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  A friend of mine had a son in the journalism course at one of the Toronto Colleges a  few years back when Joe Bowen, the 20-year play-by-play voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs came in as a guest lecturer.  Bowen’s greeting’s to the crowd of future hockey announcers  was something like this. “Yes I know I have the best job in world. Yes I love it. And NO, I’m not giving it up for any of you.”Well I think I have the best lacrosse job in the world, and no I don’t wan’t to give it up either. I’m talking about my TV job. No offence to “Inside Lacrosse” but writing can sometimes be too much like real work, especially the way deadlines sneak up on you. When are doing live television you still feel  an excitement and adrenaline rush similar to playing a big game. You often get to travel, stay at nice hotels, eat at great restaurants, have a few pops after the game and it doesn’t really matter which team wins or loses. In some years the television schedule has been brutally hectic and some seasons have been very quiet but it’s a great way to enjoy the game we love.

 10 years ago I got the TV colour commentary job for the Toronto Rock by being in the right place at the right time.  It went something like this: In 1998 I played for the Les Bartley with Canada’s first NLL team, the Ontario Raiders. I got a lot more playing time than Les said I should expect and I loved it.  A few weeks before training camp the next season Les offered me a coaching job with the team. I noticed his disappointment when I declined the offer and I realized that he was giving me a graceful exit from playing. However my stubborn side figured I would prove my worth, much as I had done the previous year. A few weeks later Les was a little more forceful. His compromise was that I would become a “playing” assistant coach on the practice roster. That way I would be ready if they needed me in the lineup. That worked for me until another opprtunity , with potentially more longevity opened up.

 A few weeks later I was one of the Toronto Rock guys at their first media event when Bill Watters, introduced Toronto’s newest professional team to the local media at Maple Leaf Gardens. My ears perked up when I heard him say that every Toronto Rock home game would be televised on Sportsnet.  I immediately called Sportsnet and was told that they had nobody in mind for the colour job. I soon found the name of Scott Moore, the top dog  at Sportsnet and sent him a fax (emails were not yet common place). His assistant put me in touch with Ron Harrison at Molstar Productions and just like that he offered me the job. He had told me that he had me in mind anyhow since he had heard me as the “lacrosse guy” on The Fan, Toronto’s all sports station many times and had seen me on the TSN Sports Talk Show “Off the Record” as well. Again it’s all about timing. I was a frequent guest both of those stations because my workplace was just a few minutes from their studios and I was always willing to be a last minute guest.

That first year we televised 6 home games plus playoffs and I got to work with the aforementioned Joe Bowen. During our first game together I threatened to whack him over the head with a lacrosse stick if he continued to call it a ”racquet”. It was all in fun and Joe certainly made the games fun. Check out his bio   and notice that his career highlights include calling Muhammad Ali’s last fight as well as three Toronto Rock Championships. 

Also during my first year I learned to shut my mouth during commercials. I was still a “player/coach” with Toronto that season and during a commercial I called one of the opposition players an A-hole. I didn’t realize that the gametape - minus commercials -  went to the visiting team after the game. Apparently the Syracuse Smash played the tape on the bus ride home and since there were no commercials they heard everything I said during the breaks. Not only that,  but one joker on the team kept  pushing the rewind and play buttons so that everyone could hear it over and over again.

One of the busiest Television years was in 2001 when there were Canadian teams in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver. The season went from November 17^th to April that year and Sportsnet televised 24 regular season games.  The NBC games in 2004 were very exciting as well, but the best part of doing TV is that I’ve been lucky enough to work with dozens of talented and fun people both behind and in front of the camera. Like it is for more team sports, sometimes the most fun is the cameraderie from hanging out with “the team” before and after the event.

I’m not sure what’s going on with the TV schedules for 2009 but that’s not unusual at this time of the year. I often don’t find out what I’m doing until mid December. I’ve been told by some good sources that at least one deal (on one side of the border) is immanent but I’ve been around long enough to know that nothing is a sure thing until its official.  Obviously , the more TV, the better it is for lacrosse fans. And for my selfish purposes I hope to enjoy some road trips again this  winter.

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