By Etan Vlessing
ANN ARBOR – Inside a production truck around 100 yards from Michigan Stadium, known to many as “The Big House” on the campus of the University of Michigan, CBC Sports director of production Joel Darling is making rapid-fire decisions about how the 2014 Winter Classic between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings game will be captured for Canadian TV.
"It's the biggest show we do all year," Darling tells Cartt.ca as he directs an army of behind-the-scenes CBC staffers in front of computer and TV screens finalizing graphics, video clips and statistical nuggets to broadcast when the NHL's annual outdoor showcase gets underway.
Calls go out for footage from the opening face-off and the referees' helmet cams, and for a montage of Don Cherry's late dog, Blue, to run during the first intermission on the Coach's Corner segment. On the screen during the pre-game build-up, CBC sportscaster Scott Oake is talking to Wings coach Mike Babcock outside the team locker room, asking how the bitter cold and driving snow may confound play when the puck drops.
"Zetterberg just walked through the frame," someone announces from over Darling's shoulder.
That's not the only challenge facing the CBC, as 105,000-plus fans in the Big House – an estimated half having come from Canada to cheer on the Leafs — has the pubcaster charting new frontiers with the NHL's biggest-ever live hockey audience. "We want to shoot the game in a way that pleasing for the viewer, and let's them share in the experience," Darling says.
Broadcasting hockey from an ice rink built in the middle of a football infield has the CBC using 33 cameras, compared to 14 or 15 for a typical Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.
In all, there are nearly 80 cameras trained on the Winter Classic from all angles, if you include those for NBC Sports, which broadcast the game for its U.S. audience, and HBO, whose cameras shot both teams and their coaching staffs for a few weeks prior to the game for its documentary series 24/7, which was an excellent vehicle to promote the game in the U.S. market (and dissect the Leafs coach-player dynamic in the Canadian market…)
"Anytime you play outdoors, it's a spectacle. This is where the game began, on cold, black ice in the middle of the woods, on ponds and lakes, and it brings you back to your youth." – Sam Flood, NBC.
The bells and whistles that CBC and NBC Sports is sharing the cost on include a cable cam and a rink-side rail-camera cart to capture the infield action.
AND OVER AT NBC
A few production trucks away from Darling, John McGuinness, who will produce the Winter Classic for NBC Sports from a separate control room, said before the game he's treating the Winter Classic as more than a hockey game.
"This is the NHL's Super Bowl," he explains.
That means periodically turning to another Comcast/NBCU brand, the Weather Channel and host Jim Cantore for live weather updates, teeing up parka-clad Eddie Olczyk to offer a childhood memory of outdoor hockey, or cutting to Canadian-born actors Matthew Perry or Elisha Cuthbert, who is also wife of Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf, cheering in the audience.
"We do have hardcore fans, but we also have casual NHL fans who will be watching," McGuinness adds.
The great expanse of Michigan Stadium also had Olczyk and Pierre McGuire joining Mike 'Doc' Emrick to call the game rink-side, marking the first time NBC Sports had broadcast an NHL game at ice level. A typical NHL arena game has McGuire standing in-between the benches on his own, while fellow analysts and commentators are up in the press box or elsewhere behind-the-scenes. CBC had analyst Glenn Healy at the boards (clearly drawing the short straw among the on-air talent for this one…).
Here, NBC Sports and the CBC are replicating the NFL, which has long played games outside in the driving snow, which tends to arrest TV viewers as they surf the channels.
"Anytime you play outdoors, it's a spectacle. This is where the game began, on cold, black ice in the middle of the woods, on ponds and lakes, and it brings you back to your youth," NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood told Cartt.ca.
And every time you step outside, people are seeing something different. So it's not a hockey game, it's an event," Flood, who has won 15 Emmys for his TV sports coverage, added. Flood and NHL COO John Collins jointly created and debuted the Winter Classic at Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium in 2008, and the annual tilt h
as since become among the most-watched regular season league games.
"It's a more accurate reflection of the strength and power of the league itself, with a North American footprint, unlike the other pro sports," Collins told Cartt.ca, as he cited the first-ever Winter Classic involving a Canadian team.
The NHL Heritage Classic, however, between the Edmonton Oliers and Montreal Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium, was the first modern era NHL game to be played outdoors, back in 2003 (and it was freezing then, too). Another Heritage Classic is scheduled for Vancouver on March 2nd.
Numbers-wise, the Winter Classic worked for the CBC, as a 30-second commercial was pegged at $49,000 – comparable to a 7 p.m. ad cost during Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts.
As for the ratings results, NBC Sports scored a 2.9 overnight rating for the 2014 Winter Classic (about 4.5 million viewers), buoyed by strong viewership from Detroit and other northeastern U.S. markets.
That audience was still down on the 5.3 overnight rating for a recent Christmas Day NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, reflecting growth still available for the NHL when compared to other pro sport leagues.
On the CBC, the game drew more than 3.5 million viewers, eclipsing the network’s previous non-playoff game viewership record of 3.31 million, which was last year’s shortened season opening game between Toronto and Montreal.
