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Yikes! No wonder Scotty Collins told me never to go the Stampede discussion board!


Chris Carter
Stampede Arena Announcer

p.s. My wife told me the robot voice was lame the first time she heard it, that's when I stopped. Although she refrained from calling me a douche bag.

Jeez, against my better judgment, I'll wade in and try to address some of this...

-Away team intros: I was told to try to get them in quickly as soon as they begin hitting the ice. That's how it is on the script, and that's what I was told when I filled in for Scotty, and after game one of this year. I think that's why a few times last year Scotty would run through the lineup so quickly that there was no time to chant "who cares" in between players. I've tried to do it this year, but to be able to go slow enough for the fans to chant, it sometimes butts up against the Stampede coming onto the ice. So for the last two games we've done it where it should go, and I'm going to try to keep it there.

-Ref's Hometown: The League tells me where they are from. And by that, I mean the Refs get to pick whatever town they want and I read it off the lineup sheet. We're the only team in the league that does it, and I've heard that they love it. They used to just try to make up funny hometowns for themselves...but now they try to have a theme. The other night the towns all matched their first names, last night they all picked holiday towns. It can be really funny if one of the refs haven't been here before and the others don't tell him. If you get a chance, see if the refs can control themselves next time. One game the ref told me that the linesman was very proud of where he was from, so I was given the crappy town next door to announce him from. While the linesmen freaked out and looked over at me, the ref was tearing up trying not to lose it.

-Screwing up words: Guilty. I have a different earpiece in each ear, and sometimes it's hard to hear what I'm saying. If I've got two different conversations going in my ears, and the guys in the booth are discussing something, it can be a little tough. And sometimes the script I'm seeing is brand new and I've never read it before. And it might be worded funny or something and I'm trying to edit on the fly. And sometimes I just screw up. And sometimes I don't think anyone is listening so I say something just to see if anyone notices. Like last night, I said Illinois, with the S on the end just to see if anyone would hear it. (It's not always the most exciting thing to read the same local best dot com announcement 5 times a night, so sometimes you have to amuse yourself)

-David Grun: I really got nothing to say on that. Don't know how I missed it. After the game I took a ton of crap from everybody. All well deserved. I was talking to David after the game and said sorry and laughed about it. Then I met his house parents AND PARENTS who came down for the game! CRap! SO I told them I would make sure to get him on Friday! That's why I made a big deal out of it Friday, and heard a lot of comments that it was funny that I spotlighted him and introduced "The Entire Starting Lineup." (oh, and by the way in the history of the team, there HAS been a missed player during intros before. Once.)

-Empty Net: Maybe I have a tumor? I don't know. I always announce when the other team pulls the goalie. And the way it works with most things is the guys in the booth with me shout out stuff as it happens. So if I'm writing or talking to the music or lights guy, they'll shout out "icing!" or whatever to help me out. Whem the other team pulls the goalie, most of are watching the action so someone will watch for it and shout it out. Well when Hartzell came out, they started yelling "EMPTY NET!" And I quickly got on the mic and started to announ- and I quickly thought to myself "What the F$%^# am I doing?"

-The politics of this job are a lot harder than I thought they would be. When I was hired, I was told by management all the things that Scotty did that they didn't like, and they wanted me to do differently. (Not that there was a huge list, but there was a list) And often told by different members of management different things that they liked or disliked differently than the next person in management. There were also things that I liked that Scotty did that I wanted to keep, and things I knew I would do differently. Everyday I hear from fans or folks in the organization (or my wife) something different, and it's tough to try to reconcile those things. For the first few games, after every game someone from the Stampede would come up and say "do this, don't do this..." I'm only 8 games in, so things are just getting to the point where I know how it SHOULD sound, let alone able to execute it.

And so much of it depends on the crowd. For instance one of the things I was told to immediately dump was the long twooooooo minutes during a Stampede power play. Well, the first game, the crowd was jacked up and during the first power play, I skipped it, and the whole crowd yells "Twooooooooooo minutes." So I thought, well crap, they want it. A couple games ago, I said OK fans your turn Stampede Power play for the next- and the crowd screamed it. Next power play, third period, really exciting game, I throw it to the crowd and hear crickets chirping. Same with the one minute announcement. Sometimes the crowd says thank you, sometimes they don't. I try to gauge whether to say your welcome based on what I hear back...I don't want to say your welcome just to say your welcome if nobody says thank you! And forget trying to be funny by saying "just doing my job" or something... for one, it's been done, and to most fans, it's Scotty's thing... if you guys can come up with something funny, I'll try it out. But then again, it's hard to keep it funny 30 times a year. If you do it once, people want to know why you don't do it every time. Do it over and over, and it quickly becomes not funny.

One of the complaints I was asked to address from the last few seasons was "the announcer doesn't do enough to get the crowd pumped up, like the SF Storm guy does." And just in the Stampede camp there are vastly different opinions on that. Some agree and say listen to JJ from the Storm, other say don't do anything he does it's ridiculous. And that's the tough part...If I tried to get you guys all pumped up last night after that 5 on 3, what would you have thought? But someone else right now is thinking. "he needs to do a better job of getting the crowd going when they're not in the mood or the team is not playing so good."

You can bet that most of the things you've listed and don't like, at some point, somebody has either told me to do, or told me that they love it. Except the empty net thing. NOBODY liked that!!! So it really is not an easy mix. I'm still trying to find my way... and I'll check back here once in a while to see what you guys think. (actually some of the stuff I'm doing I found here the first time I came here a couple weeks ago. There was a thread where you guys were discussing the "new guy" and saying what I should do. I took some of those and ran with them). But also keep in mind, I hear a lot of feedback from the folks who sign my check as well.

Sincerely,
The Douche Bag
Chris Carter