Soapbox: Radio
Station: AM 950 "The Homer"
Title: Play-By-Play Man
Nickname: MH-7356.V1.a
Our Nickname: Robo Homer
Most Avsmonkeys know Mike Haynes as the beloved "Voice Of The Divealanche", Colorado's entertaining play-by-play man and tireless homer defender of everything the Turnips hold dear. But there is a remarkable fact about Mike Haynes of which very few people are aware... a highly guarded secret known to only a select few of Pierre Lacroix's henchmen and which we are reporting here for the first time ever:
Mike Haynes is a half-human/half-robot android with a bionic, radio controlled sphincter mouth.
Years ago in Quebec, as the plot was being devised to move the Cheatin' Diques to the lucrative Colorado market, Pierre "Lizzy" Lacroix faced a problem with regard to finding a play-by-play commentator for his team. Most radio people were too objective and lacked the blind, unquestioning worship that would be necessary to appeal to Denver's unsophisticated, clueless fan base. Even worse, many of the announcers who auditioned for the position would holler "Score!" just as loudly for opposing goals as they would for those of the Nordiques. Faced with these concerns, Lacroix decided that the play-by-play duties for the Colorado Divealanche could best be handled by a mindless, programmable machine.
In 1994 Lizzy commissioned Yong Street Robotics --a Toronto-based contractor who gained international acclaim as designers of a terrifying, caterwauling fembot called Celine Deion-- to design the android prototype. Months of development resulted in a product called the MH-7356.V1.a, dubbed "MH" for short. Though development went smoothly, the project hit a few snags.
"Even purely mechanical devices maintain some degree of objectivity," explained YSR robotics expert Norm Jones. "The first MH prototype could not exhibit the level of blind homerism that Lizzy required in the booth. When we showed the original prototype a tape of Peter Forsberg tripping over his own feet, the robot shouted, 'Forsberg takes a dive!' instead of exclaiming 'Oh! Oh! Peter The Great just got mugged again!' as Pierre had specified. When we tried to reprogram, the circuitry just completely fried. So in order to get what Lizzy wanted, we had to go back and actually develop wiring and circuitry materials with a much higher tolerance to the excessive slobbering levels we experience during an AM 950 hockey broadcast."
After much trial and error, a finished version of the MH --now dubbed with the generic, radio-ready name of "Mike Haynes"-- was completed. With Lizzy secretly manning the controls and Norm Jones hired on as the robot's lead technician, Mike Haynes quickly became a Denver institution. Indeed, whether rattling off excited play-by-play commentary or patiently answering insipid Divesfan questions during his "Between The Pipes" radio show, Mike Haynes has proven incapable of saying anything remotely critical of the Divealanche or Lizzy Lacroix.
One of the most amazing features of HaynesBot is the mouth, which is actually a remote-controlled robotic "sphincter" capable of being opened wide or squeezed tightly shut.
"Mike's control panel features a large dial which controls the sphincter mouth mechanism," explains Norm Jones. "When the Dives get a goal, we spin the dial wide open and you get 'SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEE!!!!' But when the opponent gets a goal, we wind the sphincter down until Mike's mouth is tight enough to crush a toothpick. All you hear is this little voice saying 'score', and it's so quick and quiet you can barely make it out." The sphincter mouth mechanism prevents HaynesBot from expressing any excitement over opposing goals, no matter how remarkable they may be. Conversely, to hear Haynes scream after a Dan Hinote empty-netter, listeners would think his hair was on fire.
To date, the only notable malfunctions of the Mike Haynes robot occur during fights, when the unit's impenetrable homerism overloads it's internal logic system, rendering it unable to tally punches with any degree of honesty. Many Denver listeners remember Mike Haynes' glaring malfunction during the Roy/Vernon fight, where the HaynesBot screamed "A right by Roy! And another right by Roy!" over and over again as the shaken, bloody-faced Dives' goalie was being helped to his feet by the officials. According to the HaynesBot's tally, Roy landed 327 punches against Vernon, who skated away unscathed.
A similar embarrassing incident occurred during the Parker/Probert fight, when Mike Haynes screamed "Go get 'em, Sheriff!" as Parker was being loaded into a Chicago ambulance.
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