idlehandsbreedkaos:
While California–born Texas–bred Carrie Milbank started her career in sports and entertainment by entertaining football fans as a Houston Texans cheerleader, Milbank is the new look of “The Hockey Show” on NHL.com. From the sandy beaches of Hawaii, Milbank graciously responses to question for Love the Game and talks about cheerleading, hockey, and sportscasting.
You have a Bachelor’s degree Communications cum laude from the University of West Florida. Congratulations. Did you always want to be a sportscaster?
Thank you, I was born with a microphone in my hand, always performing as a kid. Then as I got older I honed in on my skills and fell in love with sports so naturally it all came together.
You started your career in football as a Houston Texans cheerleader. How has the transition been from football to hockey? What are your thoughts on having cheerleaders in the NHL? Growing up in Houston I was bred to idolize football. I was an Oiler baby all the way...the Warren Moon kind, not the Wayne Gretzky kind. Of course these days I have a whole new perspective but I was always a hockey fan at heart so there wasn’t really a transition period. It’s just that now, instead of being on the outside looking in, I get to be in the middle of all the action and I get to share my experience with all the other hockey fanatics in the world via The Hockey Show on NHL.com.
As far as cheerleaders go, I’m totally biased having just recently hung up my own [pom-poms] to fully pursue my career, but I think ALL sports deserve cheerleaders!
You recently added “The Hockey Show” to your impressive resume. How does hosting “The Hockey Show” compare to reporting for People and Tennis Week? What do you like most and least about hosting “The Hockey Show”? Do you remember the first mistake you made on the air on “The Hockey Show”? Sports and Entertainment crossover in a lot of ways - from celebrities dating athletes, to players coming out with fashion lines, to Hollywood making movies about the greatest sports stories of all time. I host a celebrity fashion show for People magazine online called “Who Looked Hot” and just this summer we featured Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie as they were spotted out on the town looking oh sofashionable. They made it onto our “top 5 hottest looks of the week” countdown.
After interviewing a lot of actors and a lot of athletes I will say this: actors tend to speak with their heads while athletes usually speak from their hearts.
The biggest similarities between The Hockey Show and Tennis Week are all the foreign names that are so difficult to say!
What I love most about The Hockey Show is what it’s doing for the sport - taking it to a whole new level of entertainment that only the NHL has access to, and hopefully attracting new and seasoned fans alike. The least -- not being able to speak every player’s or fan’s language.
I’m always very prepared going into any shoot, and so far so good...I’m keeping my fingers crossed but I’m only human [after all].
Has not speaking a player’s language hindered you from conducting an interview? Do you think the NHL should impose an English language requirement like the LPGA?
No it hasn’t been an issue, I just personally think it would be neat if I could speak a bit of their language to make them feel more at home. Hockey is definitely an international sport, and there’s nothing negative about that. Language is not a barrier for The Hockey Show in any way.
Your affection for hockey started with Blades of Steel, a video game ported to Nintendo in 1988. How many live hockey games have you attended between Blades of Steel and “The Hockey Show”? Who is your favorite team? [Congratulations on your recent nuptials.] Is your husband Blake a fan of the sport, too? Wow, too many to count! Whether it’s on TV, online, or in person, I can’t get enough. I don’t play favorites though -- I get a gut feeling before each game and I go with it, although I’m infamous for screaming at both teams. I cheer for the guys who are playing their best, and yell at the ones who aren’t.
Blake is definitely a fan...he supports everything I do. We make fun of each other a lot -- like out of the blue recently I started getting Maxim magazines in the mail and he started getting Pottery Barn catalogues. I probably got more of a chuckle out of that than he did!
Who would you say is one of the best hockey players that you ever met or interviewed? What was it like interviewing Alex Ovechkin? The more players I get to know, the more difficult it is to answer that question. The guys that have the easiest time expressing themselves almost always make the best interviews.
One thing I admire about hockey players is that they seem really down to earth and appreciate what they’ve got. One of our goals at The Hockey Show is to help fans get to know their favorite players “off” the ice, so I try to get them to open up and tell us something we don't already know about them. I found out at the recent Player
Media Tour that Anze Kopitar’s favorite color is blue, and Henrik Lundqvist’s favorite s
ong is Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Of course we talked hockey too but nabbing a few of those fun facts is always a bonus :)
I can’t wait to talk to Alex Ovechkin again. When I interviewed him on the red carpet at the NHL Awards he said the thing he misses most about home is “the language.” I’m looking forward to having a little “Russian” surprise for him the next time we talk...that is, if I can get the accent right.
Sexism is still alive in the world of sports in terms of sports fans. In spite of an increased number of women in sports broadcasting, women still face the obstacle of listeners' perceptions that they lack credibility, and that female sex appeal, not brains, win over viewers in sports. As an attractive reporter, do you think “The Hockey Show” viewers are taking you seriously? Are there any insights you would offer to women thinking about becoming a sportscaster?
I am not really a reporter or sportscaster - I think of Christine Simpson, who covers the NHL on Versus and in Canada when I hear those words - I am the host of The Hockey Show on NHL.com. The Hockey Show is all about being edgy and entertaining while paying respect to the sport itself. That being said, I take my job seriously and have taken it upon myself to stay on top of the latest hockey news and immerse myself in hockey culture. In this role, I do believe that fans and players alike respect what I do and take me seriously. I put more pressure on myself than anyone else does but I love what I do so much that it doesn’t really feel like work. Fans, friends, families, players, coaches, anyone can come on over to The Hockey Show and get a behind-the-scenes look at what’s going on around the league 24/7...yours truly will be there with an all-access pass to everything that is NHL. Outside of scores and stats, there are a lot of stories to tell and I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to help bring them to life. My advice to all the sports-lovin’ ladies out there: be true to yourself, use your strengths wisely, and grow some very thick skin.
Women account for 50% of NFL fans but for 34% of NHL fans. In your experience, are more women becoming hockey fans? How have you used your role as a woman sportscaster and hockey fan to increase the female fan base?
I spent an evening at Hockeytown Cafe in Detroit during last season’s Stanley Cup Finals and I saw a very diverse group of hockey fans...that’s a good sign. Hockey is re-entering the consciousness of the mainstream sports fan and it’s a very exciting time to be in on the action. But to me, a fan is a fan no matter if they’re male, female, young, old, fat, skinny, bald, hairy, whatever. The Hockey Show does not discriminate!The only requirement is to love hockey as much as we do. I would like for women to understand that it IS possible to know the sport well enough to talk about it, even with the experts like the athletes themselves. Women tend to get intimidated by the intricacies of hockey, but just check out “The Hockey Show” and they'll see it’s a very approachable sport with lots to talk about. And we women love to talk don't we!
You have Facebook and MySpace pages. Have these social networks increased the worldwide appeal of hockey? Definitely. The Internet is a two-way street so it’s cool being able to connect with hockey fans from all over the world. I enjoy making new “friends” that way, and chatting about hockey whenever I get a chance to log on. It seems our fans are more tech savvy than in other sports so they live online. What we’re doing at the NHL is bringing the game to them, where they are already hanging out.
Your resume lists some amazing hobbies. You are professionally trained in scuba diving, rappelling, and rock climbing/belaying. How did you get started with these adventure sports? How often do you get to scuba dive or climb? I originally got into these adventure sports for gigs I was working on. I learned to scuba dive for a show I hosted in the Cayman Islands with NFL Films. I actually got to scuba dive with Falcons Wide Receiver Brian Finneran. When I was cheering for the Houston Texans I was professionally trained in rappelling for a Charlie’s Angels-themed halftime show. I rappelled from the catwalk at the top of Reliant Stadium, down several hundred feet to the field...in a patent leather jumpsuit.
Rock climbing is just something I do for fun, although I recently hosted a travel show where I had to climb a 200 ft. water tower for the “money shot” captured by a helicopter. Little did I know, an Osprey had turned the tower into her nest, so when I got to the top I actually had to climb up and over a barricade of tree branches that she so cleverly built to keep humans out. These days I don’t have much time outside of work so afternoon naps usually sound like a pretty bold idea.
Source:
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Q&A With “The Hockey Show” Host Carrie Milbank
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