Things can’t be much better if you’re a sportscaster from Portland who’s getting paid to cover Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston.

Lee Goldberg can certainly think of worse assignments.

The sportscaster at Portland NBC network affiliate WCSH (Channel 6) touched down in Houston Wednesday afternoon. The Super Bowl was still a good four days away, but he was already reaping the benefits of his trip.

“It’s not exactly warm, but it’s 50 degrees warmer here than what we left in Portland,” Goldberg said Wednesday. “There are people here with winter hats and coats on, but neither Tim nor I are wearing jackets. It’s about 60 degrees.”

For the first couple of days, Goldberg and cameraman Tim Goff will be doing stories on local points of interest as well as Mainers who are in the Houston area. Afterward, they’ll be concentrating more on sports-related stories.

Ironically, Goff grew up in Fort Fairfield, but he’s a Lone Star State native as he was born in San Antonio, Texas.

The flight down was an interesting one for the WCSH duo, which left the Portland Jetport at 7:30 a.m., stopped in Atlanta, and then got off the plane to fly to New Orleans. From New Orleans, they flew to Houston. Coincidentally, so had their original plane.

“If we’d stayed on our plane in Atlanta, it was going on to Houston, so I don’t know what our flight plan was all about. It must have been a cheaper one,” he said with a laugh.

Securing credentials for the game was much easier than it was for Goldberg the last time the New England Patriots played in sport’s premier game two years ago.

“Two years ago, we didn’t even apply, nor did we even think of it because we hadn’t thought about the Patriots making it,” he said. “When they beat the Steelers, it left us scrambling and there was only a one-week break. I was basically begging and pleading to find someone to help us out.

“I got hold of one lady with the NFL and I just begged her. I even promised lobsters and anything else I could think of for her to help us. She was able to get us credentials.”

This year, WCSH applied for conditional credentials, which are basically advance reservations by journalists who will only be going if their home market team makes it.

“I think in mid-September you can begin to apply and the first day you could do it, I was right online,” Goldberg said. “It was zero headache this year … Much easier and smoother.”

Goldberg says he’s much better organized for this trip as well. He has already met several Mainers there who are either going to the game or still looking for tickets and will interview Don Crisman of Kennebunk, one of four known living people who has attended all 37 previous Super Bowls.

“I also have a guy from Deering High School who I’m friendly with and he’s lived down here for 10 years, so he’s gonna be my tour guide for a day,” he said. “I’ve already got five stories. I know of another guy who has rights to sell NFL merchandise and he flies a crew to the Super Bowl site, and I guess three crew members are from Maine.”

Goff and Goldberg are working cooperatively with news crews from NBC affiliates in Greensboro, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla. This has provided them the use of two satellite trucks which each have two live “paths” to file stories and do live remote reports on.

Sports reporter Dave Eid, a former sports reporter at Bangor TV station WABI who is now at Portland’s WGME (Ch. 13), is also in Houston, but attempts to reach him were unsuccessful on Thursday.

Live at Alfond Arena

College Sports Television, a 24-hour satellite network now in its 10th month of operation since debuting over the air last April, will travel to Orono to air tonight’s Maine-New Hampshire men’s hockey game live.

The game’s starting time has been pushed back to 8 p.m. to accommodate CSTV, which will air the game live via satellite on DirecTV (Channel 610) and Adelphia Cable in the Bangor (Ch. 12) and Augusta-Lewiston-Auburn (Ch. 9) areas.

This is Maine’s second appearance on CSTV, but the first time a Maine game at Alfond will be televised by the network. This is the 13th of 23 broadcasts in CSTV’s Friday Night Hockey game-of-the-week series, the first one of its kind to be nationally televised.

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