As director of audio/video for TD Garden in Boston, John Mitchell ’89 has the best seat in the house. Perched above the main event, Mitchell and his control room team generate the galvanizing sights and sounds of the HD DiamondVision scoreboard for every Boston Celtics and Bruins home game. The handiwork of his 40-strong team lets New England fans revel in replays, cheer in sync, and groove to Gino Time.

 

Banner Days

Every morning, when the elevator door opens on level nine at the Garden, I see the six Bruins championship banners, the 17 Celtics championship banners, and many retired player numbers. I always try to take a moment and realize how special it is to have had this as my office for the past 22 years.

 

In the Zone

One of the best things about this job is the instant reaction from the crowd when we play our videos during Bruins and Celtics games. We have 17,500 of the most passionate and knowledgeable fans in the world right outside our control room windows. That’s quite a focus group.
 

After Further Review

With $15 million of event technology equipment at the Garden, there’s always something to maintain, upgrade or replace. This year the NHL is adding an official’s review, so we designed and installed new infrastructure to give coaches and management the ability to see multiple camera angles of the play in review.
 

Greatest Garden Memories

• The Celtics crushing the Lakers and winning the NBA championship in front of our hometown fans in 2007-2008.  
• The Bruins’ two Game 7 victories at home on route to winning the Stanley Cup in 2010 – 2011.
• Rolling down Boylston Street in two championship parades celebrating Celtics and Bruins victories.
• Receiving a Bruins championship ring alongside my co-workers.

 

Gino Time

When the former Fleet Center opened in 1995, the Celtics game presentation producer had me edit some videos of famous dance scenes from movies and TV series. We’d run the videos late in the game when the Celtics were winning, and cut back and forth between fans dancing in the stadium and movie clips.

One day, VH1 ran a 24-hour marathon of old American Bandstand episodes. We recorded it and cut together a compilation of the best wardrobes and dancers from the 20 hours of footage. I noticed this one guy wearing a skin-tight shirt that said “Gino” on it and put him in the video.

It soon became the team’s signature celebration ritual. Over 20 years later, Gino Time is still an integral part of a blowout Celtics win at the Garden.
 

Larry Legend

The TD Garden is also home to The Sports Museum.  Every year, The Sports Museum has an event called The Tradition; it’s like the Hall of Fame for New England sports heroes. I had a chance to cut the induction video for Larry Bird to the song “Free Bird”. I was a huge fan of Larry growing up.  It was a thrill to be able sit two rows behind him while he watched the video I produced. That was pretty awesome.  

 

Hometown Boy

I grew up in Waltham and love the town. I recently did some volunteer work with the TV vocational class at Waltham High School. I brought the HD video production trailer I built to cover a couple of their football games. I asked a professional director and camera operator to help me assist the students with the broadcast.  There was no cell phone, no texting – just working as a team for four hours to produce the game. One of the kids told his dad it was the greatest day of his life. The teacher of the program said the students learned more in one day than they did in four years of their TV program. To me, that’s priceless.
 

Amazing Amateurs

I’ve worked 21 Beanpot tournaments and 21 Hockey East championships. My favorite days of the year are actually the MIAA games [Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association]. Those are kids who don’t normally get to play here and it’s great for the high schools.
 

All in a Name

For the Democratic National convention in 2004, the DNC took over the whole building. I was in charge of mapping out all of the a/v feeds and running them. We took over the parking lot at the hospital next door and parked tons of news trucks over there. You don’t get bigger events than that. And my full name is John Kennedy Mitchell, so you can guess where I stand.
 

Commercial Break

Back in 1992, I entered a nationwide contest to make a commercial for the Democrats. I submitted two entries and one of them won. I wound up working on the advance team for Clinton in Arkansas that summer. 
 

Wide-Angle Perspective

My mom spoke no English when she came here from Canada in the seventh grade. Growing up there, she had no electricity, no hot shower. Then she came here and raised three kids. I laugh when people say how tough it is for kids today. Are you nuts? I look at what my mother went through – I don’t have bad days.

The Smile Business

Our control room staff knows that we’re in the smile business. It doesn’t matter what age you are, when you see yourself on the massive HDX video scoreboard at the Garden you probably have a big smile on your face. For those few seconds, you are the star of the show! Many fans scramble to take pictures of their friends and family up on the big screen and then instantly share them on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.
 

We had one local teenager put on a dance to a Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” during a timeout. The video was posted to YouTube and went viral.  It now has over 15 million views and 36,000 comments. Billboard magazine wrote that the massive number of views shot “Living on a Prayer” back into the Top 25 list 28 years after it originally hit #1. Pretty amazing what one moment on video scoreboard can turn into.