Moments after calling the Canadian women’s soccer team loss to Germany in the Olympic quarterfinal, Signa Butler was eating out of a candy cup in Toronto.
No hum of the crowd exiting the stands or the smell of empty beer cans. Just her and a candy cup in a quiet studio, 6,000 kilometres away from the stadium.
“When the game was over, it was just over, and it kind of felt like our Olympics were over,” Butler, one of CBC’s colour commentators at the Paris Olympics, said in an interview. “It was a really unsettling feeling.”
Such is often life for CBC’s roster of broadcasters reporting live from Toronto, not Paris, for these Olympics. For several reasons that include cost saving and logistics, many of the voices emitted from televisions across the country are sitting in small booths at CBC’s Toronto headquarters.
It’s an experience broadcasters like Butler are familiar with, and some have even found it provides a more predictable environment that shrinks the list of things that can go wrong.
Brenda Irving, speaking after wrapping up coverage of gymnastics with co-host Kyle Shewfelt, said there are benefits to providing commentary remotely, especially since broadcasts can avoid multiple-hour commutes to and from stadiums, which can eat up three or more hours a day.
This is Irving’s third remote broadcast for the Olympics and she said she uses that extra time for prep. (A challenge, she noted, working alongside Shewfelt, a former Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics: “Just trying to keep up with him is the name of the game.”)
Being in the crowd is a perk in its own right, Irving said. Calling Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s routine at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, “you could just sense in the crowd that there would have been a revolt if they didn’t give (the French) the win,” she said.
“And then they had their free dance and it was just so spectacular and out of this world. And just to feel that feeling in the arena that they couldn’t be denied — that sounds so corny, but I just felt they couldn’t take it away from them.”
But Irving adapted to the circumstances: She turns up the sounds of the crowd. Several monitors show different angles and with cameras increasingly clear, she finds it’s never been easier to interpret the action on the floor.
“Pros and cons, but I’m used to it now,” she said.
Likewise, Butler said she’s sufficiently able to prepare for a call through on-the-ground reporting from her CBC colleagues. (Butler was recently nominated at the Canadian Screen Awards for best play-by-play announcer.)
Even without the scream of the crowd in her ear, her passion for athletics makes her job easy, she said. After the women’s soccer team’s first game in the group stage, Butler moved in and out of her chair so often her arms were sore.
“I was like, ‘I think I need to watch this for the rest of the tournament or I will not be able to survive,” said Butler, a former elite soccer player. She’ll return to air on Wednesday for men’s and women’s volleyball.
There’s a wholesome element to covering the Olympics that makes it particularly fulfilling, Irving said, compared to calling the NHL playoffs or NBA finals, that makes it a far more relaxing job.
“It’s way more fun to be telling people or explaining something they don’t know much about, as opposed to covering those sports where everyone an armchair quarterback,” she said. With gymnastics coming to a close, she’ll be returning to the booth on the weekend for the marathon.
“It feels fresh and it feels new.”
Even so, broadcasters are many Canadians first and last point of contact during the moments they’ll remember from the Paris Games. Butler said she carries that weight, whether it’s from the press box or 4 a.m. inside a small booth in Ontario.
“You feel a lot of responsibility because you really want to do the athletes justice, especially when it’s the Olympics. It’s once every four years — you do not want to mess up that call.
“That’s some pressure, but it’s a good kind of pressure, and it’s a privilege to be able to do it.”
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