Interview with NIHL
Radio spokesperson Oz Phillips by Paul & Lucy for "Best Kept Secrets" show on
103.2 Preston FM
Briefly to start, Oz, what exactly IS NIHL Radio?
Well to put it simply it is an initiative that has been
put together by myself and a gentleman called Stewart Cunliffe with the aim of
providing teams and their fans with their own radio stations to broadcast games
and interviews for the benefit of everyone.
It is, on paper, the third tier of ice hockey in this
country. Whilst the Elite League benefits from Sky Sports coverage and
professional contracts and the Premier League enjoys reasonably sized teams in
large catchment areas such as Manchester or Milton Keynes, the National League
is viewed as a development league and consists of a combination of strong teams
from smaller towns and “junior” teams representing teams from the leagues
above.
This project
initially started through broadcasting Blackburn Hawks games. How did it
progress to this set-up?
At the start of this season, a few people connected with
Blackburn Hawks and the HawksF5 Supporters Group looked at the feasibility of
broadcasting away games and came across a relatively straight forward service
called Shoutcast. Whilst this was easily setup and working, it had many
shortcomings so Stewart started looking at other options that addressed the
minor teething difficulties and came across the Icecast platform which, among
other things, allows multiple radio stations to broadcast from the same server.
In the meantime a couple of teams from the Moralee Conference approached us for
advice on setting up their own stations and it made sense to offer them a
working system rather than having them struggle through the same issues.
And which teams
have you already got on board for NIHL Radio for next season?
Confirmed teams are Blackburn Hawks, Whitley Warriors and
Billingham Stars from the Moralee Conference and Widnes Wild and Deeside
Dragons from the Laidler Conference. Other teams have approached us already
about the possibility of joining the initiative but they have yet to officially
confirm their involvement.
Is NIHL Radio therefore a Blackburn Hawks project?
No, it isn’t. NIHL Radio is a completely independent
setup to any of the teams; whilst the background behind this project comes from
initial work with Blackburn Hawks and the HawksF5 Supporters Group, the only
real link now is that myself and Stewart Cunliffe are Hawks fans. In fact, at
the last Supporters Group meeting, they were asked if they would like to join
NIHL Radio or stay as an individual radio entity and they opted to be part of
this fantastic initiative as they could see the benefits of being a part of it.
And you are looking for more teams to get involved – what would they need to do and what does it cost?
Of course we want more teams involved, the more the
merrier! The only point that we have consistently made to the teams already
involved is that if two teams have radio then the away team get priority, this
means that theoretically there is room for every team to join and still be
guaranteed to broadcast half of their own games, but most of the teams that
have presently joined have already expressed their preference for only
broadcasting away games for reasons such as their radio personnel have other
commitments at home games.
The service we are offering is completely free to any
team that wishes to join. Ignoring the time and effort that has gone into
setting up the infrastructure, server rental fees alone could make setting up a
radio station prohibitive to smaller teams so the fact that we can offer this
service for no fee is perhaps the major single benefit of joining.
There are north and south divisions in the NIHL, aren’t there? Does this offer apply to apply to all NIHL clubs in all divisions?
Yes indeed it does. In fact, one of the teams who have
approached us but haven’t yet committed currently play in South 1. Our level of
ice hockey has some of the most passionate and dedicated fans in the country
and yet the level of media coverage, whilst admirable, is severely lacking.
This initiative was started for the benefit of hockey as a whole, not just the
odd team. The only real reason that the teams currently signed up are from the
north is because of, say, my personal links with rival teams or because they
were more aware of the project and approached us before this was rolled out.
For somebody like me who doesn’t understand much about computers, what equipment – and what sort of software and so on - would you actually need for this to work?
Well with equipment it’s all down to what kind of setup
you want really. For instance when the broadcasting of Hawks games started the
equipment included a large widescreen laptop with a small mixer, two
professional microphones and a couple of pairs of headphones. Now it operates
from a 10” notebook running Windows XP with a USB microphone and an internet
dongle! As for software it runs on Mixxx which is a free-to-use broadcasting
program that is amazingly simple to use. We understood that not everyone is a
wizz when it comes to computers and so it is geared towards being as
straightforward as possible. Once a laptop is setup, either in person or
remotely, it is simply a case of opening Mixxx and clicking on live broadcast.
And while the matches are on, you can choose which game you want to listen to?
Indeed you can. This isn’t one dedicated radio station
but rather a collection of individual stations. Every team will have their own
station and identity with the main link to that station being on their own
websites and supporters pages. The aim of NIHL Radio is to promote them all as
one entity by regularly posting dates and times of games and what station is
covering them and by providing a central website at NIHLRadio.com so that fans
can find them all much easier. For instance, Blackburn Hawks games are
broadcast through HawksF5.com but not many people are aware of that website. If
someone knew that they could visit NIHLRadio.com and click Blackburn then
already they are getting more exposure than before.
And when there aren’t any matches being covered what will be on NIHL Radio the rest of the time?
This is another area where operating as a group is
beneficial. Whenever any team isn’t broadcasting, their station just
automatically puts out the NIHL Radio feed which is a collection of player
interviews and other generated media from the teams involved and from other sources
such as freelance journalists. Stewart Cunliffe has done an excellent job in
setting up a system whereby teams and other contributors can visit a website,
upload whatever they want to play and then that automatically enters the NIHL
Radio feed.
What games have you got lined up for broadcast so far?
Well we are definitely broadcasting all of the games from
the Moralee playoff weekend as well as both games from the All-Star weekend in
Deeside. Not only do we hope that these games will showcase the service but we
will also use them as an opportunity to meet with the confirmed teams and get
their systems up and running so that they are ready for the start of next
season.
And what do people have to do in order to be able listen in?
They can use everything and anything. Each radio station
itself is merely a web address and it plays through the internet browser on
your computer or tablet or your phone - be it Android, Windows, Apple or
Blackberry. We are also looking at developing an app over the summer to make it
even easier for people to listen.
So if other NIHL clubs want to get involved in NIHL Radio where can they find out more?
If any teams are interested in joining then they can
email myself at oz@nihlradio.com and I can explain the service in greater
detail and provide them with all of the information that they require.