The Sports Corner

My night in the broadcast booth

Walking up the steps of the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, the last thing I expected on Friday was to step into the broadcast booth to do colour commentary for the Abbotsford Heat.

Sure, I had thought about it once or twice beforehand.

But lets get real here. Heat play-by-play man Dave Sheldon already had the savvy veteran experience of Sportsnet guru Craig MacEwen to help fill the airwaves on Country 107.1 FM and AHL Live.

If someone had asked me at 4:35 p.m. on Friday afternoon if I thought I’d be the colour analyst for Game 5 of the Heat versus Rochester Americans best-of-seven North Division semifinal, I would have laughed.

It’s not enough I’m a so-so sports writer as it is, flawed with a massive ego like everyone else in the print journalism world who claims to have the expertise and understanding of the game of hockey.

But then it happened.

My miraculous rise to super stardom. I won’t bore you with the ending. It didn’t last long, folks!

Sheldon, the voice of the Heat, approached me at around 5:35 p.m. on Friday, just under two hours before puck drop, and asked me to do the pre-game show with him.

“Sure,” I enthusiastically answered.

What the heck, right? This wasn’t my first guest appearance on the radio to offer my insight – or lack of – into the world of the Abbotsford Heat.

In fact, I had done the pre-game show before.

First segment, sure, it was good.

Second segment, we discussed the new flavour of the month as far as playoff penalty calls are concerned – too many men on the ice infractions.

The Washington Capitals had taken one near the end of Game 5 against the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL Eastern Conference quarter-final to salt away what could have been a series clinching game.

Ironically, I blabbed out that it was this call back in 1979 – I was born in 1986 – that got the Montreal Canadiens back into Game 7 against the Boston Bruins with less than two minutes left in regulation.

The Habs won the game in overtime and eventually the Stanley Cup a few weeks later against New York and Bruins coach Don Cherry got canned.

I knew that much.

Think it’s over, right? Wrong. All of the sudden, from out of nowhere, the question comes up: “Want to do a period?”

Again, I said sure.

Heck, I’ll even do two periods, I say, not quite knowing what I’ve truly gotten myself into.

I only did one, and I can admit without hesitation that it was for everyone’s benefit – media personnel, listeners, the Heat.

As the clock started ticking closer and closer to game time, my nerves began to take hold. Suddenly I was met with the realization that thousands of people would be hearing my voice, fit for print more than anything else, offering up analysis.

Sheldon said something to me before we came back on the air for the start of the game, but with the crowd noise, I barely understood a word he said.

It would have helped, but chalk that one up to me.

Finally, the game starts. You can imagine what’s going through my head at this time? There’s no hiding behind a laptop thinking of interesting leads to begin your article with.

You are strapped into the game, counting on its every move and remembering to the finest detail what just happened incase it has some bearing on the game.

Most of the time, it doesn’t, but you have to be ready.

An example of this came when Abbotsford opened the scoring.

A nifty pass from Brett Sutter along the sideboards to a streaking Jon Rheault, who backhand, forehand and then tucked it through the five-hole of Tyler Plante.

This is not totally verbatim to what I said, but pretty darn close to it.

As I summarized the play as best I could for the faithful, a strange feeling started to run through the back of my mind. Was it Sutter that made the pass, or was it David Van der Gulik?

Both are the same height, both look similar they happen to have No. 27 and 37 on their respective jerseys.

But Sutter was on a line with Rheault, Van der Gulik on a line with two other forwards, so it must’ve been right.

In one commercial break, Sheldon told me about how his brother helped him call a junior hockey game a few years ago.

He said his brother was mentally exhausted by the end of the game.

I was mentally drained at the end of the first period. Another period, where you kidding me?

I can only thank the good folks at Country 107.1 FM and Dave Sheldon for not allowing me on the air for period two, no matter what the rationale behind that decision was.

It’s a tough gig, a lot more difficult than most care to imagine.

You have five seconds to channel your thoughts. They must be clear, concise and to the point, and for someone who is still stuck in the hockey lingo of ‘umm’ and ‘ugh’ to go with an utterly monotone, this can be difficult.

But hey, it was a lot of fun anyway.

And it gave me a whole new perspective on a side of the business I thought I knew so much about.