Think of every game at TD Place like it’s a work of art. From the music you’re hearing to the pre-game hype video, Paul Prose is crafting an experience unlike any other.

The Game Presentation Director has been a fixture with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group for the past 10 years, striving to put TD Place and its teams on the cutting edge of in-game entertainment.

Prose has previous experience working with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Phoenix Coyotes, and New England Patriots, and has been doing this job for the past 21 years. In other words, he has a lot of knowledge about what it takes to create a fun and exciting game day experience. That said, there is a nearly unfathomable amount of preparation that goes into every game.

“There’s a lot of prep during the week that goes into a football or a hockey game,” Prose explained. “We’re putting together everything you see in the stadium on the video board, all the sounds you’ll hear over the speakers, whether that’s additional videos right before the team takes the ice, cuing up music to certain points. We’ll test all the video content, and we’ll do sound checks before doors open.”

“We’re also coordinating with a bunch of different groups. Maybe TSN is broadcasting the game, so we’re going to chat with them about where their cameras are going to go.”

“For a football game, it’s about 72 hours,” Prose continued. “If we’re playing on a Saturday, we’ll cut things off Tuesday night, and then just spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, preparing for that game, and every game from week-to-week changes.”

A big focus for Prose is keeping things interesting for the dedicated fans who attend every game and changing things up to keep the experience new and exciting year over year, and even week over week.

“I’m a big fan of not doing the same thing in the same spot every single time,” Prose said. “When you go to some other venues, you can set your watch, and at this time we’re going to see this, and another, we’re going to see that. Once I have that list of everything that needs to happen during the game, I will go in and set it up to where it’s going to be in a different spot than it was the week before, to keep things fresh.”

Part of that is being malleable and understanding the sport you’re producing. It takes someone willing to make changes on the fly based on what’s happening on the field, ice, or court, to get the best reaction out of the fans.

“There are certain things we do right before the team is on offence, and there are certain things we do right before the team goes on defence,” Prose explained. “You don’t want the crowd to be all crazy right before the good guys take the field, because they need to be able to hear what’s going on in the huddle. On the flip side, we want to rile the crowd up right before the opposing team has the ball.”

Prose is one of the lucky ones who has the chance to flex their creative muscles at OSEG and put it on display for the public to see.

“That’s the best part of the job, for sure,” Prose said. “Figuring out what can we do that is new and different, that you haven’t seen anywhere else? It’s really important to present a different experience than anything else.”

Though he’s having a blast making it happen, it demands a level of focus those on the outside might not understand. At a REDBLACKS game, for example, things come down to a single second to make everything flow nicely, with the fireworks times for the third drum hit at the end of the intro video song “Reapers.”

“It does come down to the second,” Prose said. “We’ve got songs that we want to end when the last player is announced right before the anthem takes place. It’s a whole orchestrated sequence, especially in the pregame; everything is tied down to a second.”

It’s only the beginning of Prose’s journey with OSEG, however, and with Lansdowne 2.0, he’s spending time plotting out what could be done in a new facility to take the experience to yet another level.

“I think you’ll see with Lansdowne 2.0 a commitment to technology,” Prose said. “We’re going to have some of those lighting effects and light shows that you see the Dallas Stars use, or the Philadelphia Eagles use, and just kind of bring the whole OSEG experience to that next level.”