With regard to [the perception that you sounded like you were calling a soccer match rather than a hockey game], I’m not entirely sure this is even a criticism, and I’ve talked with a couple of our producers at Infront to try and get their take on this, because I’m not sure about the extent to which I’m unfairly biased about all of this. But my thought process is that outside of the UK – and to a certain extent even within the UK – most hockey watchers will primarily have the North American style of ice hockey commentary in their head, mainly from the NHL but also from other international competitions staffed by North American commentators. The North American hockey commentary style tends to sound somewhat radio-like, in that a) players are identified more regularly as new people touch or get close to the puck, and b) a real sign of commentator quality (for me at least) is the artfulness used to describe certain passages of play whose equivalents might go unremarked upon at all in a televised football match. Also, North American-style goal calls in hockey tend to include a “He scores!” exclamation or the equivalent, whereas football goals can often be much more muted. I’ve thought about this point a lot over the years and come to the conclusion that in football, goals usually don’t come out of nowhere – the build-up is typically transparent, and you can often feel a goal coming before the ball goes in the net – whereas in hockey, slapshots which go into the net often look exactly the same as ones which are saved or miss the target right up to the point that they go in. And even when they don’t, passing moves in hockey are often much, much faster to develop than they are in football. So there’s an element of surprise in hockey goals which merits a more exclamatory goal call.
We’ve not yet reached a consensus on whether having a British-accented, football-style commentator is a potential distraction, or possibly even a nice change of pace from normal North American commentators. But I think it would be helpful for us to hear you attempt to use a somewhat more North American style in commentary this evening (on Slovan vs. Rapperswil) – sounding a bit more excited on the goal calls and other excitable incidents, and being a bit more descriptive when possible and where appropriate. I suspect that may take you somewhat out of your comfort zone, but don’t worry about that; I’m confident enough in your core ability in the more British/football-like style that you can think of tonight as an experiment. Does that make sense?
