McKenna on his role as the Raptors' Manager of Game Operations and Special Events:

I have been doing this for my second full season as manager. As the floor director I look after anything that is not basketball during a game: The Raptor, Dance Pak, on-court contests, music.

As game ops manager, McKenna works closely with The Raptor. (NBAE Photos)

McKenna on his day-to-day responsibilities:

On a daily basis my duties include a lot of information gathering from different departments who contribute to our game presentations: the Raptors Foundation, community relations, corporate partnerships, broadcast. It is basically gathering all the information, sorting through it and getting it out to the appropriate people for a game day.

McKenna on the Raptors' game operations team:

Our Dance Pak coordinator/choreographer is Courtney Niven. She is an experienced dancer, has done a lot of things in the past, and looks after all of our choreography. As well she is captain of the dance team.

The Raptor has his own ideas and we help him out with those, so it is a departmental effort. We will sit down and have brainstorming sessions and try to come up with the best ideas, the most entertaining ideas too.

The game operations department is great. They basically take care of execution during the game. Casey Maracle is one of our coordinators who takes care of the traffic, scripting, all that sort of stuff. Rafael Turcios is another coordinator; he looks after booking half-time acts and some anthem singers. We have Anton Wright who is an assistant and looks after the volunteer program; Jim Roe is our director who oversees the whole production. All of us do different things and put it all together for a game. Hopefully people like it and leave at the end saying, "Wow, that was fun and I can't wait to come back!" That is the bottom line.

McKenna on "Grip & Grin":

"Grip & Grin" is another name for on-court presentations. We will do a few throughout the year. We will have Raptors Foundation cheque presentations, or there are community service awards that the community department will make to certain players. We set aside about a minute on court just before the game starts while the players are warming up, and have a quick presentation.

McKenna on the Raptors' in-game entertainers:

Courtney is the Dance Pak's coordinator/choreographer. (NBAE Photos)

We look all over North America for the best variety-type acts. We look to other NBA teams to see what they are doing, and we look for shows like Cirque du Soleil that have real quality acrobatic stuff. That really fits in with what we do. We get tapes all the time from people who would like to perform at a Raptors game, and if it fits in with what we are doing and we have space, then we will book them.

Cirque du Soleil has been memorable. They have come in and performed for six to seven minutes, and have done some death-defying acts. We also have some quality anthem singers that come in for us. We had Gloria Rueben from ER; she is from Toronto and performed anthems for us last year during the Playoffs. We have celebrities calling all the time that would like to come to a game and sit courtside. Every day is exciting.

McKenna's advice for aspiring NBA game ops professionals:

I have been with the Toronto Raptors for five and a half years, and started out in the ticket office in 1996. I used to be the assistant stage manager at the old Ontario Place Forum for concerts, and that gave me a lot of experience on live shows, live production, scripts, timing and all that sort of thing.

It is a specialized field, but look for opportunities to volunteer. Try to get as much volunteer work in. Do the best with that experience and opportunity, work as hard as you can and make sure people know you are there. With some luck too, opportunities come up. Always remember to work hard.

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