Three weeks into Bangor television station WLBZ’s ongoing renovation of its sportscast, the blueprint is still being edited and redrawn.

“We’re experimenting a little bit with it, and because we don’t want to cast in stone what it’s going to look like in three months, it’s hard to say exactly how it will look,” said Judy Horan, general manager of NBC affiliate WLBZ (Channel 2).

Former sports director Wayne Harvey was not rehired and ended a four-year stint at the station Dec. 1 because he was told “it wasn’t working out.” Horan said at the time that the station would be making some changes in the way it covers sports on its 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Since then, Horan has employed a system in which some sports news and scores are provided by anchors Rick Tyler or Donna Gormley, or reporters. Horan says the station has also tried to do more local sports stories, features, and profiles.

“We’ve had a lot more sports packages the last two weeks with local people or subjects,” Horan said. “Depending on what they are, they could appear anywhere in the newscast.

“Right now, we’re trying out a couple sports reporters and we’re treating sports as we’ve always treated news – as a story or multiple stories on nights when it’s worth multiple stories. We don’t want to do old news and scores. We want things that have meaning to people watching us.”

So far, several general assignment reporters, such as Jason Wheeler and Matt McFarland, have put together sports features and stories.

“Some nights you’ll see a sports person at the desk, sometimes in the newsroom, and other times from remote locations,” Horan explained.

Horan says this revamping of the station’s sports coverage is something she and other station officials have “thought out pretty carefully” and is “the only way” to give sports the attention it needs on a day-to-day basis.

“Everyone’s curious how it’s going to work out. We think it’s a much better way to do it because there’s a method to it [treating it as news],” she said. “In the long run, I think it’ll be a lot more sports on the air than in previous years.”

As far as criticism by viewers that WLBZ tends not to have a lot of local high school and college scores on the weekend, when the bulk of the newscast is handled by the crew at sister station WCSH (Ch. 6) in Portland, Horan says it’s something she wants to address.

“We want someone who can put our resources where they’re most needed, which I think a lot of time should be the weekends,” Horan said. “We don’t have scores every night, but whenever someone calls in a score, it will be on that night.”

Red Sox revival on Jan. 13

Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM) is bringing Boston Red Sox radio announcers Jerry Trupiano and Joe Castiglione to Maine.

“It’s kind of like a hot stove session,” said WZON program director Dale Duff. “It’s two-fold. We’ve talked about doing some kind of offseason thing the last two years, and because of the way the season ended and the way this offseason is going, this is the right time.”

It also fits in as a fitting close to the 10th-year anniversary of WZON’s switch to all-sports programming.

The date is Tuesday, Jan. 13, the time is 7 p.m., and the location is the Bangor Civic Center.

“The plan is to have 200-250 at the Civic Center with hot dogs, popcorn, soda and stuff and let the two guys tell some stories and answer questions and comments,” Duff said. “I don’t know if they do this sort of thing very often. It’s the first time we’ve ever done it and I don’t think anyone else has had them in Maine.”

Tickets to the event will be free, but a ticket will be required to get in. They will be given away during station promotions and on-location broadcasts. WZON will broadcast the session live.

Castiglione has been broadcasting Sox games on radio for 21 years. Trupiano has been his partner for the last 11.

“We had three or four possible nights and this was the best one for everybody involved to do this,” Duff said. “And it’s the night after the Boston baseball writers’ banquet, so that’s good timing too because they’ll be up to speed on all the latest talk.”

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