Radmila Malobabic
Sports Reporter
The OCAA Championships are the most anticipated games of the season and Rogers Television is a local station that airs most of the championship games.
“It’s a big challenge to focus on locally, as much as possible,” said Mike Patterson, senior manager of sports and sponsorship at Rogers. “Our motto is ‘local matters’, so we have a number of challenges when we try to air games. We can’t all the time be perfect, but we try.”
The last OCAA game aired on Rogers was the all-star basketball game, pre-recorded from Durham College. The most recent game covered at Humber was a men’s basketball game on Dec. 1 when the Sheridan Bruins came to the North Campus.
“We have stations in three provinces, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Ontario,” Patterson said. “We have contracts with a lot of (Ontario Hockey League) teams, peewee hockey teams, colleges and high schools. So we don’t air many OCAA games.”
But Patterson said the peak hours for Rogers are between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
“Mike (Patterson) is always on the go, in meetings all the time, making deals with different teams and schools,” said Gavin Lumsden, supervising mobile producer in Ottawa. “He’s the man when it comes to sports on Rogers.”
Patterson said most local games are in Ontario and the focus is on OHL games more than OCAA.
“We usually air OCAA championship games, more than any other. We don’t get a Maple Leaf audience, but we get more viewers when we air big games like that.”
