Interview with Brandon Astle: The Man Behind The Mic

or technically my first interview ever

It actually all starts with a cold November night. I'm sitting in my sports media class at BCIT and it's the last class of the course. For this class we have a special guest who we've been assigned to look up and ask relevant questions.

Brandon Astle is that special guest, one I specifically asked for, and I do remember my hands shaking.

If you don't know who he is, Astle is the current broadcaster for the Abbotsford Canucks. The Abbotsford Canucks being the American Hockey League affiliate for the Vancouver Canucks. He's been with the team for around four years now, being the usual sole voice behind the mic. Astle is one of those guys where if you know the Abbys, you know him. A voice synonymous with the team.

The hour went by quickly, my class and I asking all sorts of questions about his career and life. I focused mainly on his work with the Abbotsford Canucks and was a little embarrassed about it. At the end he mentioned how he'd be open to people contacting him to chat or see his booth at Rogers Forum (then Abbotsford Centre) and once my class was over, that's what I did.

I already had tickets for the December 6th and 7th games in Abbotsford and asked if Astle would be open for a small interview on either of those days. We landed on the 6th, which was the teddy bear toss game, and now I had a little over a week to prepare. That wasn't too hard, having been doing mock interviews in class, though the pressure of doing my first real interview was starting to get to me.

December 6th came and while I have a bit of a crazy story actually getting to the arena, that's not exactly important. Donning my best outfit and a little moose plush for the toss, I entered the arena and made my way up to the broadcasting booth. Only getting lost a little bit, the lack of anyone stopping me or asking questions did confuse me a little. In the end I was able to make my way up and find the broadcast booth.

I've never been in a broadcasting booth before and I remember stepping in and going "Wow this is smaller than I thought."

Astle laughed a little and explained what everything inside was. His laptop set up, the papers that lined the walls, and the small control in the middle of his desk. It was incredibly quaint.

The music from the rink was blaring into the small booth so we moved into the hallway to begin the interview. Armed with my little notepad and my phone recording us talk, I thanked him profusely before getting into it.

As a broadcaster, you give a list of players that are scratched and maybe a bit injured. Is that something you're given information beforehand or do you find out alongside the public?

Brandon Astle: Injuries, no. They're usually pretty tight-lipped. That's the thing about the AHL compared to the NHL is the AHL you can kinda… I'll say hide your injuries a bit better. Obviously there's not a lot of media in an AHL enviroment compared to the NHL, so guys can kind of fly under the radar if they're battling something, things like that.

[I] don't really get a lot of injuries… scratches we get before the game. I usually get the line combinations, d-pairs, starting goalie. Sometimes it's in the morning, sometimes it's two hours before game time, sometimes it's like last game there were two changes after warm-up that I didn't get at all and found it on the fly like everybody else. So you gotta be on top of your toes, watch warm-up closely— although some guys might look like they're playing but all of a sudden they're gonna be held out like Ty Mueller last game. Getting scratches compared to injuries is a lot easier.

I know sometimes when you talk about the scratches you might mention a guy looks a little banged up from last game, so I didn't know if that was something you were told beforehand or it was something you used your own intuition on.

Astle: It can be a bit of both. Usually if I remember something from the game before like if someone blocked a shot off the ankle or one hit the boards hard or something like that, you can kind of see how they might not be one-hundred percent. I'll just kind of fall back like "Oh yeah, last night during third period, took one off the kneecap." You can kind of see if he's a little limpy or gimpy, whatever you want to call it.

Alright, and then who's been your favourite player to watch this season so far?

Astle: Boy, there's a couple. One that stands out is Sawyer Mynio. Just because of his age and he doesn't look like he's a 20 year old rookie. I've really liked his development and got a lot of minutes thrown his way. Obviously due to a lot of injuries and call-ups going to Vancouver, so he was kind of thrown into a much larger role than what he probably expected. And he hasn't looked out of place at all— in fact he keeps getting better and better. I think he's probably the best story from a prospect perspective, just past the 20 game mark here.

Other players that stand out that I like… I'm liking Vilmer Alriksson's progression. A bigger guy that's getting used to the pro hockey enviroment in his first year. Obviously there's going to be some bumps early on and kind of getting used to everything but now you can see him really start to use his size and speed out there. He's one of the younger guys on the team but he's started to show he's willing to stand up for anybody and protect himself out there. I would say those are two of my top rookies that I've been impressed with so far.

You mentioned [before] that you really like stories, especially in the AHL with all the rookies, call-ups, and [Professional Try-Outs]. Has it been exciting for you to cover those people coming up from the [East Coast Hockey League] or just having their rookie year?

Astle: Yeah, no that's one of the best parts about the job is you run into different players that have different journeys. These guys that are in the ECHL, their dream is to make it to the AHL before they can even think about the NHL. Someone signing a PTO is probably not a big deal to the average person, just like "Oh, insert-name-here signed a PTO with the Abbotsford Canucks" that's not gonna make news. But for that person that signed the contract, that is massive for him and his family. They're very excited for him to get his shot at the next level and hopefully prove themselves and maybe sign an AHL contract and hopefully one day a NHL contract. Which we've seen before like Alex Burrows comes to mind, working his way up from the ECHL to the NHL, it's very hard to do. So seeing those types of players get an opportunity, which is a dream come true, and hopefully doing something with it is even better.

[…] There's been a bunch of those guys that have gotten an opportunity this year. Maybe that's not the best for the team, but for individuals that's a pretty cool moment for them.

And what's been your favourite moment throughout your career with the Canucks so far. It can be on the ice, off the ice, broadcasting, traveling…

Astle: I would say the Calder Cup last year is probably an easy one.

I wouldn't say it came out of nowhere [but] the team was struggling to put together consecutive wins from October until about January. Then all of a sudden they kind of just flipped a switch and decided to be unbeatable. Had a couple lengthy win streaks and then after that […] probably closer to march you really thought that they could make a deep playoff run, but it's so tough it's hard to handicap teams you haven't really seen before like Texas and Charlotte. You just kind of see their highlights and read about them but you never actually seen them play. Like how good are these teams and where does Abbotsford stack up? And it turns out they stacked up very well and eventually won it all in Charlotte. That's something that's going to be remembered for the rest of time.

Winning a championship in any league is hard, especially the AHL because you battle a lot of things. Call-ups, injuries, turning over lineups every single night. You need a little luck on your side but you also need players bought in and willing to check their egos at the door which happened about after the All-Star break last year.

So you're saying there's a chance for this team.

Astle: Yeah! I mean anythings possible. There's only been 23 games played so far and they've got to play 72. They're going to need a couple of lengthy win streaks for sure but at the end of the day it's not even Christmas yet. What happened has happened and you just kind of put it in the past and you can start to see this team round out, they're starting to play better— There's a system, a structure, and getting players back from Vancouver. They'll be getting a couple players back from injury. Jett Woo apparently soon here in December, hopefully Guillaume Brisebois is not too far away. You never know. You gotta beat teams that are on your schedule, including division rivals that they play each and every night for the most part, except a couple a year against Manitoba and Laval. So at least the teams that they're chasing they're playing on a regular basis, which is good because they gotta beat them.

So kind of going into the broadcasting aspect of it, what is something about you or your job that you want people to know about?

Astle: Want people to know about… Well, going back to […] the journeys that each player has. No player has the same journey, whether they had a different upbringing from minor hockey to junior. Some guys go the college route, some guys go the [Canadian Hockey League] route, and some are playing in Europe that not many people know what] those leagues are like over there. So you have guys like [Aatu] Räty, [Jonathan] Lekkerimäki, and [Linus] Karlsson; I'm picking their brains on what was life growing up in Sweden, Finland. Then you got like Belarus, [Danila] Klimovich and [Nikita] Tolopilo. At one point last year or two years ago they had someone from Thailand on the team, [Alex] Kannok-Leipert; they had someone from England, Ty Glover; they had someone Jamaica, Jermaine Loewen. Seeing those three flags on the lineup at one point was just very weird to see in a hockey game, and it'll probably never ever be seen again. That's just the cool, unique part of the American Hockey League. You see those different backgrounds and every different player has a different story on how they got to the Abbotsford Canucks and I think my favourite part of the job is explaining how they were able to work their way up here.

Now I know broadcasters are kind of similar to hockey players in the sense that they're trying to work their way up to the NHL level. What, in your opinion, makes you different than other broadcasters?

Astle: That's a great question. There's so many great broadcasters in the NHL, they're doing it up there for a reason. I think that as I've gone along here, I'm starting to […] have a little more fun but at the same time be professional. Whether that's telling jokes or something that happened in my day or whatever might be going on in my life or a funny story, maybe a run in with a player before the game or meeting someone's parents for the first time and talking about how that encounter went. Just trying to keep things fun and light, I think that's kind of how the world is going now with social media and stuff like that. People are looking for something a little different than just someone as like a robot calling a game from start to finish— Which is fine, there's no problem with that, but […] what I'm trying to make a better point of doing is just having more fun and showing my personality a bit more. So we'll see how that goes.

I definitely noticed that you have a lot of personality when you do your calls and it's a good thing! It's something I think people do enjoy a lot and I noticed it's something that they talk about when they do speak about how you do your play-by-play.

Astle: I mean, especially if I have a colour commentator like Landon and I last year during the playoffs. We were chirping each other and telling jokes back and forth and talking about his playing career and stuff behind the scenes that maybe people don't get to hear about on a day-to-day. At the end of the day, hockey players are just like us. They put on their socks in the morning and gotta change their kids' diapers if they have babies. Hockey's a fun game at the end of the day, I'm doing this because it's fun, I played it because it's fun, and it's still fun being a broadcaster.

Speaking of fun, I have a bit of a more fun question. Who has been your favourite person to interview?

Astle: Boy, that's a tough question. There's been a lot of great personalities come through Abbotsford. I would say the top of the list would be, I'm not gonna pick between them because they're both good, is Aatu Räty and Christian Wolanin. Both very honest which makes an interview very good, it's not generic. They'll let you know what's on their mind, whether they're hard on themselves after a tough game or even they'll talk about the team.

I remember Christian Wolanin told me one time, him and Jett Woo went after each other on the bench. And you would have never heard that from someone else, a lot of players just keep that aside and not let that out to the media, but Christian and Jett kinda had that dynamic where that's how they worked together as a pair. They were very honest and would call each other out. So Christian was always fun to talk to.

Aatu [is] very, very insightful. He'll tell you how it is as well. If he's not playing well he will say it like "I need to be better. This is what is going on right now and I'm trying to fix it." He'll just provide good insight into how he's seen the game and how his team's playing and stuff like that. So really enjoy talking to those two and obviously there's others as well, but off the top of my head I'll go with those two.

And that's all the questions I have. Is there anything you'd like to add before we end this up?

Astle: Just in terms of getting into broadcasting, I guess my advice would [be] just keep working at it. There's gonna be some bad times but those will ultimately lead into some good times. Usually the person that has the best hustle gets the opportunity. Whether that's working hard from after hours or making connections, at the end of the day making connections will help you get far in your career. I probably wouldn't be in this position if I didn't make some great connections back when I was playing hockey then continued on working in junior hockey. Especially in this sport, the hockey world is so small and you never know if you need a favor from someone and vice versa. That would be my advice, just to meet and chat with as many people as possible.