Seven years ago, Dan Hannigan took a risk.

After 21/2 years as a local television sports anchor, Hannigan decided to quit and venture into radio as a college hockey broadcaster. Less than a year later, that job expanded as he became an afternoon talk show host on Bangor all-sports station WZON (620 AM).

Now, Hannigan is taking another risk as he goes into business with the man who replaced him as sports anchor at WVII (Channel 7), Bangor’s ABC affiliate.

The 37-year-old Hannigan is quitting his job as host of WZON’s live “Hang Time” afternoon show and going into business with Eric Frede, a freelance sportscaster currently working Boston Red Sox broadcasts for New England Sports Network. Frede also handles Boston Celtics telecast sideline interviews and halftime shows, as well as college hockey broadcasts for Fox Sports Net New England.

Frede and Hannigan have formed Cod Rock Media Promotions, a business based in Kittery that specializes in producing audio-video presentations dealing with training, fund raising, marketing, and promotional material.

Cod Rock is named after a rock near Hannigan’s parents’ house in Kittery that he climbed on as a child.

“Eric and I have kind of been getting our feet wet. I wanted to do it full-time and the opportunity came,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to run my own business, and it’s always been a question of just what I would do. This whole field kind of combined what I’ve been able to do at Channel 7 and WZON in terms of editing and putting things together. I don’t really feel like I’m changing careers or anything at this point, but this makes sense to me in terms of taking the next step.”

Hannigan, who is in his last official week as host of “Hang Time,” will stay on as the voice of University of Maine hockey and he has also offered to fill in for other broadcasts in the southern Maine/New England area should WZON need his services.

As far as what to do about Hang Time, WZON program director Dale Duff hasn’t settled on anything yet.

“We’re going to keep a local show and we have been working on it, but we just don’t know what form it will be in yet,” Duff said. “We’re going to look maybe at more of a group approach.”

Hannigan, his wife Bonnie, and daughters Abby and Clara are looking forward to being close to Hannigan’s parents and being closer to Boston, Portland, and the New Hampshire area.

Hannigan said he’ll miss the contacts he made with his show’s guests and callers.

“Doing the show has just been a lot of fun,” he said. “The whole point of it from the beginning is to have fun and give people a chuckle or two coming home from work and hopefully we accomplished that.”

Giving the Lumberjacks a listen

The Bangor Lumberjacks now have a home on the radio dial.

Bangor station WHCF (88.5 FM) will air at least 25 live game broadcasts this season starting with the team’s home opener against New Jersey May 30 (7 p.m.).

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Wayne Frost, general manager of WHCF and sister station WHMX (105.7 FM) of Lincoln. “We’re excited because it could be a venture that has a lot of potential for the future.

“We’ll follow them in the postseason if they get in, and we’re leaving our options open as well when it comes to following them for some out-of-town games too.”

Frost said WHMX could become involved in the future, but not this season.

With nine sponsors already committed to the broadcasts, Frost is well on the way to his 12-sponsor target.

Most of the games will be Friday and Saturday night broadcasts.

“When they have a six-game homestand, we’ll do the Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday games. On seven-game stands, we’ll do Fridays, Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays,” Frost explained. “We designed the schedule to have a balance of the teams Bangor is playing.”

The games will also be broadcast on a streaming basis on the internet through the WHCF Web site (www.whcf.cc) or through links on both the Northeast League (www.northeastleague.com) and Lumberjacks (www.bangorlumberjacks.com) sites.

Frost will handle play-by-play for the broadcasts. He’ll be joined by either former high school coach Carroll Conley or Bangor Christian assistant principal Mike Blake, who will provide color commentary.

It has been five years since Frost called a baseball game. In 1998, he broadcast the Senior League World Series from Kissimee, Fla., to Guam. He also called Maine baseball when he was a UMaine student.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net