Unusual incident spoiled WZON broadcast plan

It seemed pretty simple and straightforward.

Saturday night’s broadcast schedule on Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM) called for coverage of the University of Maine hockey game at 7 p.m. and a quick switch to the UMaine women’s NCAA Tournament basketball game after the hockey game ended … presumably around 9:45 p.m.

With the basketball game scheduled to start at 9:11 p.m., program director Dale Duff figured listeners would miss about a half hour of the women’s game, give or take a few minutes. No problem.

Well, like a slap shot that’s been deflected into the air with no obvious destination, things took a surprising turn.

Maine’s Hockey East championship game against the University of Massachusetts became a marathon and the phones started ringing from Bar Harbor to Boston to Missoula, Mont.

“I was on my way from Southwest Harbor to Bangor after one of my kids played in a basketball tournament,” said Duff. “I was listening to the hockey game, driving 25 miles an hour in a snowstorm.”

If that wasn’t enough to tighten Duff’s grip on the steering wheel, the prospect of a triple overtime hockey game was.

As it became apparent the hockey game was in for the long haul, Duff called the studio to suggest that they cut away from Maine hockey during intermission breaks and go to Scott Sassone’s broadcast of the UMaine women in Missoula.

“Who could have seen that Maine hockey was going to go three overtimes?” Sassone said. “I couldn’t really think about that, though. I just had to do the game I was doing. I wouldn’t say it was frustrating, but it was a unique situation.”

Unique is an understatement. The hockey game lasted four hours, 41 minutes and totally ran over the UMaine women’s game. As a result, the only time live women’s action aired on the radio was during the four, 15-minute intermissions after the second period. The entire women’s broadcast did air, however, over the Internet on WZON’s Web site (zoneradio.com).

Inconveniences aside, Duff said it wasn’t a major crisis.

“You know what? We’ve done it for too long now to have something like that bother us. It’s the nature of live events,” he said. “With 130 Maine games and 130 high school games and all the American Legion games and stuff we do, games are going to go extra innings or overtime or whatever and it happens. You may not be able to get in all you want, but fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.

“Maybe a few years ago, it might have been a little more bothersome to me, but it happens occasionally and now, when it does, our listeners can still get it on the Internet.”

Sassone, who just finished his second season as the UMaine women’s basketball play-by-play guy, said he wasn’t particularly bothered.

“All in all, it’s a nice problem to have,” said the Rochester, N.Y., native. “It was a situation where I was just enjoying the game. I was cognizant of what was going on with the hockey game, but it wasn’t all that different than any of the other games we do. We join a lot of games in progress, so I was focusing on the [women’s] game more than anything else.”

Duff admitted that having the hockey game run over wasn’t without negatives.

“Financially, it wasn’t as good as it could have been,” Duff said. “And it wasn’t like [the women’s game] wasn’t there. It was on the Internet and TV had it covered as well.

“The bottom line too is we were broadcasting a game people will remember for a long, long time.”

Did you hear that?

Boston Globe sportswriter and columnist Jackie MacMullan delivered the quote of the week as a guest on a New England Sports Network show Friday night.

MacMullan and fellow Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy were the featured guests on The Boston Globe: SportsPlus show and former Bangor sportscaster Eric Frede was the host. Frede, the former sports director at Bangor television station WVII (Channel 7), asked both guests about CBS NCAA basketball analyst Billy Packer’s disparaging comments regarding St. Joseph’s College and it’s top-seeded men’s basketball team. Packer felt St. Joe’s was a soft No. 1 seed and didn’t deserve that high a seeding.

“Billy Packer’s a jerk … There, I’ve said it,” MacMullan responded after Frede mentioned Packer a second time.

Don’t be looking for any invitations to the Packer family Thanksgiving dinner or any Christmas cards from the former coach Jackie, but know there are a lot of people – on and off the court – who couldn’t agree with you more.

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