I was going to follow up Jayson's post, but then Jon's came in, so
I'll answer this one instead.
 
Jon Barkan writes:
>As someone who did the Northeastern hockey games in college and have
>actually been blessed with the honor of working last year's BU-LSSU with the
>legendary Bill Crawford let me say this.......hometown people love hometown
>bias.......it's just a fact!!!
>Crawford is one of the best in the college hockey game and if you have ever
>heard him do a game.....you know that he can be both fair and biased at the
>same time and in the same breath......But he puts a refreshing spin on the
>game for the people back in the Soo.....
 
I think that the truth is that all of us (Jon, Jayson, myself) agree.
There is bias, and there is *bias*.  I expect a broadcaster to be
biased towards his team in that he'll talk more about how things are
going from his team's point of view, he'll give more anecdotes about
his team, and he will even get more excited when his team scores or
makes a great play.
 
However, as Jayson suggests, I also want to hear when the other team
makes a great play and when they were robbed.  Jayson probably goes
beyond the call of duty in trying to be as unbiased as possible, and
that's okay.  I'm not as demanding; I just want the home team
broadcaster to be fair.  Please, don't say a call against your team
was a bad call when your guy clearly committed the penalty.  And if
your team loses, don't give me the same tired old "well, they lost
because they played badly and gave them the game".  Especially when
the other team is a good one.
 
So, that's the key IMO.  Be a little biased if you wish, but be fair.
The listeners deserve to know exactly what happened.  Jayson's way of
conveying what happened is to get excited over a great play or goal by
RPI's opponent because he is a true fan of the game, even more so than
a fan of RPI.  That's not bad and I don't think anyone should
criticize him for doing that.  I've done that myself in those
situations.  How could you not get excited over watching Kariya make
your defense look like traffic cones?
 
I rarely criticize officiating, but there have been times that I
thought calls were quite bad and affected the outcome of the game, and
in those cases I did make a big deal out of it.  I have also jumped on
opponents when I thought it was deserved - again, not that often.  Out
there somewhere is a tape of a BU-Merrimack game from a few years ago
that probably should not see the light of day again. :-)
 
There's a certain ECAC/Ivy school we all know that has perhaps the
most incredibly biased and unfair broadcasters in the history of college
hockey.  It can be funny, but sometimes it gets so ridiculous that it
is impossible to listen to (for a neutral fan, anyway).  That's too
much.
 
This is starting to get off topic, but remember Johnny Most. (late
Boston Celtics announcer)  I heard a Most retrospective a while ago in
which some people were discussing his work, and one person related how
Julius Erving would take off from the foul line, do a 360 and slam it,
and Most's entire description was: "And Erving lays it in." :-)  But
only a Johnny Most can get away with that stuff.
 
BTW, a lot of this discussion also applies to the recaps people do of
games on HOCKEY-L, but I don't want to start a discussion of HOCKEY-L
on HOCKEY-L.  Plus, I think people have generally done a pretty good
job this year.  (no need to follow this up and add "I think so too"...
I just wanted to mention that as an aside)
 
>By the by, can someone tape Machnik for me...
 
Come on, Barkan...pony up a few bucks and dial in to TeamLine. :-)
 
>...I think the last time he did
>radio was when the NU radio station was down on the ice for the Hockey
>Finals in 1988.........Two words----Marty Raus.....
 
I never did NU radio, actually...1988 and Raus as in House was back in
my managing days.  But I did do Merrimack radio for two years along
with four games with the one and only Joe Carr & one game with WRPI
last season.
 
(Jon considers me somewhat of a traitor for defecting from the
Northeastern side to Merrimack in the late 80s.)
 
>PS "Hockey is a slippery game, played on ice!" Jack Parker
 
Worst quote of mine ever came in 1985-86 when I was at RPI and went
on the air in between periods of a game RPI trailed at Dartmouth, 5-3.
I was asked what RPI had to do to come back, and my answer was, "Score
more goals."  I really didn't intend it to sound like that, because I
was trying to explain how they were having trouble putting the puck in
the net that night, but as it turned out, my explanation that followed
sounded like a bad job of covering up for the dumb thing I had just
said.  And if you don't think people at RPI listened to the road
games, you should have heard all the abuse I took when we got back to
Troy.  This was the game where RPI came this close to wearing
Dartmouth away uniforms because their own jerseys & socks were being
driven up by an asst coach, and there was a blizzard that caused the
coach to arrive literally just before game time.  Oh yes, RPI would go
on to lose 11-0 at Harvard the next night.  Not a good trip.
 
One of the best quotes came from one of my intermission guests, Keith
Marder (Capital District writer, runs or used to run the ATU/Troy
Record poll).  During an RPI at Merrimack game in 1992 (follow along
now, in this situation I'm working for Merrimack radio), he came on
just as the overhead heaters went on inside the cold rink.  Keith
looked up and noticed this, and said, "I feel like a McDonald's French
Fry, just waiting for someone to come along and buy me."  How do you
follow that up?  I think Heather was sitting next to me listening on
her walkman, and she almost fell out of the press box laughing...
 
And then there was the time that Dan Roche and I went up to Orono to
do the Merrimack-Maine HE quarterfinal in 1992, with hopes that
Merrimack might at least make it interesting.  Maine won 7-0 and
outshot MC about 40-10.  With a minute left, for no good reason, Danny
started singing the Addams Family Rap (MC Hammer; the tape was playing
in the car on our way up there).  I let him solo for a while, and then
when he was done, he said, "Yes, I'm okay folks...", then he looked at
me and said, "Heck, no one's listening anymore anyway."  Yes, that was
all on the air, and it really happened.
 
OK, enough stories for now.  Someday I'm going to write a book.  I
don't know who'll buy it, but I'm going to write it.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                 [log in to unmask]           [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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