The NorthStar Network

The Covid-19 pandemic prevented fans from attending sporting events creating a huge reliance on live-streamed games via The NorthStar Network. After a very quiet and boring fall season of silent games, excluding the occasional field hockey game that Giovanni Heater commentated, the transition of streaming sports during the pandemic was dreadful. This all changed for the winter season when Giovanni, Kyle Marchak, and I put our ideas together following a discussion of our mutual ambitions to become sports broadcasters. We decided we needed to take initiative and bring more enjoyment to the current silent broadcasts that our school was displaying. This led to a zoom call with our high school's Athletic Director, Tim Bednarski asking if he would be okay with us commentating the games on CNS Athletics, he absolutely loved and supported the idea. This left us with only one problem: Technology.

Along the way we experienced multiple technical challenges. The first challenge came in the form of equipment. As anyone who works with technology will tell you, it is expensive. This meant that we had no room to experiment and needed to know exactly what we needed and nothing more. Another issue we ran into came with the technology. Once we had the equipment necessary, we would have the occasional hiccup such as sound cutting out, the camera disconnecting from the stream, the stream freezing, etc., but as they say in show biz, the show must go on and that is exactly what we made happen.