How to unify and engage your audience

Take a lead from the hockey rink and bring your audience to their feet in your speeches

My husband and I recently went to our first hockey game. The game pitted the Indiana Ice against the Green Bay Gamblers in the playoffs for the Clark Cup. (Indiana lost). I had heard that hockey fans were raucous and riled up, but had never fully appreciated what that meant until I saw a hockey crowd in action.

As writers, we spend a lot of time observing human behavior, don’t we? What struck me at Friday night’s game was just how easily a crowd of people could be influenced to act as one.

For example, a man near us seemed to have nominated himself “section chant leader” for the night. He would yell a word and the people around him would respond with another. It went like this: he’d shout, “Gamblers!” and the crowd immediately responded with “Suck!” This was repeated over and over. At other times, a certain tune was played over the rink’s loudspeakers and, when the music ended, everyone shouted, “Go Ice!” in unison.