Not everyone is cut out to have hockey pucks sailing toward them, which is why goaltenders are so special and play-by-play voices sit in a booth.
This week, a video went viral on social media after Mark Moffat, an amateur sports broadcaster in Canada, had a raucous reaction to a hockey puck. During a game between the Halifax Macs and the Sydney Mitsubishi Rush, Moffat saw a puck sail toward him and immediately let out five voice-cracking shrieks, the kind of yelling someone might utter if a grizzly bear entered the booth.
Volume all the way UP 🔊
A puck found its way over the glass and near the broadcast booth… this announcer was having NONE OF IT 😭
(via @Bobbeers19) pic.twitter.com/RaI3cX8VA4
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) January 16, 2024
But maybe even more surprising than the sheer terror coming from the booth, was Moffat’s ability to jump right back into his call of the game.
“Ahhhhhh Ahhhhh Ahhhhhh Ahhhhhhh Ahhh,” Moffat screamed before catching his breath and quickly regaining his composure. “And that puck’s gonna go out of play here…I apologize if I just damages your eardrums there, It went right over the mesh, right over my head.”
We’ve seen hockey broadcasters actually take a puck to the face without that type of reaction, but apparently this has become Moffat’s schtick. In an interview with High Button Sports about “The Scream” video, Moffat noted how he’s let out screams while calling baseball or hockey games, although he admitted this one was different with the puck avoiding the mesh.
Behind the scenes on “The Scream” video. 🗣️@DoubleM210 pic.twitter.com/8uf6b68VhM
— High Button Sports (@thehighbutton) January 17, 2024
“A puck goes over the mesh this time, I don’t even know how it gets over the mesh and out of play,” Moffat said. “And of course there’s been a couple of times in the past where in baseball or hockey, if it hits the mesh right in front of me I do a little scream. But it actually went over the mesh this time and so, I let out about three of four big ones and a couple were looking at me like, ‘What is he doing?’ I reacted as if somebody entered the rink with a nuke or something.”
Luckily, it wasn’t a nuke or a bear, it was just a hockey puck and nobody was hurt. Regardless, this should go down as one of the more hilarious calls in sports broadcasting history and probably deserves a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
