EDMONTON — An empty arena for Arizona Coyotes home games in the first round of the NHL playoffs has created no notable difference from the level of crowd noise the team generated prior to virus restrictions, sources yawning as they try to stave off elimination tomorrow confirm.
“It’s close, but still not easy,” said star forward Taylor Hall. “You miss some of the little stuff, like the tepid applause after we almost score on a 3-on-1 rush or fans getting amped because their row won a free large soft drink. Am I disappointed I can’t hear how Keith in row three shot in his last round of golf? Sure, but we get paid the big bucks to keep competing no matter the environment.”
Sound engineer Rob Bellows explained the difficulty he faced in creating a prerecorded mix of arena reactions for the team.
“Usually we spend all our time picking the best bits from some of the team’s biggest wins,” he said, fumbling with volume levels so ‘Master of Puppets’ didn’t overshadow the section of three fans wooing he copied into 4700 different iterations to sound like a chorus of unique cheers. “For Arizona, we spent most of our time isolating usable bytes from a bunch of dudes talking about the home they’re having built in Litchfield Park. We scoured 196 hours of audio for a single ‘Let’s go Yotes!’ chant and we had to settle between, ‘Hey boys, there’s always next year’ or ‘I’ve spent my money on worse.'”
Other teams have reported similar experiences, including Bruins players who say they still haven’t gotten used to the lack of offensive epithets and drunken fistfights that remind most of playing at home.
(Headline by John Danek, @jjdanek)
