| | As a kid growing up in Toronto, the arrival of April generally meant 1 thing: NHL playoffs on CBC - Hockey Night in Canada.
Hockey Night in Canada is a Canadian institution and icon. It's something that every Canadian at home can identify with, and no matter where you are in the world, a shared cultural bond amongst Canadian abroad. What one often doesn't realize is the sheer quality of the overall production. Hands down, CBC does a better job covering hockey than any of the US networks. Everyone involved in the production of a hockey game on
CBC — from the producers to the cameramen to the announcers — has
an innate sense of hockey action. It makes for exciting, edge-of-your-seat coverage without extraneous fluff commentary. Having lived in the US for the past 9 years, its something I've come to miss.
Bob Cole, the CBC play-by-play guy, has been calling the games on HNIC since 1969. Harry Neale, the color commentator, is a former coach and
GM. Unlike their American counterparts, theses guys somehow anticipate the play a split second faster.
With reserved excitement, their call of the game is more crisp. Additionally, with the use of onscreen "arrows" and "magic markers", Neale breaks down the finer points of the game, for example, how to best defend a 2-on-1 rush.
This is a game shown on CBC - HNIC
And this one shows a game on Versus
Both were held earlier this evening.
I think you'll very quickly see the difference. As a simple example, in the first video, the commentators don't announce every single detail, instead letting the game come to the viewer. It makes for a more fluid and coherent experience. In the second video, you can hear one of commentators rambling on and on about some trivial statistic while an exciting play develops into a scoring opportunity and eventually a goal. Also, why does the guy scream "gooooaaaal" every single time someone scores? This is not Mexico. This is not soccer.
Anyway, tack one more thing onto the growing list of things that are better in Canada.
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| | Posted 4/16/2008 12:08 AM - 35 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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