The Truth About Blaze's Cake

That they do this same routine elsewhere--and I have seen it done in Denver myself at a Nuggets game.

The catch is that whoever gets doused with the cake knows ahead of time, and then they get to move to some nice seats for the rest of the game. At least that's what happened in Denver--A group of three girls apparently knew one of the ticket guys, and they needed someone to help with this skit. So he called up the three girls, gave them free tickets in a mid-level section, nailed them with the cake, escorted them out to get cleaned up, then moved them to the seats right in front of us for the rest of the game.

Just something they do to entertain the crowd ...

this couple were great actors.  The husband looked genuinely irate.  I don't doubt the feasibility of that, but these two really sold me on their genuine frustration/embarrassment.

I saw it live, and all the replays at the game.  Its true, live it looked like a hilarious accident.  

The first time I watched the replay I noticed that Blaze had his hand poised under the cake like he does on his trampoline dunks and his arm had moved way out so that it was lined up with this gal's face.  Following that, Mark Mason had a line that seemed rehearsed and familiar.  My conclusion at that point: Blaze did it on purpose, but maybe that lady wasn't in on it.

The second replay I watched the lady.  A second before impact, you could see that the lady was bracing for it almost like she knew.  The man was enraged before he really knew what was happening.  

Overall conclusion:  It was all staged, very well done, and funny regardless.

Sounds fairly dumb on the entertainment scale......

A friend has confirmed that Mark Mason had announced "Happy Birthday Dave."  Then, after the cake, he said, "That's not Dave."  There was some awkward silence on the microphone, it seemed to me.  My conclusion, shared by my colleagues who were also there, is that the cake was intended for someone's face, but Blaze hit the wrong target.  I really don't think it was meant for her.  If it was, wouldn't they play it up a bit more?  For example, later show her cleaned up and moved to a better seat with Blaze down on his knees begging forgiveness.  Or show the husband chasing Blaze out of the arena?  There was no follow-up or resolution.

it generated conversation for the blazers.  

The cake bit was totally staged, so no worries about the woman who got the cake in the face. She was in on it. I will pass along that it apparently worked very well, because people were sold.

MB

(in the comments on his blog)

This was definately staged.  Every once in awhile they do something ridiculous and embarrassing and trust me if it's on the big screen, its set-up.

I remember last season or before a guy proposing to a women on the big screen.   She dumped her freakin bucket of popcorn all over him and stormed off!  It was hilarious and had the same outcome...a bunch of people wondering if it was real.  

That's the humor in it, it seems so real that it's funny to see.  Otherwise (if it looked staged) it would look stupid!

John Canzano had the Blazers emcee/game promotions guy on his radio show tonight.  I forget the guy's name because it's 3am, but it's the guy who runs around with the mic during timeouts.  He confirmed it was an act.  The woman's name was "Blanche" and is a friend of the organization.  Canzano still seemed suspicious, but I guess that's his MO...

They also made a point of showing the clip during the TV broadcast with Mike Barrett's comment, which makes it pretty unlikely that it was some horrific cake tossing incident gone wrong.