“SAGINAW!!!” shouted Ryan.
“SPIRIT!!!” blasted the crowd. The Dow Event center was rocking as Ryan filled the arena with energy. It was the best we possibly could have hoped for. It was also nothing short of a complete clusterfuck.
Ryan had been telling me about this job for months. Somehow he had convinced the promotional director to let him conduct a dance contest on the ice. I imagine this idea was conceived after several Crown and Sevens. This is when Ryan’s mouth either propels him to greatness or gets him in trouble. Often both.
He was smart enough to realize if he simply walked on the ice and did a dance contest, the fans would not know who he was or care what he was doing. He needed a big introduction and a grand entrance. He envisioned a blacked out arena with laser lights as a video played introducing him like Kid Rock. Impressively, the Spirit saw his point and agreed to give him complete control. In theory. Kind of like the weather man giving you permission to control a hurricane.
Ryan needed to someone to run the music while he was on the ice, so I volunteered. The day of the game I went down to the center and waited for him in the lobby. There I saw Maxine from Toastmasters. Apparently she supports a women’s hockey team and was there to run a raffle during the game. She asked what I was doing and I proudly told her I was going to help Ryan run the “halftime” show. Maxine gave me a bit of a strange look but was too nice to tell me hockey had two period breaks, not halftime. Yes I am a hockeytard.
Ryan retrieved me and showed me the thirty page script that been handed to him. He had been planning the event since August but just now learned that he would be responsible for every single announcement of the game. Fortunately the anxiety this caused was short lived. The sound booth operator, Romero, grabbed the script and threw it in the trash. He said their announcer would handle that, so all Ryan had to worry about was his show. That was the plan anyway.
We ran a rehearsal without any glitches. Ryan tested his microphone out on the ice along with music playing. Everything sounded great. Then he ran the intro video he and a friend had put together. Gold letters flashed across a purple screen accompanied by a robotic voice telling fans to get on their feet and make some noise. The volume was a little low, so Romero ordered the booth to crank it up. It rocked. There was nothing more that could be done, so Ryan smiled at me and said, “Whatever happens, happens.” And happen it did.
The first thing that happened was the computer in the sound booth crashed just minutes before the game. A panicked booth assistant told Ryan he would need to play a different song every time the puck was not in play. Hey no problem, the clock never stops for hockey right? Ryan and I had watched maybe three games between us ever and were a bit surprised how many times the whistle blew. In five minutes we had wiped out a good twenty songs. Each only played for a couple seconds, but once you used it, you had to move on. Ryan is Captain Multitasker though and I think it helped get him into the flow of the night.
Before we knew it the first period was over and it was time to kick off the show. Unfortunately it was not the Kid Rock intro Ryan had dreamed of. The Dow has gymnasium lights that can’t be shut on and off quickly. Everything stayed lit making the laser lights worthless. The video played but at a fraction of the volume from rehearsal so no one could hear it. Ryan was also told at the last minute that his headset microphone was causing feedback and he would have to use the house microphone.
Ryan went the edge of the rink with his dance contestants, most of whom were six years old. He had specifically asked for all ages, especially middle schoolers, but was instead delivered a throng of kneebiters. He would have been screwed if one of his friend’s daughters along with her friends hadn’t showed at the last second. Surrounded by kids he asked the staff if they should go on the ice first, or if he should be Mother Goose.
The staff rolled carpet on to the rink and Ryan went to center ice followed by his mini-minions. He quickly explained the rules of the dance contest, went over the moves required to perform the Cupid Shuffle, then told me to hit the music. What came out of the speakers was a distorted mess. The kids attempted to follow Ryan in the dance but he quickly told me to cut the music. The fans stared at him with glazed eyes. He announced they would bring back the dance finalists in the second break and quickly retreated off the ice. The first contest was in short, a complete disaster.
On the bright side there was still two thirds of a game to go and things got better from there. Romero got the computer working and took over music duty for the rest of the night. Then the staff turned the camera on Ryan during a stop in play. He had nothing to lose and wound himself up to maximum Ryanness. “Ok we’re going to try something new,” he said over the microphone, “When I say Saginaw, you say Spirit. SAGINAW,”
“Spirit” meekly replied about a third of the fans. I think the rest were too stunned. But there was no turning back now and Ryan went for it balls out, “SAGINAW” he blasted.
“Spirit!” cried out more fans. “SAGINAW” Ryan cried out giving it everything he had.
“SPIRIT!!!” roared all the fans. The ice had finally been broken. Game on.
The second period break came and Ryan’s video played again. This time Romero made sure it played with volume and also corrected the distortion issues we had earlier. Ryan was instructed to start the second dance contest right away. He ignored those instructions, opting instead to get each side of the arena competing against each other for the loudest “SPIRIT”. The staff freaked out and told me to get the show on the road. I shrugged and apologized as there was no way to communicate with him when he was out on the ice.
Eventually Ryan started the dance contest, going with the simplest possible, The Twist. It worked great and the kids had a blast. So did the fans. They cheered for the winner, and the whole arena was rocking. This time Ryan walked off the ice a hero.
Ryan continued to get on camera and work up the crowd for the last period. He only tripped up once when the staff asked him to sing “Let’s go Spirit.”. Ryan has a multitude of talents. Singing is not one of them. He bombed miserably but quickly recovered with the old DJ standby “MAKE SOME NOISE!!!”.
The Spirit ended up losing the game, but Ryan had won hands down. The staff reported that the team owners who had originally opposed hiring him were ecstatic. By morning the Spirit had been flooded with emails inquiring about Ryan. His website which normally get five hits on a good day had over two hundred and fifty hits. Despite all the glitches and catastrophe Ryan had shown what a true entertainer can do for a live event. And if he has his way, Saginaw hockey is about to get a lot more interesting.