Thursday 28 August 2014

An All Female, Weekly Broadcast Crew

Today, Rogers Sportsnet announced all their hockey broadcast people for next season and only three women were on the crew. What would an all female broadcast crew for hockey look like? The idea that a broadcast could feature an all female crew and do one game a week does not seem crazy once actually looking at who has worked with broadcast crews separately.

Host: This is the easiest position to fill as CBC had Andi Petrillo hosting during the day for the Sochi Olympics and World Cup 2014 to great success. She knows how to handle a conversation and can set up a game quite well. She understands hockey and deserves a hosting role (hopefully she will get this with CBC in other sports).

Panel: Again, a fairly easy position to fill. It would feature two of Tessa Bonhomme, Jennifer Botterill, and Cassie Campbell-Pascall. Bonhomme was cut from Canada's female hockey team before Sochi and filled this role with TSN. She has a deep understanding of the game and analyzed the play well. The other position would rotate between Jennifer Botterill and Cassie Campbell-Pascall. Botterill was the rink-side reporter/colour commentator for CBC in Sochi and was able to provide tactical insight and analysis. Campbell-Pascall has filled this role as well as colour commentator/rink-side reporter for CBC in the past and showed great improvement from when she started. Both would do well in either role. Both Botterill and Campbell-Pascall have family in NHL front offices, so insider information may be there for the reporting.

Rink-Side Reporter: Jessica Rusnak of TSN690/TSNHabs. She can interview players and get cliches with the best of them, but she has also shown the ability to ask tougher questions of coaches when the time comes. This would make her a fan favourite.

Colour Commentator: One of Jennifer Botterill or Cassie Campbell-Pascall. They can rotate positions every once and a while. Tessa Bonhomme could also jump in here.

Play by Play: Beth Mowins of ESPN who has no hockey experience but is a highly experienced play by play caller in multiple sports and with a little bit of studying, I am sure she could become a fine hockey play by play person. Linda Cohn of ESPN is another experienced play by play voice, who is also a New York Rangers fan.

Monday 25 August 2014

Lost and Found

I once was broken, but now that I have carefully rebuilt my shattered confidence I am only frail. I was destroyed methodically in grade school. The world was unkind to me; taunting me about being...average. I left a classroom crying in grade 7. You know how bad it is to cry in school in grade 7? It's the worst. I was broken.

I changed schools after grade 8. I never told anyone what happened to me. How no one told my mom even off handily is shocking. I didn't make eye contact with anyone. Speaking up was hard. I was broken and I had to rebuild myself. I had lost the little girl who wanted to play football when she grew up and wore dresses all the time.

It was a hard, slow process that began with small steps. I joined the social justice group at school. I was in drama (a strategic move to make me talk to people). I stayed for lunch. I was still broken at first. I started making friends. Friendly kids would talk to me, welcome me into their world. Their world was one of friendships since kindergarten and memories. My world with them began in grade 9.

Slowly I re-found myself; still frail, but no longer broken. Carefully I made sure to not break myself and to build myself up. I learned I can give a speech with little planning. I talked to politicians and community leaders. I wore dresses again. I became healed, but my confidence remained frail.

I remember when I was confronted with a simple problem and I solved it without help (or tears) for the first time. That was this year. I am 21. It took me 7 years and much patience and tough love from my mom to get here. I did this though and because I know how delicate the balance is for me, I protect myself a lot. I don't expose myself to situations that could even dent my newfound, delicate sense of confidence I have developed. I have limited myself about what I will comment about on social media because I am afraid of taking a step back in my rebuilding.

When you make it this far after the bullies have won, you protect yourself, you make sure you will not be exposed as something that the bullies would have jumped on. Sometimes I want to say things about something but cannot because I am afraid about people jumping down my throat, telling me I'm wrong and making me feel like I did when I was bullied. I cannot deal with that. I cannot rebuild myself again with how far I've come. I stick to some social justice stuff that I have some knowledge of (Winnipeg's homeless and FNMI issues), sports, and history as a whole. I am safe with these. I can learn about these. I do not feel like anyone will make me feel bullied if I talk about these.

I like helping others, but I have to continue to help myself first.


Friday 15 August 2014

Head Down, No Eye Contact

It wasn't always this way. Actually, I used to talk so much you couldn't shut me up. And then grade 2 happened and I had to learn how to deal with a bully. I was easy to pick on because I wasn't from the area and I was smart. I almost refuse to see the bad in people. This is an issue you see, because you can be preyed on in school when you befriend the kids that no one else wants to befriend and try to be kind to everyone. You because a target for bullying. You become a victim trying to help other kids that needed friends. And you lose confidence.

I figured out how to cope. Keep your head down, don't respond and never make eye contact. Ever. Try to become invisible. Try to disappear. You never will, but you can try. You can tell the teachers, but they are powerless unless administration backs them. So you stay quiet in the halls and outside and hope that no one comes near you and does anything to you.

The name calling and the antics that everyone else laughs at and says are no big deal never stop and it starts to break you down. You leave that school for a new high school where you know no one. You make friends. They have friends already and you feel like a bit of an outsider, but you are safer and you can find people that have the same ideals as you. You are safe.

Then you leave. You have to leave and you choose to go downtown. The school is smaller; safer. You are in the program you want to be in, you are learning lots. And then you walk. You walk to the library downtown. It's big and it's quiet and there is free WiFi. You walk 5 or 6 blocks and people ask you for money. You don't have small change, so you walk. You pull your toque down lower you bow your head. You become invisible again. You use your talent to protect yourself and this time it works.

So you walk more and whenever you walk you see the same man. You sometimes buy him water or coffee. He sits there everyday, asking for anything. You remember what you were taught; people just want a drink and some food. They are people. You give him that sometimes. He never asks you, he never expects anything of you. But he's there everyday and it can be hot sometimes and he must be dehydrated, so you give him some cold water.

There are questions you want to ask. You want to ask them on different forums; ask different people. There seems to be no room for discussion though. No room for learning, for collaboration. So you don't ask, you don't learn because you're afraid. You're afraid that people will not hear you again; that you will be invisible. You just don't understand everything and you want to learn, but having a discussion seems impossible because the world is coloured in shades of grey and yet sometimes it seems to only be seen in black and white.

And once again you put your head down, your earbuds in, pull your toque lower and walk faster because there is no way to understand something with no discussion, no way for a young person to understand, so you instead try to hid, try to turn invisible. It has done you well in life so far.