You'll be hearing me talk ... face for radio, body for sin

Everyone's heard about Ted Williams, that homeless man with the golden voice. It might interest you to know Friday's Carleton-Queen's basketball doubleheader will be called by someone who is typically as dishevelled as Williams was when he was discovered — but minus the golden voice.

Yep, yours truly will be doing play-by-play for all four games at the Queen's Centre this weekend, on the radio live for CFRC 101.9 for the Ravens-Gaels games Friday and for TV Cogeco Kingston's tape-delayed broadcast of the Queen's Saturday games vs. the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

Short story even shorter, purely by happenstance, Will Cunningham, the station's sports director and a promising young broadcaster in his own right, needed a play-by-play announcer for a couple games in January.

It seemed like something to do on a lark, just to see if I could pull it off. My experience broadcasting hoops has all been on the colour-commentary end, including working with National Post reporter Mark Masters during the CIS Final 8 in 2009 and '10.

In terms of play-by-play, all I've got is about a half-dozen hockey telecasts a half-decade ago for Cable 5 in Simcoe, along with three quarters of Queen's football play-by-play more than a decade ago. (That was during Queen's 1-7 season in 2000; there were a couple games in which the two regulars just couldn't take it anymore; as one of them put it during a 60-point loss to Laurier, "Both teams have put in their backups, so we're putting in our backup.")

So please listen — and be kind.

Also, yours truly will be on News 570 in Kitchener around 10 a.m. ET Friday to talk about the Kayla Watkins story. (Watkins is the 12-year-old Toronto youth hockey player who quit her peewee rep team after another parent drafted a contract to limit her ice time.) That's right; promote the appearance on a campus station, downplay the one on a major talk radio station.