for their second Presidents Cup, my time as the voice of the Wildcats is drawing to a close. I’ve decided to “hang up the pipes” when this season ends and return to my home town of Grand Bank in Newfoundland to retire, whatever that means.

General Manager Bill Schurman has suggested I do a retrospective look at the eight amazing season I’ve called games for the Cats and if memories were seats at the Coliseum, I have enough to fill the building. So let me take you with me and share some of the highlight moments of what can only be called an amazing hockey experience.

It’s strange the things that stand out in your mind but I vividly recall getting on the bus at the Cape Bretoner Motel in Sydney on September 13, 2002, heading for Centre 200 and the beginning of a new Q season. To say I was nervous would be an understatement; I only had the Wildcats lineup and wouldn’t get the names of the Screaming Eagles team until we got to the arena. It’s hard to call a game without knowing both teams. A brash young defenseman from Charlottetown, PEI was getting on the bus ahead of me; he turned back and asked, “Do you know who I am?” “Yes,” I quickly a answered, “you’re Murnaghan, number 6.” He laughed and said, “Right Mr. Broadcaster, you might be alright.” The nervous tension was broken.
That first season was stressful; there was so much to learn but after a few shaky starts, the flow that comes with doing play-by-play started to return. I started to get to know the Wildcats players on a personal basis and came to appreciate their dedication and commitment to the hope of playing in the National Hockey League. Two guys from that first game, Steve Bernier and Corey Crawford have seen that dream come true. Others like number 21 have moved on to other careers. He is now Constable Kevin Glode with the RCMP working in the Petitcodiac office.

My guide during that first year was Neil Hodge, the reporter who has covered the Wildcats through their 14 year history. Hodge would show me the press box in the arenas around the Q and would marvel at my sense of shock at the locations from which I’ve broadcast games. Neil and I have become good friends over the years, we’ve had disagreements about our roles with the team but there’s not a reporter in hockey who works harder than Hodgie in getting the story done.

Baie-Comeau stands out in my mind as one of these strange arenas, the press box is just six feet above the bleachers and once the game started, if the fans in front of me stood up, I couldn’t see the play. Baie-Comeau is also the site of the strangest broadcast I’ve ever done. By 2004-2005, we had graduated to doing the games on the internet. It was a matter of plugging your laptop computer into a telephone line, logging on to the website and doing the games after I would check with my wife in Moncton to make sure the sound was coming through. I’d run music off a cassette player to test the line. On one particular night, I could not log on to the website, I made a dozen different approaches to reach the internet but none of them worked. In desperation I called the Aliant rep in Saint John who connected me via telephone to his computer and I did the game with a phone stuck in my ear for the better part of three hours.

Then there was the game at the Bell Centre in 2003 when the Cats played the then Montreal Rocket. The night before, the entire Wildcats team had attended the game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Buffalo Sabres and the building was sold out, over 20 thousand people. The next afternoon the Wildcats and Rocket skated on the same ice except there were perhaps 700 people in the building which felt like a tomb from ancient Egypt.

Another advance in our broadcasting came during the 2004 playoffs. Corey Crawford stood on his head and led the team to a six game victory over the PEI Rocket in the quarter finals. My friend Stephane Paquette the reporter for Acadie-Nouvelle was sitting next to me in the press box at the Civic Centre in Charlottetown. I played an interview after doing the period summary, Stephane said, “It’s a shame you’re not bilingual, a lot of the players parents in Quebec would like to hear the summary in their language.” I agreed and threw the ball back in Paquette’s court, “why don’t you do it,” I asked. “Sure thing,” was his immediate response and so whenever possible we did summaries in both official languages. The addition of Frank Robidoux as a color commentator at home games insured this feature since Frank is bilingual.

One of the joys of my job with the Wildcats has been meeting hundreds of parents of the young men who have worn the Cat logo on their jersey. Here’s a funny story to wrap up the first of these memory blogs. In 2005, the Wildcats were playing Drummondville in the first round of the playoffs. We had finished the first road game and I had come down to chat with some of the Moncton fans who had made the trip up to Quebec. Off to my left were two ladies pointing at me and then talking with each other. I had no idea what was going on until one of the ladies hesitantly walked over to me and asked with a strong French accent, “Are you the man who talks the games on the computer?” I assured her I was indeed the same person. She said, “My English is not very good but I am the mother of Jean Sebastien Adam.” JS was one of the Cats defenseman, “I’m delighted to meet you,” I responded and then she broke me up with her next line. “I like to hear you but sometimes when the game gets exciting, you make my heart stop,” she said with a dead serious look on her face. It was a compliment I’ll cherish.

Next blog in a couple of days with stories of the 2005-2006 season, the beginning of webcasting and the thrill of calling the Cup winning game.