Wednesday afternoon, pre-game, Raps against Heat.

I’m running around, literally, with Annie

Cho and Tom Boutassis, Coordinators, Game Operations and Special Events with the Toronto Raptors.

It’s game day and preparations for in-game entertai

nment are in high gear. A lot goes in to make our Raptors Game Presentation the best in the league.

Annie, Tom and I head up to scoreboard (control room) and Annie Chats with Anton Wright, their Manager.

Anton is busy reviewing the creative media elements for the game and making necessary adjustments.

We then head down to the court and the coordinators check in on the Dance Pak and the Raptor, who are rehearsing their routines for the Huskies Hardwood Classic game and grooving to some Jerry Lee Lewis.

Next up, we meet the 14 part-time Game Crew and Interactive staff in the staffroom.

Annie, who coordinates the scripting, prizing, and Tom, who coordinates the on court and Dance Pak promotions, go through, by the minute, details for each event in-game with the staff. Giveaways, contests, Dance Pak calendar signings before the game, recognition (Doug Christie was attending the game), skits, and even “Flyball Dogs” at half…wow! Having attended Raps games, I didn’t realize that so much time, coordination and effort went into the amazing show I see as a fan!

At about 5:45pm, Tom and Annie go on head-set, that is, so that they can communicate with each other and Anton, who directs the game. Each minute of the pre-game, anthems, game, time-outs, breaks, half and postgame are precisely scripted. “When Anton calls what’s coming up, we say Ready” says Annie. “Sometimes the crowd is so loud we don’t hear a call on headset” explains Tom “so we’ve got to make sure we’re organized. This is live, we don’t leave anything up to chance.”

One of our values at MLSE are to be “Leaders In the Community“. Check out Jason Schwabe’s blog here to learn

more about how we strive to achieve that.

Our employees are passionate about our community endeavors. For instance, we didn’t even have to ask employees

to get involved with the Haiti efforts…emails and messages were pouring in to our Senior Director, Group Marketing, Shannon Hosford (who heads up our Community Development and Team Up Foundation) almost immediately after the quake from employees, asking, what can I do? What can we do? In Saturday’s Marlies vs. Bulldogs, Sunday’s Raps vs. Lakers game, and Leafs vs. Kings game Tuesday, employees volunteered in droves to partner with folks from Unicef and canvass donations for relief before the game.

We also value leadership in our own midst. Someone doesn’t have to be in the “C-suite” to qualify as a Leader at MLSE. In fact, we hire and develop all our employees as Leaders. Leadership, to us, is all about authenticity: being true to our company values and our own, our own personal brand. It’s about edge; being candid and courageous and doing the right thing, over just doing things right. It’s about putting others before our own self-interests, whether it be the community, a colleague, a direct report or a boss. We truly feel these attributes ensure we WIN as a team. It’s a tall order, yes. Our senior leaders lead the charge, but we strive to build our careers on the basis of these attributes. Leadership; just one element of why we’re an exceptional place to work!

At every workplace, style and dress code is an important part of conducting business, MLSE is no exception (and you thought we wore sports gear everyday?!) While current culture gives accolades to focusing on personal style and being unique, it

goes without saying that first impressions with others, largely in regards to physical appearance, seem to suggest a lot about our personal values and creates an immediate perception in others’ minds. Our Senior Vice President People, Mardi Walker sends out an annual (and much anticipated) email about appropriate dress (everyone looks forward to this email from Mardi; she’s very humorous and provides pictures of fashion gone wrong…including her worst fear: socks and sandals in the summer!)

At MLSE, our company Vision and Values are very much about how we conduct business, and ourselves. In this spirit, they way we dress and present ourselves is central to

translating our V+V.

“Dressing appropriately is very important to your overall Personal Brand. The way you dress is a representation of you, your department and MLSE. As I always say…Dress for Success” says Anton Wright, Manager Game Operations, Toronto Raptors. Jeff Carter, Account Executive Marketing Promotions maintains the same “I deal with a lot of clients and fans in my role. I want to represent myself and the Company well.”

Alex Richardson, Account Executive with Business Partnerships, Suites, loves fashion. She chooses to show her fashion savvy at work through “professionalism”. Shannon Cole, Manager with Business Partnerships, likes to look polished. To express her personal brand, she brings in her own personal flair, but maintains the widely-accepted business look, even on casual Fridays.

Neda Tabatabaie, Manager, CRM says dressing professionally puts her in a professional mindset in coming to work. She says what you wear doesn’t have to be designer label, but you can maintain professionalism through basics; classic and not too trendy.

Our part-time staff wear uniforms, but there is no exception to professional image here.

“Uniform presentation is very important” says Kevin Kempke, Manager Event Personnel “Uniforms help identify staff to our fans but it also creates a level of professionalism, consistency and adds value to the ticket purchased. One could say that a uniform is a symbol of service. Dressing for success is such a huge part of our culture that it is a key component to our Secret Shop and of course our yearly review. Looking the part is a key expectation for delivering exceptional fan service.”

Game night. Mid week. Me. A man in a white jacket. And he’s taking me on rounds to check on things.

No, not a Doctor. A Chef. Actually, Chris Zielinski, Executive Chef at the Air Canada Centre. Chris has been with MLSE a few months now.

He used to work for Ultra Supper Club, one of the finest restaurants and night scene venues in Toronto. Chris tells me about a night in his former role, his team was preparing fare for the famous crew from our rivals, the Boston Celtics; Garnett, Pierce included. Even then he was a Raptors fan…and although tempted otherwise, he still made sure they had a nice night, though.

Now at the ACC, Chris oversees many different kitchens and food operations. First stop, the Main Kitchen at the ACC. Here, we butcher our own meat and bake our own pastries. Our fine steaks at our ACC restaurants are not off a truck! No way! The Main Kitchen largely serves our Platinum Club restaurant on our Event Level. We walk through the kitchen and into the dining area. Chris stops to ask fans how their meals are. “We need to have things in order by 6:40pm for a 7pm game start” Chris explains. He is so not like Gordon Ramsey, micro managing the kitchen ” Jason (Bailey), Chef, is taking care of the line. He’s got it under control” says Zielinski.

We zip over to the Players Family Lounge. This is where our Leafs or Raptors families have a bite to eat before or during the game. Chris says hello and checks the food. Next in, the Media Lounge. We provide a meal option to our media partners for before and during the game, which includes a sumptuous buffet meal. Chris says hello to a few folks and asks if everything is going well. They are.

Next up, we visit the Gondolas on the 6th floor. These are for larger groups of fans, and the catered food is brought up (they don’t have a kitchen up there…yet). Chris and I head into a gondola and he lifts a chafing lid to make sure the hotdogs in there look good. They do. All set.

Next up we go into the Hot Stove restaurant. This cozy restaurant on the 2nd floor has an open kitchen. Chef Tandy is calling orders to the line and everyone is working to plate the delicious food and ensure the fans can eat up before the game starts. Timing. Communication. Small space. Yummy looking rack of lamb. And tower of onion rings. WOW. (I’m salivating now).

We then head into the kitchen at the Air Canada Club, also on the 2nd floor. This kitchen, comparative to the 400 seats in the Club, is tiny! I used to work in the food biz, and we always talked about “mise en place” (everything in its place), and this kitchen truly must and does operate on that principle! Once again, all homemade and quality food too!!! The order chits are coming up fast and furious, and Chef Gingrich is calling the orders to the line. There are so many chefs and cooks in this kitchen, making it all happen. The line cooks have memories like elephants no doubt; this is the equivalent to Brain Game….hundreds of orders to remember in an hour? Amazing!

Finally, we stop to see how some of our Quick Service kiosks are doing. I’m very interested in Burkie’s Dogs (still haven’t had one yet!). A huge line-up! I ask Chris which dog is the most popular (Bacon Wrapped).

After all this, we head back to Chris’ office just of the main kitchen, and

grab a bottle of water. I ask Chris about our kitchen staff…what is so great about our Food and Beverage program here? First up, we have a wonderful apprentice program in the kitchen. “It’s a goldmine for apprentices, in 2 years, they’ll get it all done” says Chris. Also, “We shuffle the deck to give people the people in the kitchen the opportunity to try new areas and develop their skills”. Not a lot of kitchens do that.

What brought you to MLSE Chris? D-Dubb asks. “The learning. The challenge. And…I love sports!” he says.

We have literally thousands of employees who work behind the scenes to bring you the best sport and entertainment experiences. I’m going to write an intermittent series of blogs about MLSE employees, our employees, in the hours leading up to and

at the game or event.

…So I head into the “truck” (from where we broadcast our televised games) outside our loading dock at the ACC at around 1pm. I’m wearing heels and have to take the metal steps up into the “truck”…treacherous. Once inside, it’s a whole new world I’ve never seen before! These are the 30 folks who will be broadcasting our Molson Canadian Leafs Hockey-Rogers Sportsnet Leafs vs Panthers tonight at 7pm. Dozens of tv’s in this truck, producers, directors, video people, stats people…

Mark Askin, Senior Producer, has been at this for 33 years . With MLSE for a few years of this illustrious career. Mark tells me his advice for all the young folks “Your goal in life should be, you should never have to put out a resume. Your work should be your resume”. He says that whatever job you have, even if it is the lowest on the totem pole, you should do it well. Really well. And get noticed. Wishing and expecting the top spot won’t get you there. Mark also believes in grooming dedicated, interested individuals, to larger roles with more responsibility and has done so throughout the crews he has led over the years. The ones who work hard at what they do are the ones who get his attention.

Mark takes 3 days to prep for the game. Home games and games on the road! 55 in all. How do they broadcast some of the best game content in the biz? Mark believes in

giving everyone the information…no matter what their role, for instance they all get a copy of the game script. He respects each individual in the truck and in-arena working with them (his team), and their knowledge of their jobs, and stays out of their way.

Ok, and can you say Passion? Probably not if you don’t have this man’s picture in front of you. Even after 33 years, watching Mark in action during the game was inspiring. He told me afterward he didn’t know if I was behind him or not (I was), he was so absorbed in producing the broadcast! For a non-tv person like me, pardon my lack of technical terms, but he was on headset and calling out to the camera crews and commentators every second of that game…what a pro!

What’s more, Mark had given me a copy of his script earlier in the day and I took it upstairs to my desk…so I virtually stole his script (basically, its his bible for producing the game). First time he worked without a script in 33 years. But, he did it. And did it well. Wow!

Don’t make the false assumption that the “sports” biz is mostly men…that certainly isn’t the case here at MLSE. Closely approaching half of all employees, from our part-time staff, to senior management and executive roles, are women. We have a larg

e group of “Gen Y’s” here; over 40% of our full-time employees are members of that generation; we do have employee representation from all adult generations however!

In terms of educational backgrounds, we have grads from Colleges, Universities all across North America, and the world, from various programs; Radio and Television Arts, Broadcast, Commerce, Communications, Psychology, Engineering, Marketing to name a few. Examples of previous work experience includes, but is not limited to, the consumer package goods, finance, hotel and restaurant, retail, and telecommunications industries. Our part-time employee group is no exception; their backgrounds are equally diverse!

We value diversity in employees coming to work for MLSE, but certainly

as employees of MLSE as well. For example, monthly, small groups of full-time employees participate in “Discussion Groups”. The groups are led by volunteer employee facilitators, and an article about the topic is discussed. Participants share their views and discuss their personal experiences. A member of our Management Committee participates in the discussion also. It is a chance to learn more about our unique backgrounds, but also build respect and value each other as team members at MLSE. Topics so far have included Cultures In Leadership, Women In Leadership, Family Obligations In Leadership, Men In Leadership, and The Next Generation In Leadership.

You’ll notice a theme above with the word “Leadership”. A very important ideology, and a value, at MLSE…for ALL employees. More about that to come!