Creating video montages takes an incredibly varied skillset. CBC’s musical director Tim Thompson does a fantastic job first of all because he’s such a great editor. “His ability to pair the perfect piece of music to set the mood of a game or series is unmatched,” writes Shold Media Group’s Taylod Shold, who wrote a feature on Thompson. “He can turn a mid-season Sabres-Leafs game into something much more by creating a mini-music video with a mass array of great shots coloured beautifully and timed to perfection.” But that’s only half the battle. Thompson recognizes that a great montage, like any other piece of media, requires a story. There has to be a message. “You need a storyline, a theme, and good ebbs and flows to capture your audience all in under 2 minutes of less,” Shold adds.
During the second round of the NHL playoffs last year, Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin was having one of the most frustrating spells of his NHL career. Coach Dale Hunter, who had taken over halfway through the season, was preaching discipline and structured defense, something “Ovi” wasn’t used to seeing. As a result, despite being easily the most talented player on the roster, his ice time was being cut down, and surprisingly, it was helping a normally underachieving playoff squad win. This was the backdrop for Thompson’s intro prior to Game 3 of the series. In the previous game, as can be seen in the video, Ovechkin had been glued to the bench for much of the game, before eventually breaking out and scoring the game-winner. Rather than begin the telecast with an average series of highlights mixed with music, Thompson decided something more creative was in order.
So he turned Ovechkin into “the lonely desperado,” and centered an entire montage around his story as a misunderstood, frustrated individual, going up against the stubborn Dale Hunter. The video begins with clips of Ovechkin that depict him as that desperado. There is the goatee and mustache he wears, the snarl on his lips, the slow camera shot of him looking up, the cheesy western movie-style lighting. All of this contributes to that metaphor. Near the end of this sequence, we hear the noise of a roaring crowd mixed with that of a hissing snake. Ovechkin is the cowboy of the Verizon Center.
At 0:16, he looks around with suspicious eyes, picking out any possible enemies, and at 0:30, he sits on top of the boards, ready to draw pistols with anybody, ready for some action. But none comes his way. Everything is black and white, or at least everything involving him. The rest of the world goes by in color, but he is not a part of it. He is stapled to the bench.
The music is also reminiscent of a western classic, but only the part of the film in which very little is happening. You can almost see the dust and tumbleweeds sweeping across the plains. As every highlight of the game is shown in color, we flash back to the looks of both the protagonist (Ovechkin) and antagonist (Hunter). There is a gloomy feel.
But that all quickly changes. At 1:02, we hear a commentator state, “He has to relax and let things happen,” followed by “Ovi sucks” chants in the background. Ovechkin seems to take a deep breath, and as he does his color returns, and with his hand he motions for the crowd to bring it on. He has heeded the advice, and he is ready to go.
By 1:05, he is back in color, and suddenly the music is more upbeat. Ovechkin scores the winning goal, and as he does the music kicks into an even higher gear, mirroring his excitement.
In a May, 2012 interview with the Montreal Gazette, Thompson spoke about these sorts of thematic choices.
“There’s a lot of really bad sports television – and television in general – out there,” Thompson says. “We treat each opening like a piece of art and try to get away from sports TV stereotypes, like the voice-over telling you war is coming. We like the music and the images to tell the story, push the boundaries and give it some artistic integrity… I find some of the best ones have the least amount of hockey action footage in them. You can dive into humanity and find metaphors that way.”
The montage ends with lightning striking the United States Capital building, just as it might a cactus in the wandering desert. The lightning is an allusion to the west, but also an allusion to Ovechkin himself. His shot is like a lightning bolt, and he has won.
“There’s so much richness in the sport, especially during the playoffs,” Thompson says. “The beauty and the pain and the glory and the suffering kind of culminates this time of year. These openings try to capture that, tug at the heartstrings and hit (viewers) kind of deep on a human level.”
They do the job oh, so well.
Hockey Night Analysis 