Fire stops WABI game coverage> Radio station plans fall schedule

A devastating fire on April 4 at the corner of State and Exchange Streets which left several Bangor businesses homeless continues to have its effect on local sports radio.

Bangor radio station WABI (910 AM), which shares studio space at the badly gutted downtown building with sister station WWBX (97.1 FM), was unable to air 89 percent of the Husson College baseball games it planned to broadcast this spring.

Two games into their spring sports broadcast schedule, WABI officials had to cancel the rest of their game coverage after the fire, for which two teenagers have been indicted for starting, forced both stations to move out and settle into a construction trailer near the AM transmitter antenna off Wilson Street in Brewer.

“When the building was burned, it became uninhabitable and we literally had to remove our studios,” said WABI station manager George Hale. “And when I say studios, I’m talking about hundreds of wires and all kinds of equipment, and we had to to it almost overnight.

“That may not sound like that much to someone outside the business, but it was a horror show.”

Not only did stations employees have to move everything out quickly, they had to wait while some of the more heavily smoke- and water-damaged equipment was professionally cleaned.

But it got done, and in a hurry, too, as both stations were back on the air the day of the fire.

“That was a miracle. I think AM was off the air several hours and the FM was back on after four or five hours,” Hale recalled. “FM operated out of their mobile studio truck for awhile until we could get things set up in Brewer.”

Hale said the factors that kept WABI from doing any games was the lack of antennas (all the stations’ broadcast antennas were attached to the roof of the downtown building), the lack of proper phone connections in the Brewer transmitter building, and the fact some of the equipment needed was either damaged or unavailable (while it was being cleaned).

Despite all the problems, Hale said it could have been much worse.

“It was good in the sense our baseball coverage was limited to a couple games a week or so,” Hale said. “Had it been during basketball time in the winter, this would have been an absolute disaster. I can’t even envision that.”

WABI, which planned to air 15 Husson games plus the playoffs, did not plan to do any high school coverage this spring.

“By the time we got up and ready to do anything, their [Husson’s] season had already come to an end, or was about to,” Hale said. “So basically, we’ll pick up the sports coverage again with football in the fall.”

Hale said he’s optimistic the move into new quarters, possibly on the first floor of the same building, by late summer.

“Yeah, like the Phoenix we’ll be rising again,” he said.

Gorham moves up to Front Row

The Gorham High School girls track and field team will be featured on an upcoming edition of Front Row, New England Sports Network’s daily sports magazine program.

Noel Beagle and Shannon Houlihan are two of the individuals interviewed and profiled as part of a segment on Gorham’s run at a Class B state title this season. The segment is scheduled to air Wednesday, May 24 at 5 p.m. and again at 9:30 p.m. if the Boston Red Sox telecast is over.

Kimball sportscaster of year

Rich Kimball, a longtime sportscaster in Maine, was recently named Maine Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association for the first time in his career.

The 43-year-old Bangor native and Brewer Middle School coordinator, is the voice of University of Maine football and baseball at Bangor radio station WZON (620 AM). He also handles play-by-play for high school baseball, football and basketball broadcasts as well.

Kimball, who has been involved as a sportscaster in both television and radio for more than 20 years, recently received his award at the NSSA Awards weekend in North Carolina.

Dan Patrick of ESPN television and ESPN radio was named national sportscaster of the year and Lewiston Sun Journal sports editor Kalle Oakes was named Maine’s sportswriter of the year.