Off Air Comments Caught On Air - HNIC 02.13.16 (Van vs Tor)

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Waaaaay back in the 80s when I was a kid, we had an 'illegal' satellite dish and we watched all sorts of out of market games back then. If you knew which satellite to tune into (a lot of trial and error to find these) you could get the 'raw' feeds that had no commercials. On many of these you could hear the announcers talking the whole time when it went to commercial. It's been too many years for me to remember the names any more, but I remember there were a couple guys in the booth who just hated each other. They would spend the whole commercial break ripping into each other for mistakes they made or whatever. Then it would come back from break and you would think they were best friends!

I remember another broadcast where the cameraman would spend the commercial breaks scanning the crowd for hot women and the guys would 'rate' them and commend or show their disdain for the cameraman's choices. The things they said would definitely get them fired these days.

Most of the time is was just boring technical stuff between the broadcasters and the tech guys. One guy did a series of vocal exercises quite often. Occasionally they would talk about the game, but I remember thinking at the time that it didn't even seem like they cared about what was going on most of the time.

Haha, same here, I would scan the channels on the obscure satellites looking for the raw feeds. On the Anik satellite you could tune in to the CBC feeds early and catch all sorts of things as they recorded all the segments and intros and such. Also when fox started doing the broadcasts it was the same thing. I was a Hartford Whalers fan for a season because all their home broadcasts were on the same channel one year so I watched probably 20 games or so of theirs, and the broadcasters would rate the girls. Of course when Mom and Dad were gone we just kept tuned in to S3 18.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Haha, same here, I would scan the channels on the obscure satellites looking for the raw feeds. On the Anik satellite you could tune in to the CBC feeds early and catch all sorts of things as they recorded all the segments and intros and such. Also when fox started doing the broadcasts it was the same thing. I was a Hartford Whalers fan for a season because all their home broadcasts were on the same channel one year so I watched probably 20 games or so of theirs, and the broadcasters would rate the girls. Of course when Mom and Dad were gone we just kept tuned in to S3 18.

Hmm... I'm betting S3 18 was American XXXtasy? Or whatever that channel was called. Now that's a fond memory from my childhood!

[Badgers Nose]

I respect them more for having opinions.

[Galakanokis]

Anik, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Use to deal with satellites quite a bit when I worked for Superchannel/MovieCentral back in the day. Mostly Anik3 at that time.

[The Coppernian One]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Waaaaay back in the 80s when I was a kid, we had an 'illegal' satellite dish and we watched all sorts of out of market games back then. If you knew which satellite to tune into (a lot of trial and error to find these) you could get the 'raw' feeds that had no commercials. On many of these you could hear the announcers talking the whole time when it went to commercial. It's been too many years for me to remember the names any more, but I remember there were a couple guys in the booth who just hated each other. They would spend the whole commercial break ripping into each other for mistakes they made or whatever. Then it would come back from break and you would think they were best friends!

I remember another broadcast where the cameraman would spend the commercial breaks scanning the crowd for hot women and the guys would 'rate' them and commend or show their disdain for the cameraman's choices. The things they said would definitely get them fired these days.

Most of the time is was just boring technical stuff between the broadcasters and the tech guys. One guy did a series of vocal exercises quite often. Occasionally they would talk about the game, but I remember thinking at the time that it didn't even seem like they cared about what was going on most of the time.

We watched the raw feeds too. This has been going on for decades. I can't remember names either, but I've heard a guy tell the other one he had to take a quick piss. They will also set up the replay packages. It was quite entertaining to watch them realize that they had called a play wrong and then set up the package so that it most resembled the play they called, instead of just say they got it wrong (like on a penalty).

They would talk about their wives, all sorts of stuff. We watched the raw feeds because the chatter was often better than commercials.

[RougeUnderoos]

During the Wings/Isles broadcast right now, they cut back to the studio with some totally weird angle -- like the camera was on the floor -- and the intermission crew was off-air blabbering about a goal they think should be called back. Unfortunately there was nothing funny or controversial. Then they just went back to another commercial after a few seconds

Isn't it sort of a "rule" in that industry that you always act as though your mic is "live"?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

During the Wings/Isles broadcast right now, they cut back to the studio with some totally weird angle -- like the camera was on the floor -- and the intermission crew was off-air blabbering about a goal they think should be called back. Unfortunately there was nothing funny or controversial. Then they just went back to another commercial after a few seconds

Isn't it sort of a "rule" in that industry that you always act as though your mic is "live"?

It is but you are also relying on the producers to makes sure they are off when they are supposed to be off.
Years ago when I first started doing the Roughnecks, I was doing the color and Steinberg the PBP. The games were on the Fan960 but also streamed over the web. So in breaks, our audio was still going out over the streaming even though we were supposed to be on commercial.

We didn't say anything really bad - but I made some comment about how one of the players was a terrible interview after a loss, and we shouldn't get him on. Apparently I made some comparison to Jason Spezza that to this date I can't recall.

Anyways the Captain of the Riggers, Tracy Kelewsky, confronted us (myself and cohost) during our podcast and ripped us a new one.

Lesson learened.

Whatever I said wasn't that bad, but it was enough to fire up a guy who was already quite intimidating. Having TK made at you is no fun.