by Jay Onrait
We ended up getting Craig Sager from NBA on TNT to join us for a “Have You Seen This Dan?” segment, as well as Jim Gray from NBC Sports and one of my personal favourite sportscasters ever and a huge influence on my career, Dan Patrick. It was Dan who memorably teamed up with Keith Olbermann in the mid-1990s to form what is universally regarded as the greatest highlight show anchor duo in the history of sports broadcasting. Dan left ESPN and was now hosting a syndicated radio show that we carried on TSN Radio across the country. He was in London covering the Olympics for NBC because he was also the host of the Football Night in America highlight show that aired just before the Sunday night NFL game on NBC. The Sunday nighter and Football Night in America also aired on TSN. I joked with him at the start of the segment that he was on TSN more than I was. He laughed and then made fun of my haircut. At that very moment I really loved my job.
Early on in the Games, we received an e-mail from a publicity agency representing German tennis legend Boris Becker. Would we be interested in interviewing Mr. Becker about his new role as an ambassador for English tourism? Turns out the three-time Wimbledon winner had moved to London years ago and had now been hired for a Travel Britain advertisement campaign. Normally, we would stay far, far away from this so-called press conference, which would really be nothing more than an extended in-person commercial. Unfortunately, we were having no luck booking broadcasters through NBC’s publicity department; in fact, NBC’s publicity department was completely ignoring our e-mails, denying us access to their talent. Becker was someone all Canadian sports fans would recognize, and this seemed like a good opportunity to play another rousing game of “Have You Seen This Dan?” with a participant who would genuinely have no idea who the man on the front of my T-shirt was. Becker was also one of my all-time favourite athletes, and the opportunity to interview him one-on-one, regardless of the reason, was simply too good to pass up. I was always a Becker guy and couldn’t understand why anyone would be an Edberg guy.
Dean and I made our way to a posh hotel about ten minutes from Trafalgar Square, where a surprisingly large group of local and international media had gathered to talk to Becker about his new endeavour. Becker walked into the room wearing a not-too-trendy suit and button-up shirt, no tie, but it was his face that really caught my eye. His fair skin was bright red, and he looked extremely puffy, with big bags under his eyes. He was unshaven. His was the face of a man who had been drinking heavily the night before and probably wanted to be anywhere but this hotel right now. I suddenly realized he might not be in the mood to guess the identity of some random Canadian on some random Canadian’s T-shirt.
After Becker was introduced, we were all subjected to his new commercial, which was surprisingly tasteful and well done, followed by a pre-selected interviewer asking him a series of standard questions about his new Travel Britain role. After another half-hour or so, the interviewer turned to us seated in front of him and opened things up to the floor for questions. The first two were innocent enough, pretty much verbatim from what the one-on-one interviewer had already asked him, but the third interviewer was different. She had travelled to the event all the way from Germany and asked her question first in German and then in English:
“Mr. Becker, I’m wondering if you have considered how German people might feel about you, being one of the world’s most famous German people, endorsing a campaign to travel to Britain. Do you think that the German people will be disappointed that you didn’t elect to do a similar campaign in your home country instead?”
On the surface, Becker didn’t seem fazed by the question. Instead, he answered in a measured and thoughtful way in German and then English so we could all understand. He then carried on to the next question. Maybe Boris wasn’t in such a bad mood after all. Maybe this whole day would work out okay, I thought to myself.
After the press questions had been exhausted, those of us who wanted to go one-on-one with the tennis star were corralled into a corner just outside of the conference room. As I found my place in line, I saw the German reporter and two of her colleagues gather just outside the room, speaking quietly among themselves. Suddenly, Boris came flying out of the room toward them, followed by his own press agent, who seemed to be trying to calm him down. Boris approached the German reporter and her colleagues and began berating them in their native tongue. Speaking quickly and sternly but not shouting, never raising his voice, it was clear to me and everyone in the room he was unhappy with the question she had asked and was going to let her know about it. You didn’t even need to understand a speck of Deutsch to understand that the former Olympic gold medallist was upset. His rant toward the reporter lasted about thirty seconds, after which she turned toward us. The German reporter’s face was white. I thought she might start to cry.
At that point it was almost my turn to interview him, and quite frankly, I was now shitting myself.
I was up after a stunning English girl who was strictly told by Becker’s PR agent that she was allowed a total of two questions and then she had to move on. Five questions later it was my turn. I walked up to Boris, who smiled amiably and shook my hand. His was the pungent smell of stale booze, cigarettes, and regret.
I quickly explained the situation “This is a famous Canadian named Dan on my T-shirt. Can you guess which Canadian Dan it is?”
Often, when you go to a press conference like this, whether it’s for a film or a television show or a new condo some celebrity is endorsing, the celebrity has been asked the same question over and over and over. This situation was no different. Pretty much everyone here was asking the same first question: Why did you decide to endorse Travel Britain? For some the name of the game is politely answering these same questions over and over as quickly as possible, fulfilling their obligation, and getting the fuck out of there. So when you throw a curveball into the mix like I was doing with my “game show,” you are entering into a serious risk/reward situation. There will be no middle ground. Either the subject will be delighted to not have to answer the same questions he or she has just answered a million times and will participate with unbridled enthusiasm, or the subject will be annoyed that you tried to go “off script,” telling you to get on with it and stop wasting valuable time, and you’ll slink away full of shame. Basically I was in the same conundrum I faced when presenting Will Ferrell with that piece of hotel stationery. Based on Boris’s reaction to the inquiry from the German woman, I was fearing the worst.
But Boris was delighted.
His face lit up like a tannenbaum. “What is this?” he asked with genuine curiosity and delight.
“Oh, just a fun little game from Canada!” I replied with genuine relief in my voice. Becker was in. I started to lay out the multiple choice questions for him.
“Boris Becker … Is this [gesturing to my T-shirt] … the father of Canadian tennis star Milos Raonic, Dan Raonic?”
Boris smiled, he was enjoying this. He had forgotten all about the woman who dared question his loyalty to his own country.
“Is it … the brother of Canadian superstar vocalist Celine Dion, Dan Dion?”
Boris looked into the camera with a goofy face that said “I don’t know what’s happening but I like it!”
“Is it … famous Canadian sports anchor Dan O’Toole? Or … is it famous Canadian radio personality Tarzan Dan? Boris … HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DAN?”
Boris studied the face on my T-shirt again. He concluded that it was not “the father of Raonic” and ultimately decided it must be Tarzan Dan. I shook my head. “Well, who is it?” he demanded. He wanted the answer to this age-old question as much as anyone. I informed him that the man on my shirt was, in fact, a “famous” Canadian sportscaster, and he seemed satisfied. Boris thanked me for my time, made sure to let me know there was a catered lunch available to me, shook my hand, and bid me Auf Wiedersehen.
My next venture out and about in London would not end with such good vibes.
CHAPTER 33
The Mexicans
OVER
ALL, OUR FIRST FEW SHOWS from Trafalgar Square were going well, which is why I was so surprised when Ken called me one afternoon before we were about to shoot our fourth show: “How would you feel about Dan coming over to London?”
I was shocked and delighted. TSN was never known for spending money on production if they didn’t have to, especially when it was clear the shows were working and there were no technical issues. Instead, Ken explained that he simply thought the show would be better if Dan were in London and not via satellite in a studio. I couldn’t have agreed more. As technically flawless as the shows were, there was a noticeable and understandable drop-off in energy when we would cut from a solo shot of me in Trafalgar Square with its many sirens back to the Scarborough studio, which was designed to cut out excess newsroom noise. Plus, I just think I’m better with a co-host. A little of me goes a long way.
Ken explained that Dan would be flying over tomorrow and would start co-hosting with me the next day. I immediately e-mailed Dan and got his thoughts. He was obviously thrilled, as he had never been to Europe before. The catch was that Nicole Anderson, our production manager, would not be able to get Dan credentials for any Olympic events because that was a process you needed to apply for months in advance. I knew full well Dan wouldn’t care. Would he have loved to go to Olympic events? Absolutely. But given the choice between going to London for three weeks with no access to events and staying in Scarborough with access only to the Jack Astor’s restaurant across the street, Dan wisely agreed to the flight across the pond. He ended up spending all of his mornings in London shopping for gifts for his wife and daughters and buying shoes for himself. I think he bought a different pair of shoes every single day of the Games. He was like a young Imelda Marcos those two weeks.
All the broadcasters working for the Olympic Consortium were fortunate enough to be assigned drivers who took us from one corner of this massive city to another. In Vancouver, many of these drivers were volunteers who simply wanted to be a part of the Olympic festivities. All well and good, except some of them had a better grasp of the Vancouver streets than others. In London, they opted for a simpler and more effective method of transporting broadcasters around: retired volunteer police officers. Talk about a group of guys who knew the city streets and the best way to get around them. We were lucky enough to be assigned a retired officer named Ian Taylor. Ian ended up being one of my favourite people of the entire trip. Every time we would hop into his car to be driven from the hotel to the Olympic Park in the East End of London, we would learn something new about Britain, the Royal Family, and the English people in general. I found him fascinating and loved hearing his stories about the Thatcher years, the Blair years, and how things had changed now with David Cameron at the helm. He was a true English gentleman, and he was also unafraid of taking the piss out of us at all times. As Ian liked to say, “I’m a bloody pensioner! I couldn’t give a fuck about you lot!”
Nicole sent Ian to pick up Dan at Heathrow Airport and had him wear one of the T-shirts with a giant picture of Dan’s face on it. That was the first thing Dan saw when he went to collect his luggage, and of course he was delighted. He started hosting with me from Trafalgar Square right away, and the shows were instantly more fun.
Trafalgar Square was a dream location to broadcast from for several reasons. It was completely central, with plenty of people milling about during the day, so we could complete our daily rendition of “God Save the Queen” with a large group of English folk. It was TSN VP Ken Volden’s idea to end each show with the national anthem of the host country. He had apparently seen it done by an anchor team during the Sydney Olympics in Australia. What he didn’t mention was that the anchor team he was referring to was probably out of the business by this point, or in jail.
There was only one problem with Trafalgar Square: It essentially closed down at night. We were under the impression it would be more like Vancouver, where Robson Square was packed until midnight or later every evening during the Winter Games. But Trafalgar Square didn’t even have big screens showing Olympic events, and by around 10:00 p.m. local time, the square started to thin out so that all we were left with as a background audience were a lot of drunks, a few families out too late, and a smattering of couples and recent hookups unashamed about some serious PDA. I have never been to a city where the citizens were so willing to drunkenly make out next to a fountain, the cops standing by watching with a look of serious disinterest on their faces.
Dan and I thought maybe we’d be able to get the crowd involved in highlights and “bits” in much the same way we do every year on the Kraft Tour. When Ken Volden told us he wanted to end every show with “God Save the Queen,” I imagined a scene right out of Glastonbury, with a huge crowd belting out the words and trying to top each other every night. But since the crowd averaged about seven people a night, that wasn’t going to be possible.
Instead, we would venture out with camera guy Dean during the day. We could have just filmed the segment in Trafalgar Square every day, which was packed during daylight hours, but we did our best to make an effort to switch things up as much as possible: We gathered a crowd exiting the beach volleyball venue, and we corralled huge groups of Olympic Park attendees. For one show we gathered a small group of Olympic volunteers watching Canada’s women’s gymnastics team compete at the O2 Arena. Then one day we simply forgot to do it. We had started to write the show, and suddenly I jumped up and screamed, “We forgot to do ‘God Save the Queen’!”
“I guess we just don’t have it for tonight’s show, then,” said Dean, who had already set up his camera and lights to film our show and wasn’t pleased at the idea of tearing everything down and having to put it back up again.
“We can do this. Dan, let’s go!” We were on a mission: round up as many Brits as we possibly could among the stragglers, drunks, and general ne’er-do-wells that filled the square. It was still relatively early, so we still had a chance to make the segment look good. But there was one major impediment …
The Mexicans.
Mexico ended up having a pretty successful Olympics. Their always competitive men’s soccer team upset Brazil for the gold medal, resulting in easily the loudest and craziest crowd behind us in Trafalgar Square. We had also seen smaller but still boisterous groups of Mexicans in the square before that men’s soccer final, and tonight was no different. Turns out Mexico was becoming a nation of divers, and that particular evening one of their divers had captured a bronze. A crowd of about a hundred Mexicans and Mexican-Britons had gathered to celebrate, and they brought libations. We loved to hang over our scaffolding and listen to them sing celebratory songs until they eventually got tired or too drunk and went home. Tonight, however, we would be getting to know them more intimately.
Me, Dan, and our English broadcast intern Charlotte made our way into the square to try to round up English people to sing and get this whole exercise over with as quickly as possible. We were approaching people at the worst possible time, as everyone was on their way to dinner or had just spent the entire day in the square. No one was interested in sticking around to sing. We finally rounded up a nice young English family and two English women around thirty years old who were dressed like Olympic torches, complete with Union Jack–coloured flames shooting out from their foreheads. But that’s all we had, and suddenly we were desperate. Maybe that’s why we didn’t object when the Mexican fans spotted us, asked us what we were doing, and promptly plunked themselves right in front of our camera to join in the festivities.
This would ordinarily have been wonderful, but there was one key issue: Almost none of them spoke English. At least they pretended not to, so it was tricky trying to explain exactly what was going on, much less get them to co-operate. Two of the younger females in their group became their de facto spokespeople by virtue of their understanding of the Queen’s language; but the rest of the group, fuelled by their country’s Olympic victory and a large quantity of what appeared to be decent tequila, were not in the mood to
be corralled for a television segment. They were not in the mood to learn the words to the Queen’s anthem either. It was up to me, the young English family, the two English girls, and Dan to drown them out. There was simply no stopping it, and so we rolled tape and hoped for the best.
When it was all over, the look of disgust on our camera guy’s face was something I will never forget. Dean was a man used to carefully organized and constructed television shots that were lit and arranged beautifully and carefully. Instead, he got what looked like the mosh pit at Lollapalooza 1993. Mexicans jostling with each other. The English family just trying to protect their kids from getting tequila poured on their heads. The two English girls rejecting the advances of drunken louts and clearly regretting having run into us at all. The entire thing was a debacle, but I thought it really evoked the Olympic spirit of nations coming together for one common goal. Our retired English police officer, Ian, described the entire scene by using his favourite new North American slang term that we had taught him the day before:
“It was a clusterfuck.”