Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Bruce vs Rabs

Bruce McAvaney, love or loathe him, knows his shit. He can cover many sports, each seemingly with as much knowledge as the others. He never makes Johanna Griggs-esque pronunciation mistakes. His commentary style is quasi-excitable yet understated. Never over the top. But therein, often lies the problem. I almost switched off Stephanie Rice's swimming final thinking it was just another heat because he was calling it as if it was a heat. I was outraged. It was such a close race and yet he didn't even slightly raise his voice. Didn't even tell me how "special" it was. It left me pining for some classic Rabs grandstand finish commentary:

"Rice! Coventry! Coventry! Rice! Rice in 5! Coventry 4! Rice! Coventry! Coventry! Rice! Stroke for stroke! There's nothing in it! They hit it! AND RICE GETS THE GOLD! That's gold for Australia, put away the glasses! Coventry brave in defeat but Rice wins! There was dead-set just a poofteenth in it"!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree. Bruce is great calling the AFL, but i had the same issue with the Rice swim, i genuinely thought it was a heat. Rabs would have gone mental over that swim - whereas all Bruce came up with was something subdued; like "The face of an angel, the heart of a lion". All i do know is that Rabs will have a heart attack on air one day, that's a certainty.