A Look Inside The “Organized Chaos” At NHL Network Studios On Trade Deadline Day

SECAUCUS, N.J. — Chaos seems like the worst-case scenario for live television, which is why it’s weird everyone at NHL Network seems to openly root for mayhem on trade deadline day.

“Chaos is much better. It makes people run to their TVs,” Josh Bernstein, senior coordinating producer at NHL Network, told me hours before last year’s trade deadline. “We are all set for mayhem. And if it doesn’t happen it will be a downer.”

The NHL trade deadline is one of the biggest days on the hockey calendar, as teams make moves that could set them up for a long Stanley Cup Playoff run. Unlike in basketball, where the biggest move your team makes at the trade deadline might be to get under the luxury tax, hockey’s deadline still feels like a make or break occasion for teams with an eye on the postseason.

Which is why it’s all hands on deck for NHL Network, which has shared a studio space with Major League Baseball since 2015. Last February I ventured out to Secaucus to see what trade deadline day looks like inside the league’s own television network and how its staff prepares for a day where anything can happen. It was the first time the network went live through the deadline itself, simulcasting and contributing to its Canadian partner’s broadcast, Rodgers SportsNet, starting at 9 a.m. but going live inside their own studios with NHL Tonight an hour before the league’s 3 p.m. deadline.

It was a big deal for the network, which has grown its coverage each year and will replicate that schedule on Monday’s 2020 deadline. And just like last year, the words of the day will be “chaos” and “mayhem.”

“From a personal standpoint I’d love to see chaos. That’s what makes the day fun,” NHL Network anchor Jamison Coyle told Uproxx last week. “You want organized chaos, especially when you’re on at 9 a.m. You want to see how we react and one domino falls and the rest of them go down.”

Coyle will host a broadcast that includes Kevin Weekes and Brian Lawton on the studio’s main desk. It’s a show that comes with a lot of unknowns and little in the way of scripted segments to fill time. Live television is all about preparation. Getting everything perfect on your first and only try isn’t luck or skill, but loads of prep work and experience to execute when it matters most. That’s not really an option on deadline day, though.

“It’s all about reacting,” Coyle said. “You’re not going to flip through a binder and go ‘oh, OK, this guy.’ You’ve gotta know your stuff going into it so that way it’s all just reactionary.”

Coyle said his prep for the trade deadline starts on opening night, but it goes back even further for those behind the scenes. Someone has to make that binder, after all, and Coyle noted it’s an important part of getting the whole production on the same page.

“The preparation from the research department, the graphics department, the producers, that is a whole different level of preparation,” he said. “Those men and women are truly what makes our job easier and what makes our trade deadline coverage kind of sing.”

Bernstein, who showed me around the control room and introduced those responsible for keeping the chaos controlled, said deadline day broadcasts are a full year in the making. There are some logistics to figure out up to the last minute, including where reporters should be placed in cities where teams are expected to be active at the deadline. For trades that have already happened, the network’s assignment desk producer can also coordinate interviews with players and other guests in case the live broadcast doesn’t yield much chaos. But much of that happens in real time as deals are made and reports go public.

To help set expectations, the network’s research department works a month in advance to put together a 30-page packet of information about each team, their potential needs, prospect pool and much more. This packet goes out 10 days ahead of the deadline to everyone working the broadcast so they can prepare for which players might be on the move.

“You can’t be prepared for everything, obviously,” Mark Adelberg, supervisor of research department for MLB and NHL Networks, said. “But we like to be aware of not only players that can be traded, but we’re also digging another layer deep to explain why that would be important. In our packet that we gave to our talent for each team it will say their needs and also what they could be selling.”

What’s fascinating about covering a trade deadline is that the networks’ team is working against everyone else who’s covering hockey. That means competing to break trade news and land guests to interview before they appear elsewhere. And sometimes deadline day plays out the same way at NHL Network as it does in your home or office: watching news break on Twitter and scrambling to verify it’s from a real account.

That was the case last year with the Senators traded Mark Stone to the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Word broke on Twitter of the biggest deadline asset remaining was on the move, and listening in to the control room feed I heard a producer relay the news right as I saw it on my phone while sitting in Studio 21, just feet from the cameras. Word of the trade was on NHL Network seconds later, but right at 3 p.m. EST Stone was interviewed live on TSN, not NHL Network. TSN even reported that Stone would get a contract extension from the Golden Knights, a massive 8-year, $76 million extension that becomes official in early March.

There’s no time to lick wounds in Seacacus, though. Immediately, the on-air crew reacted to the deal while the graphics department builds chyrons and new lower thirds updating the story as it evolves.

And by then, the network had already had a bit of a head start on another trade thanks to what was often described to me as the busiest phone in the NHL. Weekes, who spent every off-camera moment and commercial break on his phone, warned the studio to “keep an eye on Nashville” while word of a potential trade for Wayne Simmonds was swirling. Eight minutes later, Simmonds was officially on the move from Philadelphia to Nashville, and anchor Tony Luftman revealed on-air that Weekes had been texting with Predators GM David Poile while he tried to close the deal.

“The best part is that I’m sitting next to that phone. That phone is the busiest phone in the history of phones,” Luftman said earlier in the day. “I see the names pop up and I’m like, ‘Whoa. We’re about to find out something cool.'”

Weekes, a former goaltender-turned broadcaster, is as charismatic as he is well-connected. Last year I watched him work his phone while coordinating with the booth to build graphics to help illustrate a point he wanted to make in an upcoming segment. He’s quick to compliment those working behind the scenes and on the air, but those that work with him offered up some lofty praise as well.

“He’s one of those guys — and it’s so cliche to say in sports — but he raises everybody up around him,” Coyle said of Weekes. “He’s a Connor McDavid, a Sidney Crosby, centering that line. You get to play with him? One, it’s an honor and two he’s going to make you better.”

Coyle continues.

“And I’ve never seen a guy more prepared and dialed in to all aspects of the hockey world than he is. He is nonstop on his phone. Watching hockey, calling his contacts, talking to people. Engaging with the fans. This guy has the pulse on everything and anything.”

Those connections are essential to the broadcast, but so is the steady hand the control room has over the operations on what can be an overwhelming day. During a commercial break the roles of the dozen or so people in the room were quickly explained to me, starting with the balance between the producer deciding what the broadcast will do and the director commanding that decision into action. All the while videos are queued up, associate directors are communicating with remote talent and emails and phone calls are setting up potential interviews for a rapidly-evolving show.

There’s no telling what will make it on air, or what the story will be. The best example of this is when the seriousness of a frantic deadline gave way to physical comedy. During a commercial break, Brian Lawton left the desk quickly and, on his way back, somehow walked right into a camera. Once everyone realized Lawton was OK, it was a mad dash to make the unlikely collision part of the show itself.

He appeared on air with a noticeable mark near his left eye. One of the network’s reporters tweeted a fake injury report for him. An “upper body injury,” of course. The producer asked for video of the collision, and the control room’s back bench quickly found the unaired footage of the collision and reaction, cut it up and had it ready to queue when the studio mentioned it on air when the show came back from commercial.

Later on, when Lawton tweeted out a photo of the black eye the camera gave him, the network’s Twitter account was ready with a GIF of the incident.

It was a moment of levity that highlighted the network’s ability to work quickly, and not take itself so seriously. The broadcast is peppered with jokes and wordplay, and though some employees pull double duty with both hockey and baseball, it’s a flagship broadcast that truly loves hockey. This year the league is also simulcasting NHL Network’s deadline show on NHL.com from 2-5 p.m. as well. It’s a long way from the small space NHL Network once occupied in its New York City retail store before its move to Secaucus.

“It was a radio studio that morphed into a TV studio. It was about the size of this room,” senior reporter and commentator E.J. Hradek said last year, gesturing around a small office filled mostly with the various ties he wears on air. “They really did a terrific job for what the space was… they made the most out of what they had.”

Hradek worked more than a decade at ESPN as a reporter and once spent deadlines working the phones to break news and file reports. Now, his role is a bit different on air.

“I used to have to be on the phone all the time,” he said. “I’m not in the role of being a breaking news guy like I was at ESPN. So when a trade happens I want to be in reaction and analysis.”

Like in 2019, Hradek will be in The Rink studio on Monday, manning a second desk with Mike Kelly, a more analytics-focused hockey mind that’s a new addition in 2020. It’s another sign of growth at the network, which Hradek hopes will continue as the years go by.

“We have great people around us, so much more support. And we’re able to grow the thing,” Hradek said. “And it will continue to grow as the footprint of hockey in the United States continues to grow.”