Learning New Skills

This isn't a hockey post in any fashion aside from me saying that I have a new set of skills that I'll be using to further some hockey ventures with which I'm involved. One of those ventures is Bisons women's hockey broadcasts through Canada West TV, and you'll be able to see this work during the first intermission next weekend when the Bisons battle the Trinity Western Spartans. You may be asking what skills these are, so I'm happy to report that I've spent the last few hours learning how to properly edit video!

Now that I know what I'm doing for the most part, I should be able to put together my own highlight packages from video clips found on social media that the Canada West teams post. In figuring out how to properly edit video, this should make The Rundown less bloated every week. However, it also means that it's more work for me in producing the weekly article. Nothing worth having comes easy, they say.

The thing that bothers me, though, is that if I can learn how to do this, why can't the individual athletics departments from the nine schools across Canada West do this? Granted, some schools do - full kudos to the likes of Calgary and Manitoba for producing proper highlight packages and posting them to YouTube where they can be shared and embedded across all sorts of media. But the rest? Let's show a little motivation in learning how to do something new. You do, after all, work at institutions of higher learning.

I will admit that I'm far from being a film editor in any way at this point. After all, I'm basically about twelve hours into playing with the software, but I feel like I can learn and get better. Having taught myself how to manipulate graphics this past summer, editing video seems like the next obvious step in where I can expand my repetoire of skills, so we'll see how the video next weekend during Friday's first intermission is received by viewers watching at home.

Of course, there may be an opportunity to post highlight packages this weekend, so I'll be able to practice a little more when it comes to splicing video together, creating transitions, and more. In saying that, there will only be four games to discuss this weekend after the Bisons and Spartans announced their games would move to next weekend a few weeks ago while the Thunderbirds games in Calgary against the Dinos have been pushed to next weekend as well after COVID protocols prevented UBC from flying into Calgary.

Being that this is the second-straight week that the Thunderbirds have cited COVID-related reasons for postponing games, I'm not saying they aren't affected by the virus when it comes to their roster, but two consecutive weeks of COVID problems seems a little irresponsible when there are eight other teams who are also navigating this pandemic. This better be the last mention of "postponement" for any UBC games this season because the games have to be played in order for this season to finish on time. I've got my eye on you, UBC. This better not happen again.

I have two additional videos to make for next week, so I'm diving back into the video editing software. Expect to see a few efforts this weekend if teams post clips to social media as The Rundown now has options for video!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!