Coast TV, Eastlink’s community channel, is now into its fifth season carrying Sunshine Coast Minor Hockey Association (SCMHA) midget Blues games, but Coast TV manager Steve Sleep says it might not have happened if it wasn’t for bumping into another Steve at the grocery store.
Sleep said he considered the idea of live sports broadcasts, especially hockey, for years but always rejected it because he couldn’t find commentators.
“The commentators really carry the show,” he said. “I didn’t want to jump into covering hockey games with just background sound.”
Enter Steve Partridge, a life-long Coaster who has played the game since he was seven.
“He used to stop me and say, ‘Hey – we should do hockey’ and I’d say, ‘You get me a commentator and we’ll do hockey,’” recalls Sleep. “He got together with Brady Lynn and they approached us and we’ve been covering hockey with them at the helm ever since.”
Partridge does colour commentary and Lynn, also a long-time Sunshine Coaster with a strong connection to the game as a player, coach and referee, handles play-by-play.
Lynn said he and Partridge first thought about doing hockey broadcasts when they played in the local men’s league when they were in their 20s, but nothing really came of it until those conversations between Partridge and Sleep.
The duo has called most every game since the 2012 season, working with producer Brittany Broderson and a volunteer production crew, many of them students.
Lynn and Partridge both have high praise for the student crew and Sleep says getting used to the pace and complexity of covering live sports is a steep learning curve, but the skills they master are well worth it.
Partridge said it’s been a great experience for the young players as well. “It’s been really, really awesome for them,” said Partridge, who added the home team’s coaches have taken to using recordings of the broadcasts as game film.
“Me and Brady [Lynn] have started to get really good together… I get excited every September when hockey’s coming around. We all get excited about doing it.”
Lynn is a self-taught play-by-play announcer who learned by listening to people like Canucks, and now Hockey Night in Canada, play-by-play man Jim Hughson.
“Sometimes it’s challenging, but I really love it and I really love how much the kids are into it,” he said. “We’ve become part of the family of the whole midget rep program, which is really cool.”
Lynn said the broadcasts have even become a highlight for visiting teams. “Everyone knows across the Lower Mainland now that when you go to the Coast you might be on TV, so the out-of-town teams’ kids even get excited.”
The early broadcasts stuck strictly to the on-ice action, but Sleep said it wasn’t long before they started incorporating interviews and the games took on the look and feel of a major production. The only piece missing is instant replay. Partridge said they tried it a couple of times, but decided against making it a regular part of the broadcasts.
The highlight for most of the crew, and the moment they still like to talk about, is the 2016 Midget Tier 3 BC Championship.
Some 12,000 spectators took in the five days of hockey at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre, and Coast TV managed to carry every Blues game and at least one game involving every other team in the tournament.
Sleep said being able to offer TV coverage was one of the things that helped the SCMHA bid to host the championship stand out.
“The kids who were playing in the tournament, they would go back to their hotel and get together and watch the games on TV. They loved the commentary and they loved how it was produced,” said Partridge.
Lynn said they got a lot of compliments from the players, parents and coaches from the visiting teams. “Some of the kids from the Smithers team even came up and got selfies with us.”
The SCMHA Blues games air Sundays at 5:30 p.m. on channel 10 (610HD) on the Coast Cable system, except over the Christmas/New Year’s Day break.
Sleep says Coast TV’s success with hockey has led to covering other live sports, including a high school basketball tournament this week. Elphinstone and Chatelech face each other at 11:30 a.m. Dec. 15, with the winner going on to play in a 6 p.m. match.
