Amid the mania, Celtics nearing season opener

The calendar has moved into late October, the New England Patriots are riding a 20-game winning streak, and the main topic is still the Boston Red Sox.

Then again, when it’s a storied, much-maligned team winning its first league pennant in 18 years combined with an ongoing lockout in the National Hockey League, it’s easy to see why nobody’s really talking about another storied franchise steeped in tradition: the Boston Celtics.

Even Fox Sports Net New England, which had its preseason press releases out by Sept. 9 last year, is a little late spreading the gospel about the Kelly green-and-white roundball team.

The official Celtics 2004 coming-out party is in Boston on Friday afternoon, just a few hours before the team hosts New Jersey in a 7:30 p.m. preseason game, one of eight aired by FSNNE.

Boston Celtic and NBA Hall of Fame member Tommy Heinsohn and Mike Gorman – the longest-running professional sports broadcasting duo in the country – will be back in the TV booth for their 24th season together. They began their partnership in 1979 by calling Providence College basketball games.

This is also the 24th year of the partnership between the Celtics and FSNNE, formerly SportsChannel New England, making it the second-longest continuing one of its kind in the country, according to FSNNE marketing and communications manager Skip Perham. Only the New York Knicks-Madison Square Garden Network association is longer.

FSNNE – which reaches more than 3.7 million households in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont – is scheduled to air 81 of the Celtics’ 82 regular season games.

The only game not currently on the FSNNE schedule is Boston’s Dec. 9 road game at Portland (10:30 p.m. on TNT).

This will be the second season of FSNNE’s FanCaster program, in which students are selected to participate in Boston Celtics telecasts.

At every Celtics home game, starting with the regular season opener Nov. 3, a student selected by the network will air a taped, on-camera introduction to that night’s Celtics “Heroes Among Us.” The program is open to students ages 13-18 who have an interest in a media career. To enter, students must videotape themselves reading an audition script and then send it to Fox Sports Net along with an entry form. More than 200 entries were received last season.

Entry forms and more information can be found at www.FSNnewengland.com and mailed to Fox Sports Net Fancaster, 42 Third Ave., Burlington, MA 01803.

Rallying the Red Sox

Portland radio station WBLM (102.9 FM) and the Portland Sea Dogs are teaming up to hold a rally in front of Hadlock Field in Portland for the Boston Red Sox.

The rally be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Two World Series tickets will be given away during the rally and a limousine outside Hadlock Field will be waiting to transport the lucky winners to Sunday’s game two at Fenway Park.

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