Do You Know The Way To Weyburn?
Yesterday I took a trip down to Weyburn to help out on a remote broadcast for Sasktel's Max Local On Demand. My friend, Todd, who just left Global last month, now works for a production company that produces a lot of content for Sasktel's local programming. At the last minute he called to see if I could help out on a remote they were doing down in Weyburn, Sasktachewan, which is about an hour southeast of Regina. For all of our friends and family back in California, think of Weyburn as three or four notches below Modesto, yet twice as desolate. The gig paid pretty well (per diem + hotel stay overnight) and I was able to take the afternoon off at Global, so by noon Todd and I were off to Weyburn!
The Weyburn Colosseum & Sports Arena
We were doing a "live-to-tape" recording of a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) game between the Notre Dame Hounds (Not the Notre Dame of South Bend, Indiana, but Notre Dame High School of Wilcox, Saskwatchewan) vs. the hometown Weyburn Red Wings. This is AAA hockey where the players are still around high school age, hoping to get a scholarship at a U.S. university or crack the minor leagues of pro hockey.
A lot of good hockey played here, eh.
Todd and I got in about 1pm and helped with the set up. That meant running cables from the "control room" which was just an empty storage room where they rolled the racks of equipment into, and up through the seats to the press boxes where the cameras and the play-by-play commentators would be. This part of the whole deal sucked, I guess they don't sweep very well after a game because we were having to fish our cables past a lot of empty coffee cups, soda cups and Red Rope wrappers. Yeeuch.
All of the broadcast equipment was driven up in a truck the night before. We were given an empty storage room to set up our control room.
Voila! Instant control room
Racks full of stuff and things.
My responsibilities during the game were to take notes on the game (i.e. who scored when, power play goals, etc.) as well as running the "score bug," which is the graphic that runs along the top of the screen that displays the score, the period and how much time is left. All those nights scorekeeping for the league I played in back in Oakland so many years ago finally paid off!
The Score Bug along the top of the screen.
I was on headset, taking notes on the stats the commentators would mention as well as any production notes the director wanted me to take down. All the while, updating the Score Bug via the custom software one of the guys wrote (and hadn't tested until that night!). The first few minutes of the game were pretty hectic as suddenly I had the commentators, cameramen and the director streaming in through my headphones! I was trying to scribble notes AND click the start/stop clock button all at the same time. But by midway through the first period I had my system down and the rest of the game was a piece of cake.
My station
The game was a good one with Weyburn winning 5-4. After Weyburn jumped out to an early 4-1 lead, the Hounds came back to make it interesting late in the third period. But ultimately the Wings won.
Before the game, after we were done with the set up and I had a few minutes to poke around the arena, I noticed Barry Melrose on their alumni wall. For those of you who don't follow hockey, Barry was is an ex-Los Angeles Kings head coach back in the 90's and is now a hockey commentator on ESPN. He began his career right here in Weyburn. Cool!
"Hey Barry! You SUCK!"
Once the game ended, tear down and loading up the truck only took about an hour. We were wrapped up at about 11pm. Sasktel paid for all of our meals and an overnight stay in Weyburn, so we all headed back to the hotel and had a couple schooners in the bar before turning in.
The exotic Weyburn Inn in beautiful Weyburn, Saskatchewan!
After a comped breakfast buffet, Todd and I hit the road and I was back home with The Pack before 11am. I had a great time and learned a lot on the trip, hopefully they'll give me another call when they do another remote sometime.
Until next time... adventure!
R-
The Weyburn Colosseum & Sports Arena We were doing a "live-to-tape" recording of a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) game between the Notre Dame Hounds (Not the Notre Dame of South Bend, Indiana, but Notre Dame High School of Wilcox, Saskwatchewan) vs. the hometown Weyburn Red Wings. This is AAA hockey where the players are still around high school age, hoping to get a scholarship at a U.S. university or crack the minor leagues of pro hockey.
A lot of good hockey played here, eh.Todd and I got in about 1pm and helped with the set up. That meant running cables from the "control room" which was just an empty storage room where they rolled the racks of equipment into, and up through the seats to the press boxes where the cameras and the play-by-play commentators would be. This part of the whole deal sucked, I guess they don't sweep very well after a game because we were having to fish our cables past a lot of empty coffee cups, soda cups and Red Rope wrappers. Yeeuch.
All of the broadcast equipment was driven up in a truck the night before. We were given an empty storage room to set up our control room.
Voila! Instant control room
Racks full of stuff and things.My responsibilities during the game were to take notes on the game (i.e. who scored when, power play goals, etc.) as well as running the "score bug," which is the graphic that runs along the top of the screen that displays the score, the period and how much time is left. All those nights scorekeeping for the league I played in back in Oakland so many years ago finally paid off!
The Score Bug along the top of the screen.I was on headset, taking notes on the stats the commentators would mention as well as any production notes the director wanted me to take down. All the while, updating the Score Bug via the custom software one of the guys wrote (and hadn't tested until that night!). The first few minutes of the game were pretty hectic as suddenly I had the commentators, cameramen and the director streaming in through my headphones! I was trying to scribble notes AND click the start/stop clock button all at the same time. But by midway through the first period I had my system down and the rest of the game was a piece of cake.
My stationThe game was a good one with Weyburn winning 5-4. After Weyburn jumped out to an early 4-1 lead, the Hounds came back to make it interesting late in the third period. But ultimately the Wings won.
Before the game, after we were done with the set up and I had a few minutes to poke around the arena, I noticed Barry Melrose on their alumni wall. For those of you who don't follow hockey, Barry was is an ex-Los Angeles Kings head coach back in the 90's and is now a hockey commentator on ESPN. He began his career right here in Weyburn. Cool!
"Hey Barry! You SUCK!"Once the game ended, tear down and loading up the truck only took about an hour. We were wrapped up at about 11pm. Sasktel paid for all of our meals and an overnight stay in Weyburn, so we all headed back to the hotel and had a couple schooners in the bar before turning in.
The exotic Weyburn Inn in beautiful Weyburn, Saskatchewan!After a comped breakfast buffet, Todd and I hit the road and I was back home with The Pack before 11am. I had a great time and learned a lot on the trip, hopefully they'll give me another call when they do another remote sometime.
Until next time... adventure!
R-
posted by Raul at 8:34 PM
2 Comments:
Ah, beautiful Weyburn. It's got a sports arena, Inn, auto mall, and Dairy Queen; what more could you ask for?
Zenfro, aside from a Subway sandwich and a Co-op store just out of frame, that's pretty much all there is in Weyburn. It can't be a good thing to be able to get all of a town in one photo.
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