Trending
Flashback to November of 2007, a 12, about to be 13-year-old paces in his childhood bedroom holding a radio on a weeknight.
This near-teenager had recently attended a professional hockey game for the first time less than two weeks earlier.
As an American kid, born in an area where football is king, there hadn't been much exposure to the sport.
Yes, he'd seen all the Mighty Ducks movies before then, Miracle, too, and caught the occasional highlight on the evening sports or saw the stories in the sports section of the newspaper his grandfather got every day, but going to a game and seeing it in action was just different.
There was suddenly a budding enthusiasm for a sport he'd never played or seen with his own eyes until just recently, but all of a sudden he needed more of it.
There was just one problem on this weeknight - the team he'd seen in person and immediately accepted as his own was not playing.
Perhaps there may be a game on TV, but the one in his bedroom did not have cable and there certainly wasn't a game on the local channels.
That's where the aforementioned radio comes in.
Bored and looking for some music or something to fill silence while he found something to do after homework, the portable radio on the desk seemed like the best option, so a channel scan to find something interesting began.
And then, there it was.
A deep, gravely voice uttering what would become a phrase he loved hearing as often as possible – "HEEEEEEEEEE SHOOTS AND SCORES!"
Then, from the same fascinating voice, "Michael, Michael Motorcycle!"
"What is this? I have to hear more!" the kid thought.
Well, that kid glued to the radio was me. And that voice on the radio was Mike Lange calling a Penguins victory, as he had been doing for decades and would continue to do for several more years.
The next trip to the computer following that game was to print out the Pittsburgh Penguins schedule. Whenever they were playing, I wanted to be listening.
I was hooked.
And I did, as often as I could for next several years. Even when the games were on TV and I was somewhere I could watch, I'd often mute the TV and listen instead to Lange and the "Ole Two-Niner."
That led to listening to other games on the radio as often as possible, too. Pretty close to every Wheeling Nailers and Penguins game the rest of that season.
My favorite Christmas gift that year was a small MP3 player with an FM radio I could take more places, which I primarily used for listening to hockey.
That fandom of hockey, planted by the seed of going to a game in Wheeling and sprouted from there by a legendary voice on the radio that night, ultimately only grew from there, all the way to getting into sports writing to be able to cover it, which is ultimately how I ended up here, now, writing this.
One man's voice on the radio taking a new interest and turning it into something even bigger did that.
So, Wednesday night, far removed from that night, an adult who is too busy to listen like I did when I was a kid, I got back to the office from a basketball game and saw the news that Mike Lange had died.
My mind immediately went back to that night over 17 years ago. That voice on the radio. And later hearing that same voice as the Penguins had won the Stanley Cup and so many other big moments in between then and now.
As we get older, it feels like more and more little pieces of our childhoods disappear and vanish. Our memories of them fade.
But, some don't.
Though it certainly does feel like a piece of our childhoods has passed away with him, Mike Lange's voice, for me, and so many others across the region, is one that won't vanish and will forever be remembered.
A voice that took an intrigued young man and made him a lifelong fan.
Thanks, for the memories, Mike.