Play-by-play Tips

Bryce Duffield is my friend and the play-by-play announcer for the North Delta Devils of the Pacific Junior Hockey League (PJHL). He recently wrote a post with 10 tips for being good at play-by-play, one of the most mentally taxing and difficult things I've ever done. And I've done a lot of it. Nearly 200 hours in the last 2 years. So I thought I'd make my own list of tips. Here it is and you can read Bryce's list here.

1) Prepare, prepare, prepare
It seems basic, but you'd be surprised how many broadcasters I've run across that don't go into their games with prep sheets. Here was my pregame study method when working in the PJHL, a league whose website doesn't track team stats: Three hours of stat crunching (team powerplay, penalty kill, shot numbers, player and team scoring streaks, etc), an hour of watching the visiting team's previous game to get a sense of which players I would need to know best and an hour of putting it all together into a list of talking points for myself and my colour commentator.

2) Prepare some more
Look, if you're doing any kind of sports play-by-play, the event you're broadcasting is going to be no shorter than 90 minutes long (in the case of the quickest basketball games). That's a long time to be live on-air with no script. You need to treat each broadcast like the biggest test of your life: study your head off. Then those inevitable down moments in a game where nothing worth describing is going on, you've pertinent information to bring to the table.

3) It's ok to pre-write jokes
Yeah it seems like its cheating, but if you're NOT READING THEM off script, they still sound natural. My partner and I spent an after noon coming up with jokes using the name Quon (Spencer and Dylan Quon were two of the best players on the team we worked for) like "the beat goes Quon" and "the show must go Quon" because we knew they'd score a ton an saying "Quon scores!" every time gets boring.

4) Water and gum
Water to wet the whistle as need be, gum during breaks to keep your saliva glands going. That's my recipe. Others have their own. Christopher Walken claims to drink Tabasco during plays and long, dialogue-heavy movie scenes to keep his mouth moist. To each his own, but that sounds gross to me. Hence water and gum.

5) Eat before the game
It's not as tough as actually playing, but broadcasting takes a lot out of you. Or at least it does to me. I think of it as "live writing." Normally, you intake experience and process it for a bit then write about it later. Here, you see it and a description of it has to be coming out of your mouth within a second. Beyond that mental taxation, you have to be able to channel the energy on the court/ice/field for the viewers and listeners at home. Whether it's tense, whether it's sad, whether its loose because one team is getting obliterated, that tone needs to come through in your voice. And you need to be able to hit all those notes at any given time. If you don't have the energy to channel the high-energy moments of a game, you're going to fail. So make sure you're fuelled up and good to go. You don't have to eat anything in particular, just don't be hungry.

6) Don't be afraid to ask for pronunciations
In fact, ALWAYS BE ASKING FOR PRONUNCIATIONS. I called a bunch of high school basketball games a few weeks ago, and there was a kid on one team named Nick Xylinas. Usually, the PA announcer would know the kids' names, so I asked him. He said "Ex-alinas." I thought there's no way that's right. I asked the technical director, who said "Za-leen-as." That sounded closer, but there was too much doubt. It was too late though, the game was starting. After the first quarter, I asked an assistant coach on his team and was told "Za-line-as." So I went back on air and corrected myself and got on with my life. I did the sae when I'd spent two games pronouncing "Bogajev" was 'Bogayev' before being corrected by broadcast director. Live and learn.

7) Anticipate the play
You simply cannot do this job if you don't know the sport you're calling. I never played hockey, but I watch a ton of it and I tend to pick up sports quickly. But I played basketball, the only other sport I have broadcast. When I say know the sport, I don't mean casually. I mean know it like an oncologist knows cancer, like a therapist knows therapy. You must study your sport and the team you work with most often. Then you can see what's coming before it happens, so you can describe it as it happens. If you're wrong, switch it up and describe what actually happens.

8) Use shorthand
Baseball has "going, going, gone!" Football has "15, 10, 5, touchdown!" Basketball has "three-ball! Good!" and hockey has things like "glove-side" and "blueline" describing a pair of defencemen. Every sport has some and they're useful time and word savers.

9 Don't talk so damn much 
This one only works if you are paired with a video feed. Nothing conveys what is going on better than video. You are there to augment that, say who has the ball/puck for those who can't tell for themselves, add that emotional flair. But you don't need to describe EVERY LITTLE THING. I fall into this all the time myself, but it's something I'm working on. You should too.

10) Have fun! 
This was also Bryce's 10th point, but it's just true. If you have fun, that'll flow through to your listeners/viewers.

Get out there and try it for yourselves (only if you like sports though. If you don't, this just won't work). It's one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done.