1. Seems Dangerous
The Bare Wire that Launched an Obsession
There was a bare wire hanging from the ceiling at the Tucson Convention Center.
One, solitary, gray, bare wire with exposed copper at the dangly end.
This was how the AM radio station that was carrying the Arizona Icecats home games received the signal from the arena.
It was 1997. I had just agreed to produce and provide color commentary on the radio for the University of Arizona’s collegiate club hockey team, The Arizona Icecats, and I was being given a tour of the broadcast location by one of the techs at the arena.
It was explained to me that what I would do with the wire was attach the bare ends to the “banana” connections on the back of the microphone mixer. It seemed old school. And weird. And maybe a little dangerous. That wire dangling from the ceiling was just there… dangling… all the time… waiting to be connected to something that would magically send audio through the air to listeners so they could hear what the Icecats were doing on any given game night. I don’t know what it connected to, I seem to remember being told it was connected to a transmitter on the roof but looking back now that seems insane.
It was explained to me that what I would do with the wire was attach the bare ends to the “banana” connections on the back of the microphone mixer. It seemed old school. And weird. And maybe a little dangerous.
Even crazier- it worked. On game nights I attached the mixer and the microphones and was immediately in contact with the engineer at the radio station, like he was just there all the time waiting for me to connect. I don’t remember how I was able to hear him, or even if I was able to hear him. I connected an actual transistor radio to a pair of headphones so I could hear what was being broadcast… meaning when I or my broadcast partner (another story for another day) spoke I would hear our “live” audio in my left ear, and our audio again coming from the radio a fraction of a second later in my right ear. It’s how I heard the broadcasts for at least three of the 13 seasons I spent with the Icecats, and it’s a miracle it didn’t scramble my brain.
My story starts earlier than this and we’ll certainly cover a lot of it… but the bare wire dangling from the ceiling of the Tucson Convention Center Arena in 1997 is the unlikely catalyst of a career path I couldn’t possibly have anticipated.