by koberulz on Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:54 am
just came back from the wildcats tonight, and it was the most god-awful display i've ever seen. not the game as such, but the entire night.
first off, regular PA announcer lachy reid was, i assume, in melbourne for the afl grand final. quite evidently, the wildcats do not have a backup PA announcer. the new guy, whoever he was, sucked. if a foul was called, he said a foul was called. nevermind who it was on, it was a foul. he fucked up the names of the cheerleaders several times, referring to one group by another group's name on several occasions. he kept pausing just before he said anything he might actually have to remember.
then there was some stupid woman from a sunbear charity, who had to come out and inform us that sunbears were data deficient. that means that they may be an endangered species, but there aren't enough of them to get enough data to prove this.
none of the cheerleaders/dance groups had a clue. one guy got into position, looked around, suhuffled forward two paces, looked around again, shuffled another two paces, looked around, then shuffled back five paces. all this while in something resembling defensive stance with his palms on his knees. several cheerleaders attempted to get up and leave before the routine was over.
then there were the competitions. they brought out some cardboard nova thingos. each one was a different color, and they had different prizes inside them. the guy had to pick one, and they outlined what the prizes available were. then the PA announcer (back to him again) made small talk about one of the prizes, wasting thirty seconds and causing the game to run into the next quarter. but, he evidently hadn't wasted enough time, since he polled the audience, by loudness, as to which nova thingo he should pick. not that anyone had a clue what was in what, so it didn't matter. but apparantly this guy can't make up his own mind. he eventually picked the green one. he got the mystery prize. but wait folks, it's not over yet! now he has to actually win his prize, by hitting a freethrow for it at this point, the fourth quarter should have been well under way, but we had to set that aside so we could watch this guy miss a freethrow. 2 minutes of box selecting and small talk for that anticlimax. talk about a pointless game.
moving on to the dj, and general sound stuff. the cats have some random audio clips of people saying random lines ("do you know the rules of the game? NO!" (bad referee call), "clang, clang, clang" (before a freethrow), and the like). one of them is "i don't understand what's going on here." it's usually used after a confusing referee situation or overrule. but when used after a blatant foul, and after a made basket, it's just rediculous. i'll insert more of the PA announcer's stuff here too. a "let's go wildcats let's go!" *bang bang* chant started up. the wildcats turned the ball over, and the chant died down, as the crowd prepared a defense chant. the PA announcer figured the crowd was too quiet, and tried to start a "let's go wildcats let's go" chant, which had just finished. he did it once. at that point, the crowd was chanting "defense". it stuck out like a sore thumb.
as if i haven't bitched enough, i'll now move onto the people sitting next to me. our whole family (4) has a membership, but only 2 of us went tonight. they were in our other two seats, but we didn't give a shit. still, they had no right to sit there. they spent a good solid five minute patch discussing the player on the court with the skinniest legs. talk about pathetic. "ning (meaning darren ng, there is no "ning" in the nbl) has skinny legs." "hunt's are skinnier." "tony ronaldson's are pretty skinny too." "which one's ronaldson?" they had no fucking clue, and were bloody annoying.
and now onto the part that has to happen in every bitching session. it was inevitable, and here it is: the refs. while they were alright on most occasions, they did make some shocking calls. don't take this as being biased, quite a few of them favored the cats. darren brooks was sent to the freethrow line for clearing out with his arm. redhage went to the freethrow line because his shooting arm brushed the defender's arm. shocker of the night: david cooper takes a rebound and is holding it in two hands above his head. a wildcats player swiped at it. cooper new it would come loose, so he tossed it in the air over said player, took a step forward, then caught the ball again.
whew. that was long.