Celtics Deny Pumping Crowd Noise Into TD Garden After Marv Albert Expresses Suspicion on TNT Broadcast

by Ricky Doyle on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 10:17AM

Marv Albert is a well-respected sportscaster who has a ton of experience and Hall of Fame credentials, so his suspicions about TD Garden had Twitter users buzzing on Thursday night.

Albert, who has called a bunch of games at both TD Garden and the old Boston Garden, made it clear during the TNT broadcast of Thursday’s Celtics-Knicks game that he thinks there is a little extra noise being pumped into TD Garden.

“You hear it? You see that’s not the real crowd, it’s part of the crowd. That is awful,” Albert said during the broadcast, even joking at one point about the idea of incorporating an arena laugh track.

That didn’t exactly sit well with some Celtics fans, and the team itself issued a tweet soon after, stating that it has never used artificial crowd noise.

Regarding comments on tonight’s @nbaontnt broadcast, the @celtics have never used artificial crowd noise. #iamaceltic #CelticsTalk

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 25, 2013

Albert reiterated his stance following the game, even though he sounded like a guy who wanted everyone to pump the brakes a little bit.

“It seems that way, but they say no,” Albert said after the Celtics’ loss of the team pumping in crowd noise. “There’s times when it seems like there is suddenly a bump in the sound. But I really don’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

Surely, there are plenty of stadiums and arenas that pump in some form of crowd noise, but it typically isn’t something teams — or fans of those teams — want to be associated with. After all, it makes those who do attend the games feel as if they’re unable to make enough noise to support their team.

NESN.com Celtics writer Ben Watanabe happened to be in attendance covering Thursday’s game, and he said that he thought the crowd sounded perfectly normal. Watanabe, who was sitting way up near the TD Garden speakers, said the crowd volume sounded like any playoff game, and that he would have been able to hear any extra noise coming out of the speakers given his seating arrangement.

Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck expressed a similar stance in an email, according to the Boston Herald.

“Our franchise is doing so well because of the amazing support we get from Boston fans,” Grousbeck reportedly said via email. “There is nothing better than having an electric crowd in the Garden push our guys to a playoff win or even a championship. As we work on returning this team to the top level we know the fans will be there with us, because we are fans too.”

Whether or not the Celtics pump in crowd noise is actually a rather small issue at this point. While it’s a fun topic for NBA fans to debate, there is nothing funny about the Celtics’ recent five-game skid. If the C’s don’t fix their problems soon, they may have to resort to crowd noise, because otherwise they’ll be hearing nothing but crickets.

Thumbnail photo via Flickr/cho_kettie

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