Unreality

Last night I headed into the city to watch the New York Rangers turn in a dismal performance and get embarrassed in front of their home crowd at Madison Square Garden. For the first time ever at a sporting event, my section was selected to answer a random trivia question (why, I'm not sure; we got it right and won... nothing). Now I've been to at least 100 Rangers games and probably another 100 sporting events in total, so I'm not unfamiliar with these kinds of things, but I usually just see them carried out by another section on the jumbotron.

I'm not sure what I expected (don't think I ever really put much thought into it...) but participating was different from anything I could have imagined. As a spectator it had always looked like they bring the cameras over to a section where they have handed out 8x10 cardboard signs (or perhaps the section was selected before the game and the signs are at the seats when the patrons arrive) that read 1, 2 or 3. When the camera is set up in front of the section, they show the trivia question on the jumbotron and read it aloud and then all the fans in that section hold up their signs with the number they think corresponds with the correct answer.

In reality, an entire team of MSG personnel came over to our section, pulled people from another section to fill in any empty seats, informed us of the question ahead of time, took a group consensus on the answer, handed everyone a sign with the number 3 on it, planted some 2s and 1s in a few people's hands, told us all to start cheering like crazy and then turned the camera on. There we were up on the big screen, cheering like mad even though the game was paused for a TV timeout. We were then told to quiet down by the MSG staff while the jumbotron displayed the question, before being told to raise our signs to display our answer. Finally, we were told to flip our signs around (the back read Let's Go Rangers!") and go crazy again.

I suppose if I'd ever been asked to put any thought into it before, I could have guessed at a similar process, but always having been a spectator, what is shown on the jumbotron seems much more organic than what actually goes on. It's basically a little mini-reality TV moment. I was a little bit surprised at how many MSG staff came over to our section, how many were wearing headsets and issuing/receiving commands at a constant rate and how produced the moment actually was. The two most ironic bits, for me, were the fact that all of the staff and cameras and instructions were actually kind of an annoyance, especially for someone who was only there for hockey in its purest form and who didn't ask to participate in any kind of in-game entertainment (I'm at the game TO be entertained as it is) and that this completely produced moment displayed on the jumbotron was one of the most enthusiastic instances from the crowd all night, and it wasn't genuine. With the Rangers playing like dung, the crowd was quiet, and the only times the crowd went wild were when producers from the MSG staff stood in front of them, pointed at a camera and indicated that they should do so. It felt so fake that it cheapened the experience for me a little bit.

Don't get me wrong, going to a Rangers game (when I can actually afford the massively overpriced tickets and the transportation) will always be a treat, but I wish they hadn't come over to my section and revealed the true nature of all these on-screen events that occur during the game. Like I said, I might have been able to guess at the truth, had I ever considered it, but receiving instructions on when to clap, when to stop, when to chant, when to hold up a sign and realizing that these same instructions were probably issued every time Rangers fans were shown cheering on the jumbotron really killed the mystery for me. I love hockey enough that I'd always allowed myself the naivety to believe that every chant, cheer and bit of shenanigans captured on the screen were pure and genuine reactions from others who share the same love of the game.

Oh, and did I mention that the trivia was "brought to you by Sprint!" and every one of the cardboard signs we held up was adorned with a matching Sprint logo? Sometimes I wonder if, when I put on a Nike T-shirt or pick up my Verizon cell phone, there's a hidden camera nearby capturing it all for marketing purposes. The only thing that's missing is someone jumping out and asking if I could try and smile while picking up, just before the phone rings.