1 HOCKEY TALK: ACCOUNTING FOR WINNING AND LOSING Robert M. Seiler

It can be argued (Emmison, 1988, p. 233) that winning and losing at sporting events have quite different consequences for the interaction of the athletes and the sportscasters. Two presup- positions are at work here. The first is that winning represents the logical outcome of hard work and dedication, together with a bit of luck. The second is that winning is all that matters.1

The corollary to this is that losing represents a breach of "the sporting order" (Emmison, 1988, p. 233). This means that defeat is problematic. Some sort of account must be produced when preparations go astray.2 In this paper I examine the linguistic manoeuvers that are employed by athletes and sportscasters in managing accounts of winning and losing during those ritualized exchanges that feature so prominently these days in the media's coverage of sports. I base my observations on recordings I made of celebrity interviews that were aired on radio and television during one (NHL) season. I would argue that hockey, like baseball or football, serves as an ideal microcosm for studying the interactional organization of victory and defeat. The early work of Erving Goffman (1959, 1961, 1967) provides an impetus for what follows. I will begin my report with a brief outline of the conceptual framework Goffman developed for exploring the ritual organization of interaction. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Goffman's early work (cf. Strong, 1988, p. 231) can be read as an elaboration of the following statement: T~~ vi~ility of the t micro-social order depends upon the ceremonial order of face-to-

~ ~- -- 2 face interaction.3 In other words, in specifying this set of events and that set of roles, we constitute (Goffman, 1961, pp.

26-27) the rules of the qame which,4 when adhered to, produce a plane of being, an engine of meaning, a world unto itself, be it a medical consultation or a celebrity interview. According to Goffman, the process of sustaining "a definition of the situation" (Goffman, 1961, pp. 30-31) or sharing "a focus of att~~ion" (Collins, 1988, p. 47) is organized according to the rules of relevance and irrelevance. These rules (for

managing face-to-face interaction) appear to be (Goffman, 1961,

p. 80) "a matter of courtesy, manner, and etiquette." It is to these flimsy (as Goffman calls them) rules, and not to the unstable character of the external world, that participants owe their sense of what is real and what is not. Together, the

interactants (Goffman, 1959, pp. 9-10) contribute to a single,

over-all definition of the situation which involves an agreement

as to whose claims concerning what issues will be honored for the moment. The participants generally agree on the desirability of avoiding an open conflict of definitions of the situation.5 What constraints shape the face-to-face interaction of athletes and sportscasters during celebrity interviews? The answer to

this question can be found in Anita Pomerantz's (1978) study of the organization of the responses people make to the compliments they receive in everyday conversation. What fascinated Pomerantz was a problem most of us encounter at one time or another, i.e., accepting compliments with grace. We

all know that compliments are regularly rejected, downgraded, and accepted with qualifications. Well, Pomerantz desc~ibed the

--~- ~--~~~ 3 organization that accounted for this phenomenon. Pomerantz tells us that two quite different systems of constraint affect the production of compliment responses.

According to the first, recipients are expected to respond positively to a prior speaker's assessment or evaluation of a state of affairs, including the ceremonial bestowal of praise. According to the second, speakers are expected to minimize self-

praise. Speakers as well as hearers (Pomerantz, 1978) treat

self-praise as a violation of proper discourse. Responses to compliments have to be organized in ways which limit the extent to which recipients praise themselves whilst simultaneously

restricting the scope of explicit disagreement with the initial

speaker (Pomerantz, 1978, p. 88).

Two broad classes of compliment response solutions to these

problems can be distinguished. Accordi~g to the first, evaluation shifts, the praise received is down-graded. These responses range from scaled-down agreements to outright

disagreements. Scaled-down agreements exhibit agreement and

disagreement features. Nevertheless, self-praise is avoided. Disagreement responses are made as qualifications of a prior

compliment. Obviously, outright rejection is avoided. According to the second, referent shifts, the praise is either re-assigned to a referent other-than-self or alternatively a return compliment is produced. Agreement with the

appropriateness of the compliment is thus displayed. While the target of the credit is negotiated, the level of intensity is not. The referent can be a co-participant in the setting or some

material object, such as the facilities. A return compliment may

- ~ 4 well be cast in the form of an agreement. A case in is the compliment which terminates extended praise sequences. I would argue that these "solution types" represent the rules of relevance and irrelevance for the interactional setting under consideration.

THE ORGANIZATION OF CEREMONIAL DISCOURSE

This is not the place to disucss the packaging of spectator sports as spectacles for mass consumption.6 Suffice it to say here that the celebrity interview has enormous entertainment value.7 First, it focuses attention on the individuals involved in the contest. Second, it creates the illusion that celebrities

share "inside" information, in terms of strategies, team strengths and weaknesses, and locker room gossip (Snyder and

Spreitzer, 1989).

The data for my study--40 interviews or 121.01 mins. of

hockey talk--derive from the audio tapes I made of celebrity interviews that were conducted during the 1989-90 NHL season,

including the playoffs.8 The NHL respresents

(Gallmeier, 1989, p. 28) the pinnacle of success for professional

hockey players.

I take as my point of departure Michael Mulkay's (1984) conversation analytic study of the discourse of the Nobel Prize

Ceremony. Awarding the Nobel Price can be understood as "the

ultimate compliment.,,9 The evidence suggests that the structures

which organize ordinary compliment response sequences (Pomerantz, 1978) also organize ceremonial discourses generally. My study differs from Mulkay's ina number of respects. For ~. one thing, Mulkay based his study on published transcripts. I

~-- ~ ~-~ 5 based my study on actual exchanges that took place between competitors and broadcasters before, during the breaks in, and

after games. For another, the Laureates were physically and temporally removed from their work settings. Almost all the exchanges in my study took place in a studio adjacent to the

field of play, i.e., the "rink." The interactional encounters

under consideration can be characterized in the following way.

The interviewee (IE) has just completed a physically and mentally demanding performance. As far as he is concerned, he is "off- stage." His "event" is over for the moment.

By contrast, the interviewer (IR) has participated in the event

only as a spectator or a commentator. For the IR, the ceremony represents the beginning of the performance. The IR determines the success or the failure of the ceremonial interaction.

It should be remembered that the ceremonial exchanges which

comprise the celebrity interview serve to celebrate winning. Broadcasters routinely "salute" the of the game and whenever they can they conclude their coverage with an interview with the first star.

Finally, the IR controls (Emmison, 1987, p. 97) the form of

response sequences by means of such devices as opening remarks, tag questions, accounts of the contest, and so on. The IR's opening utterance is usually an adjacency pair, the bestowal of

congratulations being the first pair part. In some instances, the IR's initial utterance extends beyond the simple proffering of praise to include an account of the event, which highlights some matters and ignores others. In others, the IR prods competitors who appear reticent or inconclusive, so that a more

~ - ---- 6 controversial account can be produced for the audience. MANAGING ACCOUNTS OF WINNING

The evidence suggests that winners organize their accounts to satisfy two constraints, i.e., the need to agree with the IR's assessment of the competition and the need to avoid or to minimize self-praise. The organizational features of the

"solutions" to this problem vary from IE to IE, depending upon local particulars. Two kinds of shifts are routinely employed, i.e., evaluation shifts and referent shifts. By means of these linguistic manoeuvers the celebratory mood of the interaction is reaffirmed.

First, winners downqrade the praise they receive by using one or more of the following response types. a. Recallinq their own unsatisfactory perfQ~mances. In the example that follows the IE () tells the IR (Ron MacLean) about the 's huge win over the Quebec

Nordiques. In this exchange, the IE hearably downgrades (see 11.

18-25) the Kings's poor defensive play, which had been responsible for many of their loses, including their over-time loss to the three nights before. In the game under consideration, the Kings's () faced 38 shots, whereas the Nordiques's goaltender () faced

only 27 shots. The strategy exhibited in this extract enables the IE to reject the IR's initial offer of congratulation (for passing yet another important milestone) without appearing to do so.

f

~~~ 7

[1] [CBC TV 10/12/89]

01 IR: The kings over quebec this afternoon by a score of 02 eight to four the third period summary robitaille's 03 twenty-third at four-twenty from nichols and wayne 04 gretzky deblois got his fifth (.2) at sixteen from 05 joe sakic and taylor his sixth at eighteen-twenty- 06 four from robitaille (.2) and nichols (.) and then in 07 the final moments wayne gretzky earns his nineteen 08 hundred career point and we won't bother talking 09 about milestones or getting an answer on how they 10 feel but longevity is obviously the key to uh success 11 here's more of the summary of the third goulet what a 12 wild last couple uh moments goulet seventh at 13 eighteen fifty-seven bernie got his twenty-first 14 sixteen-twenty-eight and taylor to round it out wayne 15 getting the helper as I say to go to nineteen-hundred 16 (.) career points (.) you thought it was uh uh sloppy 17 game. 18 IE:-->Well I don't think that uh we played as well as we 19 could play I think that uh .hh we have to be pretty 20 honest with ourselves that uh they're a young hockey 21 club and they're rebuilding and uh .hh kelly made 22 some big saves for us uh in the first period when the 23 shots were about seven to one but uh .hhh we got our 24 work cut out for us tomorrow night we got a big 25 hockey game and uh I guess. . . .

b. Normalizina an impressive performance. Winners who employ this strategy present their victory as another win or another day's work. In the example that follows the IE (~MacInnis) recounts the details of a story that had become all too familiar for hockey fans, i.e., the Flames invariably dominated their opponents territorially, but they had little to show for it. In the game in question, the Flames held a decisive 19-5 edge in shots on 38 minutes into the game, but trailed the

Buffalo Sabres 3-0. Early in the third period (6:30) the IE tied the game.

[2] [CHQR 11/1/90]

01 IR: Al uh not many nights will you be able to get away 02 with giving up uh a three-goal lead and coming back 03 to win it. 04 IE: No that's fer sure .hhh ya know we've- realized that 05 the buffalo sabre's come here uh ya know lOosin five 06 in a row and we knew that they were gonna to be

~ ~- ~-~ 8 07 hungryand .hh we got off to such a bad start and uh 08 you know we just don't have any answers for it I 09 thought th- .hhh the effort was there but we just uh 10 weren't going in the right direction and uh uh ya 11 know after the first period uh came in 12 and told us they were goin two days and maybe that 13 was the answer for the jump and maybe put a little 14 scare into us because us cause with the travelling 15 we're doin we don't want to start goin two days and 16 we finally got our game in gear uh .hh I thought we 17 played pretty well in the second period and uh it 18 really carried over in the third. 19 IR: Al you got uh thuh goal that tied the game tell us 20 about that goal. 21 IE: .hhh wel::l it's a- it's a play we use once in a 22 while when we're down uh uh we switched sides and uh 23 I play- I was playin the left point on the right- 24 handed and it was a matter of th- just the 25 center-man hh winning it back to me and me moving to 26 the middle of the ice to get a bang- better angle on 27 the- a better angle-angled -shot on the net and uh it 28 was good- suter tied up uh his man I just stepped 29 around em and uh just buried my head and shot towards 30 «chuckle» the net and uh the fortunate thing it 31 went in for us.

c. Hiqhliqhtinq the role played bY luck. In the interview

from which the following excerpt was taken the IE () and the IR (Ron Manz) talk about the performance that has earned

the former the No.1 star selection. (Suter set up 4 of the 's goals in their 5-4 win over the New Jersey

Devils.) The Flames played exceptionally well for long stretches in the second and third periods. They were also lucky. A case in point was 's 40th goal of the season, which came

on a strange richochet off the end boards. This goal (in the second period) gave the Flames as two-goal lead.

[3] [CFAC 15/3/90]

43 IR: Yourself a good night again four points you're on a 44 streak now six games in a row that you've scored at 45 least a point .hhh things are going very well at for 46 you. 47 IE:-->Well it's amazing how- how thuh element of luck 48 figures into the game ya know some nights ya- ya 49 think you play better than other nights and you don't 50 have any points but uh it's always nice to get the

-- 9

51 points and uh lotta that is just havin (.) good luck. d. Acknowledqinq the opposition's qreat performance. ~e subject of the interview from which the following excerpt is taken is the worst loss of Calgary's playoff history. This was game four of the first round of the 1990 playoffs. Surprisingly, the defending Stanley Cup champions were outclassed in all departments. Something like 17 minutes passed before the Flames got a shot on goal. By this time the Kings were winning 4-0 on 11 shots on goal. In lines 10-12 the IE (Wayne Gretzky) alludes to the serious back injury that kept him out of the first two games of the series. The IR is Steve

Armitage. We can hear the IE downgrading the lopsided win (see arrow). He may well be thinking of Calgary's wins over Toronto

and Edmonton by scores of 12-2 and 10-4 late in February.

[4] [CBC 10/4/90]

01 IR: Welcome back to the great western forum in los 02 angeles where the LA kings have DEMOLished the 03 calgary flames by a count of twelve tub four well we 04 mentioned on several occasions here tonight that it 05 was just like pond hockey and pond hockey it was in 06 favor of the LA kings they set all kinds of records 07 in completely destroying the flames wayne 08 congratulations on a great game uh NIGHt when I'm 09 sure the back uh not pain at all. 10 IE: ((chuckle» Well it's still not one hundred per cent 11 and uh we don't really know when it's gonna be one 12 hundred per cent but uh as you said uh .hhh ya know 13 --->it's one of those nights where uh obviously they 14 didn't play uh as well as the can they're uh 15 obviously a much better team than that they are the 16 stanley cup champions and uh ya know the next game is 17 goin to be uh lot tougher believe me but uh .hhh we 18 played very well in everything we did we did right uh 19 ya know we came out hard at the beginning and we knew 20 that uh we kept out composure and took some hits and 21 uh we got the lead. 10

Second, winners re-assiqn the praise they receive.

a. Re-assiqninq the credit to another party. According to this rather common strategy, individual players re-assign the credit to others, including teammates, coaches, and managers; captains re-assign the credit to members of the team, coaches, and managers; and coaches re-assign credit to the players. In the example below, John Ziegler (President of the NHL) and the IR

(Ron McLean) bestow praise on the IE (Bill Ranford) for winning the as the most valuable player of the 1990

Stanley Cup playoffs. Thanks to the IE's brilliant goaltending, the Edmonton Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup. Not surprisingly, he has a bit of trouble (11. 13-16) finding the right words to describe the triumph he feels. Few commentators expected that the Oilers would do well after a lacklustre season

(they ranked fifth overall at the end of the season). This 23- year-old netminder (he had not yet proven himself) got his big chance when the Oilers's all-star goaltender, , was injured late in the regular season. In the last series against the , Ranford allowed only 8 goals in five games, giving him a 16-6 record in post-season play.

[5] [CBC 24/5/90]

01 IR: Okay chris I'm with the president of the NHL john 02 ziegler a::nd conn symthe trophy winner bill ranford 03 uh mr ziegler I'll allow you to uh present this conn 04 smythe once once against to bill and uh .hhh pass 05 along your comments. 06 IE: Well uh it's uh privilege and a pleasure and bill (.) 07 congratulations(.) in a outstandingseries by both 08 teams and you were the best of the best (and) that's 09 really saying something because there were a lotta 10 great players playin out there congratulations uh on 11 the conn smythe congratulations to yer team the 12 stanley cup (that) was wel::l deserved. 13 IE: Thank you very much it was just¥Uh~¥bhh a great 14 effort by by everybody and uh it's just uh uh big

-~- - -~~ ......

15 honor to receive this especially on behalf of my team 16 because uh I couldn't uh done it without them. 17 IR: Your dad didn't make it down I was hopin that maybe 18 he'd be brave enough to fly we saw a feature tonight 19 about how he watches the game he's a wreck uh but I 20 know uh he's just soakin every moment of this up uh 21 talk a little bit about uh mom and dad again bill and 22 uh the rest of your family your wife included. 23 IE: Well it's uh- it's great to have that support from 24 your family and it's uh big honor to get this support 25 from my mum and dad in red deer and my uh wife's 26 folks in uh vancouver .hhh and most of all my wife uh 27 without her uh I probably wouldn't be here because of 28 the times ya go through ya need that support uh that 29 lovin support and I got it from her and .hhh it's 30 good tuh- tuh have that- that family uh support and 31 then uh the family that we have in this dressing room 32 over here .hhh ya know we got twenty five- twenty six 33 guys and uh that's the kinda family that ya need to 34 win a stanley cup.

b. Producinq a compliment in return. Winners who employ this strategy--which is used when winners and losers share the

interactional setting--produce a compliment response in return. MANAGING ACCOUNTS OF LOSING

The data examined here suggest that IRs and IEs organize their responses so as to manage the status of the "good loser." Good

losers claim responsibility for their defeat and they acknowledge the superiority of the winners. We notice that losers offer no

excuses for their poor performance. Whereas winners are praised for their performance, losers are never criticized for theirs. In fact, all talk which can be heard as a violation of the celebratory mood of the occasion is avoided. Losers are

characteristically subjected to a ritualized "healing" process which renders loss palatable. In its simplest form, the actual

commiseration (cf. Emmison, 1987, p. 104) can be a token, such as "bad luck."

The data suggest that IRs and IEs employ two strategies in ~ managing defeat. In adopting these strategies IRs and IEs orient

- ~- -~~~~ 12 to future success.

a. The interroqative commiseration sequence. By means of this strategy (by far the most common) IR and IE accounts of the event are traded and evaluated. The IR offers a number of assessments of the sporting event; some of these observations serve as mitigations for the loss; however, none of these is accepted as final by the IE. Invariably, the status of loser is treated as a transitory one.

The subject of the excerpt below is the humiliation the defending Stanley Cup champions suffered at the hand of the Los Angeles Kings (see example 5 above). Here the IE (Joe Nieuwendyk) responds to the IR's (Carl Federosa's) bestowal of commiseration. The Calgary Flames recovered their composure and they beat the Kings in the next game by a score of 5-1. This pattern had become characteristic of the Flames's play, i.e., falling behind or giving up a lead and mounting a comeback in the late stages (see example 2 above). The IR and IE are trying very hard to treat the status of loser as a temporary one.

[6] [CHQR 10/4/90]

01 IR: Thank you peter and joe certainly a stunning loss uh 02 what- what basically happened uh out there uh against 03 the kings. 04 IE: Well we- we were- had a bad start right from the very 05 beginning ya know .hh they got two uh pretty nice 06 goals and and uh pandemonium set in I mean we didn't 07 stick with our game plan we got away from it and and 08 instead of them losin their composure as we have seen 09 from time to time it was us tonight and uh that's not 10 our hockey club at all but you know we- we got taught 11 a lesson here tonight but we gotta find positives 12 out- out of it it's only uh a loss whether it's two 13 one or tweleve or four I mean it's just a loss and we 14 gotto go home with a- in a positive frame of mind. 15 IR: The flames game plan was it to try to hit the kings 16 uh at all points to try and slow them down a little 17 bit uh the end result seemed to be a coupla penalties 18 earlyin the game. .

-~ ~~ 13

19 IE: Well we tried to finish our checks as much as we can 20 but uh .hhh you know we're- we're very- very 21 concerned with uh with uh getting on top of their 22 defenseman I mean they've thrown a brick wall at us 23 in- along their blue line all series long and .hhh we 24 tried to concentrate on that unfortunately I guess it 25 took away uh from the other end of our rink and .hhh 26 you know that's uh- that's uh awfully disappointing 27 for us. 28 IR: You guys obviously have a great deal of pride you're- 29 you're the defending champs you're professionals when 30 you look at somethin like this twelve four defeat is 31 it embarrassing to you is this an embarrassment. 32 IE: Well it's awfully embarrassing uh you know uh for any 33 club to get beat thuh way we did here tonight I think 34 uh we got taught a lesson but u::h you know u:::h I'm 35 lookin at it and I know my team-mates are that it's 36 just a loss uh that it's a tough one but uh ya know 37 it takes four to win this series and we're goin home 38 now with uh our homes fans behind us and ya know we 39 certainly gotta do uh lotta regrouping and uh lotta 40 of soul searching here but uh if any club can do this 41 the guys we have here we certainly can. b. The monoloque commiseration sequence. This form of

commiseration (not evident in the data examined here) is restricted to those ceremonies that conclude major competitions at which winners and losers are awarded trophies. Some of the elements exhibited above [6] can be found here. One of these is the acknowledgement that the winners are worthy of their status. CONCLUDING REMARKS

We have seen how the talk of winning is organized to minimize charges of self-praise that may be levied against the IE and how the talk of losing is organized to manage the status of "good loser." We have also seen how, in trying to reduce conflict, IRs and IEs orient themselves to the celebratory nature of the inter-

view. It is safe (Atkinson, 1982; Mulkay, 1984; Emmison, 1987)

to conclude that, in describing the discursive features of a ceremonial setting, such as the celebrity interview, analysts produce a description of the social structure of that occasion.

~ ~~ 14

APPENDIX: Transcript Notations

The notational conventions employed in this paper--and in conversation analytic research generally--is taken from a set of conventions that were devised by Gail Jefferson. Understandably, this system continues to develop in response to the interests of researchers. The version employed here derives from the version which can be found on pp. ix-xvi of Atkinson and Heritage (1984). The symbols are designed to capture the verbal as well as the prosodic details of speech as it naturally occurs.

(word) Parentheses surrounding a word indicate uncertainty about the transcription.

(.) A dot enclosed in parentheses marks a micro-pause, i.e., less than one tenth of a second. (0.8) Parentheses around a number on a line or between lines indicate silence, in tenths of a second.

(( cough)) Items in double paraentheses provide characterizations of events not fully transcribed. [ Open brackets indicate the onset of simultaneous talk between utterances.

] Closed brackets indicate the ending of simultaneous talk between utterances. A dash indicates a cut-off.

? , . . Punctuation marks indicate intonation contours. They do not indicate grammatical status, e.g., a question. A comma indicates upward intonation at the end of a word. A question mark indicates upward intonation on the whole word. A full stop indicates downward intonation at the end of or over the course of a word. out Underlining indicates emphasis. WORD Upper case indicates especially loud sounds relative to the surrounding talk. . . . . Colons mark the prolongation of the preceding sound.

.h The letter "h" preceded by a period indicates aspiration in the course of a word, commonly laughter. without the period, the "h" indicates outbreath.

--> A right-hand arrow marks an utterance to which the author refers in the text. ~ 'r 15

Codes in square brackets designate parts of the author's collection of tape recording or a published source for datum in question. For obvious reasons, the names of the speakers have been changed. 16

Notes

I gave a version of this paper at the Canadian Communication studies Association conference, which was held at Queen's University in May 1991. I wish to acknowledge the influence of Mike Emmison, Harold Garfinkel, Erving Goffman, Michael Mulkay, Anita Pomerantz, and Don. H. Zimmerman on this study. 1. Professional athletes speak of (cf. Gallmeier, 1989) winning the game, taking first place, and winning the cup. If they cannot attain these goals, they speak of having a winning season. See also Ball (1976).

2. It might be more accurate to say (Harris and Eitzen, 1978, p. 78; Gallmeier, 1989, p. 26) that failure permeates sports. The odd against achieving success are high indeed. Studies (Harris and Eitzen, 1978; Coakley, 1986; Gallmeier, 1989) show that, every year, only 3% of the college students who are eligible to play in the National Football League are drafted. Time at the top--for those who are drafted--is brief. On average, athletes spend between five and ten years playing their sport. Some play twenty years; however, the vast majority do not qualify for a pension.

3. Identifying the stuff of this interaction (in sociological terms) proved to be no easy matter for Goffman, who spent 30 years trying to establish face-to-face interaction as a viable field of study. He once remarked (1983,- p. 2) that his colleagues were never overwhelmed by the case he presented. See Strong (1988, p. 228).

4. According to Goffman (1961, pp. 19-20), checkers can be played with bottle tops on a piece of squared linoleum or with uniformed men standing on colored flagstones in a specially arranged court square: what really matters is that the players start from the "same" positions, employ the same sequence of strategic moves or countermoves, and generate the same contour of excitement. Games illustrate how players ignore for the duration of the playing any apparent interest in the aesthetic, sentimental, or financial value of the equipment used. In other words, this kind of mutual activity (Goffman, 1961, p. 39) absorbs the "participants, transforming them into worthy antagonists, in spite of the triviality of the game, great differences in social status, and the patent claims of other realities." This "world" differs from all other worlds, except the ones generate~ when the same game is played at other times.

5. This level of agreement Goffman (1959, p. 10) calls a "working consensus." He points out that the specialist in service occupations, e.g., the photo-copying machine repairman, maintains an image of disinterested involvement in the problem of the client, while the client responds with a show of respect for the competence of the specialst. In so far as the expressive bias of performances comes to be accepted as reality, ~en.that which is accepted as reality will have some of the character of a celebration. To stay in one's room away from the place where the

. 17 party is given is to stay away from where reality is being performed. The world, in truth, is a wedding. This means (strong, 1988, p. 233) that, when we encounter others, we "dress" for the occasion. The public dress we wear is a function of such matters as power, status, situation, and so on. For the moment, then, we create a distinct world in miniature.

6. During the 1920's and the 1930's, organized sports and the mass media (cf. Parente, 1977; Critcher, 1987; Snyder and Spreitzer, 1989) forged a sYmbiotic relationship: initially, newspapers served as the vehicle for promoting sports and sports spectacles served as the means for selling newspapers. Two socio-economic developments seem to have made this relationship possible, namely, consumerism and advertizing. During the 1950's and the 1960's this relationship underwent a great transformation, thanks to the television revolution. By means of this promotion/advertizing/media matrix (cf. Hargreaves, 1986; Whannel, 1986) spectator sports in particular were incorporated into the entertainment industry (cf. Critcher, 1989, p. 149). Research suggests that, over the years, more and more broadcast time has been devoted to the coverage of sports. In 1961, for example, 650 network hours were devoted to sports; in 1989, 1,300 network hours were devoted to sports (Snyder and Spreitzer, 1989, p. 251). Eldon Snyder and Elmer Spreitzer (1989, p. 268) tell us that, on any given Sunday afternoon in the fall, 750,000 Americans attend professional football games, while 22 million households across the country watch one of those games on television. A recent survey (A.C. Nielsen Co., cited in Leonard, II, 1988, p. 415) indicated at, on average, 100 million Americans watch the World Series.

7. David Voigt (1977, cited in Snyder and Spreitzer, 1989, p. 253) distinguishes four types of experiences for sports fans. The first is the game on the field, which is "consumed" by spectators in attendance; the second is the game as displayed in newspapers and sports magazines; the third is the game as presented via the radio; and the fourth is the game as presented by television. In terms of the theory advanced by Marhsall McLuhan in Understanding Media (New York, 1964), Voigt argues that the medium of print transmits sports information primarily by means of linear imagery, which offers readers an illusion of individualization; the sports announcer on the radio manipulates the feelings of listeners by means of more direct and immediate communication; and (by contrast) the television broadcaster manipulates the senses of viewers by means of multisensory modality with a non-linear format. Viewers are thus persuaded that (Michener, 1976, p. 309; Synder and Spreitzer, 1989, p. 153) they participate in the contest. Ironically, some fans combine radio annoucing with silent television coverage in an attempt to get the best of the two media. It might appear that the spectator who attends a live sporting event has a more intense experience than the fan who watches the event on television, as a result of immediacy of the action and the impact of other spectators (Snyder and Spreitzer, 1989, pp. 265-66). Research suggests that sitting a great distance from the action and engaging in a variety of extraneous adtivities,

A 18

such as ordering refreshments and going to the toilet result in a less-than-accurate perception of the contest. The television viewer, by contrast, is offered a "manufactured" version of the event, one which has been carefully orchestrated by a producer and a director, together with a staff of technicians and and a crew of broadcasters. Directors select shots from among close-ups, long shots, cutaways, and various segments of action; sportscasters take charge of embellishing the drama of the contest, thereby making it palatable for the action- hungry audience (Comisky et al., 1977, p. 150). As Synder and Spreitzer (1989, p. 266) point out, the sophisticated technology used by television sportscasting has come to represent "a type of sensory validation." Increasingly, the viewer waits for the replay, slow-motion shot, or the analysis before responding to a particular segment of the action. 8. I monitored, altogether, 145 games on CBC, CFAC, and TSN television and/or on CHQR radio. I recorded from 4 to 7 ritual exchanges (between competitors and sportscasters) per game, ranging in length from 1 min. to 8 mins. I collected these interiews (610 altogether) in the audio format. One "winner" and one "loser" from every 7th game (beginning at the 5th game) were selected for this pilot study, producing a total of 40 interviews or 121.01 mins of "hockey talk." I transcribed these materials (according to the guidelines outlined in the Apprendix). I then analyzed these materials with a view to seeing how the production of and the response to compliments in ordinary conversation relates to the discourse of ceremonial occasions where athletes are honored publically for their achievements. 9. Mulkay's (1984) data showed that, in their contributions, Laureates rarely disagree with the evaluations of their achieve- ments: they either downgrade specific parts of their work, without denying the overall significance of their achievement; they produce return compliments to the Nobel Foundation; and they engage in re-assigning credit their colleagues. In these ways, then, Laureates avoid the charge of self-praise. Mulkay (1984, p. 548) suggested that the social structure of a ceremony like the Nobel Prize Ceremony is indistinguishable from the organiza- tion of its discourse. References

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