I never miss a CFL football game if it is on television. I'm there, sitting by myself in my den, lights down low, concentrating on my CFL football.
I know it sounds slightly deviant, but that's how I watch football - alone. I find I can truly concentrate and learn something or re-enforce something I already know when I watch with no distractions. No people, no phone and above all, no remote to switch channels during commercials.
Now that the CBC is broadcasting games without commentators, my football viewing-pattern has reached a new level of concentration. For the first few games I did enjoy the non opinion-based broadcasts. Without a verbal guide I had to make an extra effort to understand the situations and therefore it was up to me to create the anticipation myself. I kind of liked it. But when Casey Printers was injured with a sideline hit, I wanted to know what the injury was and I wanted to know right now!
Where is my sideline reporter? What does my colour guy speculate it was? How serious? What is the down? What is the distance? Who the heck is Buck Pierce? How much time is left on the clock? Who for the Riders had the offside penalty to keep the B.C. Lions drive alive? Why did that guy miss the tackle? How did Geroy Simon get so open? Could I please get a second replay? How could the cameraman miss the angle? Where is my sideline reporter?
After that series of events I missed my broadcasters. I missed my guys and their opinions. I turned the light back on, made a phone call and got up to get something to eat.
I understand how some people could conclude that the people who present sports say too much. Or, as I have concluded, state the obvious. And sometimes the atmosphere of the stadium has more entertainment value than the spoken word.
The risk you take without people presenting the game is that the people playing football become robots - just players, not people. If not for the effort made in television production nobody would know about Henry Burris and his million-dollar smile. Dave Dickenson would be a quarterback, not one of the most intelligent people I have met in a long time. A.J. Gass and his history of overcoming injury would never have been documented and his mental toughness never publicly known. Damon Allen's frustrations, yet remarkable performance of being a 42-year-old quarterback, would never have been expressed from his point of view. Every head coach, including Pinball Clemons, would be disconnected in terms of what the audience saw and as people how different and unique they all are.
I could also go through every CFL roster and point out players who have a wonderful balance of personality and performance, but without talking about it, you never know. A CFL player's career is very short and you want to market yourself as professionally and as positively as possible. Without television commentators, that opportunity is taken away from players and they become a physical image, not a person.
When I was a kid, as much as I enjoyed the teams I watched, I remember the players more. Joe Zuger, Tommy Joe Coffey, Angelo Mosca for Hamilton. Ecomet Burly and Joe Theisman for Toronto. I can't remember the won/loss record during the 1983 Argonauts season, but I remember Leon McQuay as a great running back and Leo Cahill as a very colourful head coach.It was that association of player and team that initially made me a CFL football fan.
Do football games need commentators? I conclude yes, if for no other reason than to put the human element into a game that can discard people very quickly.
If television were to go for the next five years without the support of conversation, football fans would know nothing about the people of football. Imagine five years from now with all the player movement in football, you would know more about your local neighbour four houses away than the starting quarterback for your home team.
It was interesting for a while, but I still am not sure why Geroy Simon was so open at such a critical time.
09-14-2005, 03:28 PM
