Revisiting the revisiting of the Pokal

As I said before, I had a chance to see the broadcast of the Pokal final the other day and I was very impressed. In fairness to DK 4, they used to do a pretty good job as well, but this was clearly an improvement. Mostly, I think the difference was in the details. The sideline reporters, the pre/post match interviews and the slightly better quality of the technical elements all combined to make the broadcast feel more like an "event" and less of an everyday occurrence. Of course, the solid crowd and the new Odense Idrœtshal also contributed to the excitement.

I thought the announcers did a good job. Admittedly, they said quite a few nice things about me so I might be slightly biased, but generally I think they hit the right level of explanation to analysis. There's obviously been a lot of discussion as of late and I think the most interesting has been in relation to the extent one should inject "expert analysis" into the conversation. As was named in one of the discussions, Handball commentators spend very little time explaining the most basic rules. As a foreigner who had never heard of the sport before I came to Denmark, I feel well qualified to comment on the positive and negative aspects of their approach. On one hand, it is extremely irritating to hear an announcer explain the same rules over and over again. I've experienced this with American commentators doing volleyball and beach volleyball for years now. You can only hear that teams can score on every play now so many times before you go crazy. On the other hand, to bring it back to handball, I still have very little understanding of the basic rules. I find the sport interesting and especially suspenseful, but a lot of the time I find myself frustrated because I don't know why a player is given a 2 minute suspension or why a player is given a penalty shot. So, I can imagine what it's like to be flipping through the channels and see a player with the wrong colored jersey on the volleyball court. It must be confusing. But then again, it might just cause them to sit and watch for a little bit longer while they try to figure it out, or even better, to call someone they know who plays volleyball and ask what the deal is.

I don't think that an expert should "dumb it down" for an audience that doesn't understand the game. Because it doesn't really make a difference. People are caught up in the game by emotion, drama, intensity, athleticism, humor, etc... All the things that make a great story, also things that the announcer can enhance or highlight through insightful analysis. The basic rules are minor details in the bigger picture. I enjoyed watching the EM Handball semi-finals just as much as everyone else and I know a lot more about the sport now than I did four years ago. The fact that I just found out that the defense can't stand inside the goalie area is really irrelevant...

I agree 100% with Morten Piil in that there MUST be more slow motion replays. It's absolutely the only way to see a lot of the really small, but extremely important, things that happen on a volleyball court. Small touches in the block, middles who jump early in block or flinch in the wrong direction, hitters who hit through tiny openings in the block, setters that hide their set direction until the last second... There are a million things to see in these slow motion replays. Personally, I found myself delighted the relatively few times a play was revisited in slow motion. Yes, yes, I know that this is very difficult in relation to volleyball. There is a limited amount of time to setup and execute these replays because no one wants to break the natural rhythm of the game. But, in relation to many other sports, basketball or football (soccer) are good examples, the game is fluid and yet they still find time for replays. I would argue that American football has a huge advantage in being able to show virtually all the replays necessary for each and every play due to the consistent breaks. I think the normal volley viewer could get so much more out of the game if there was a higher priority put on analysis of slow motion replay.

I would be extremely interested if anyone could explain how the whole slow motion replay system works. Do the announcers get to signal somehow to the producers that they would like to go back and see a certain point again? Or do the producers just automatically show some replays that they feel the announcers will want to look at? Of course, live vs. tape delay broadcast also makes a big difference... Can anyone explain why there aren't more replays in a volleyball match?

Overall though, TV2sport and the announcers did a really good job.

I wanted to talk more about something completely different, but as this post is already pretty long, I'll save it for another time...

POKAL

I think I've sufficiently shaken off the cobwebs of Sunday night's celebration to sit down and write something coherent about the Pokal final. Maybe. By the way, thanks to Fortuna and everyone out there for a great party, it was nice to be able to celebrate together and share the fun. I don't envy anyone who had to work the next day...

I haven't spent very much time analyzing what happened in the finals, I haven't really had the time. One thing that is immediately apparent to me though, is that there was a lot more pressure on us to win than I recognized beforehand. After Middelfart came into Marienlyst on the 9th and beat us so badly, everyone kind of accepted that we weren't the favorites any more. That the two teams were evenly matched. We might have even believed it ourselves - I, for one, was happy to accept not being the favorite. The point though, is that when we got into the match, all of the talking was behind us and somewhere in my brain I felt that we needed to win. Maybe, it was because I felt that we needed to re-establish ourselves and, most importantly, shake off the latent feelings from our recent loss to them. In a nutshell, another loss to Middelfart in such a short time, especially on the bigger stage of the pokal final could have meant huge problems for us for the rest of the season.

The match was a grind. Neither team ever had enough of a lead to feel comfortable at any point. So, we just kept grinding out the sideouts and taking whatever points we could. I haven't seen the match on tv yet (hopefully I'll get the chance at some point) so I don't know exactly how it looked from the outside but my feeling is that it was an okay match to watch. I don't think the level was extremely high, but I also don't think it was without charm. If nothing else, there was excitement throughout and some interesting things to look at.

A reporter asked me afterward what the difference was in the match and I had a hard time coming up with something definitive. At the time, I answered serving and passing (real original, Jordan). Middelfart (judging from their website) seems to think that their players weren't quite prepared to step up on the bigger stage and that we benefited from our collective experience in bigger games. More than anything, I think we were more pro-active, I think we did more than they did and I think the match shows that. We applied the pressure and we were therefore always a step ahead. And honestly, we played a little bit better at every spot. Look through the rosters, position against position, our guys were just that much better. I give them full credit though - we're going to have some battles coming up.

Honestly, I was really surprised to be named Pokal Fighter. And I wouldn't be afraid to write that I deserved it if I really thought I did, but truly it was a surprise. Not that I specifically think someone else should have gotten it, but really, anyone on our team could have received the honor. Shaun and Geo were both exceptional and everyone else contributed in huge ways. Matthias was stable as always, anchoring the passing and defense. Our middles both got big kills at important times and were active blocking, Middelfart was clearly not as effective as last time we played them. And Søe was the definition of what I think of when I hear "Pokal Fighter", in many ways he's our heart on the court. So, I'm extremely proud of the award and I'll have to clear out a big space somewhere around the house to be able to fit the trophy in...

It was great to see all the fans there. I missed it last year, but I don't remember seeing such a big crowd at a Pokal final before. It was nice to see both sides of the gym semi-full with people. I can only imagine what it would be like to play in there with a sold out crowd, it must be insane.

Now, we have to get ready for Aalborg and the rest of the season. And we might actually have an almost full roster - crazy.