Andrew Grimm
The flashbacks up to November 2007 are likely to be at 13 years old in the childhood bedroom, where he holds radio on weekday nights.
This almost teen recently joined a professional hockey game for the first time two weeks ago.
As an American child born in a region where soccer is the king, I was less exposed to sports.
Yes, he watched all the powerful duck movies of miracles before that, occasionally catching highlights in evening sports, and saw the story in the sports section of the newspaper that his grandfather got every day. But going to the game and seeing it work was completely different.
Until recently, there was a sudden, budding enthusiasm for a sport he never played or saw with his own eyes, but suddenly he needed it more.
There was one problem this evening. The team he saw in person was not immediately accepted as his own.
There may be games on TV, but his bedroom had no cables and certainly no games on local channels.
That’s where the radio mentioned above appears.
I was bored and searching for music or something to fill the silence while he found something to do after his homework. Portable radio on the desk seemed like the best option, so a channel scan started to find something interesting.
And it was there.
A deep, deep voice that uttered what would become a phrase he liked to hear as often as possible – “Heeeeeeeeee filming and scoring!”
Next, from the same fascinating voice, “Michael, Michael Motorcycle!”
“What is this? I have to ask more!” The child thought.
Well, the child was glued to the radio. And that voice on the radio was Mike Lange, who called the Penguin victory, as he had been doing for decades.
The next trip to the computer following that game was to print out the Pittsburgh Penguin schedule. Whenever they were playing, I listened.
I was hooked.
And I did it as often as I could for the next few years. Even when the game was TV and I was in a place where I could watch, I often mute the TV and instead with Lange “Ole Two-Niner.”
It led to listening to other games on the radio as often as possible. The rest of that season is pretty close to all the wheels and penguin games.
My favorite Christmas present of the year was a small MP3 player with an FM radio. I was able to take more space. This was mainly used to listen to hockey.
The hockey fandom, planted by species going to the game at Wheeling, germinated from there in legendary voices on the radio that night, and ultimately only grew from there. , this is how I finally wrote this here.
One man’s voice on the radio brought about a new interest and transformed it into something even bigger.
So, on Wednesday night, a grown-up that night, far away from that night, too busy to listen to as I was a child, returned to the office from a basketball game to see the news that Mike Lange had died.
My heart quickly returned to that night over 17 years ago. That voice on the radio. And then he heard the same voice as the Penguins and won the Stanley Cup and many other big moments from it now.
As we get older, we feel like a small part of our childhood fades away and disappears. Those memories of us fade away.
But some are not.
It feels like a part of our childhood has passed away with him, but Mike Lange’s voice is for me, and many other voices in the entire region, not disappearing, and will be remembered forever. It’s something.
The voices brought in a young man who was intrigued and made him a lifelong fan.
Thank you for the memories, Mike.
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