Hannigan wins HE media award

The office of Cod Rock Media Productions now has an impressive pair of bookends.

Former Bangor television and radio reporter Dan Hannigan – now co-owner of Cod Rock Media Productions in Kittery and radio play-by-play voice of the University of Maine hockey team – has been honored by Hockey East as the winner of the Joe Concannon Media Award.

Hannigan follows former Bangor TV reporter, current New England Sports Network studio host and reporter and Cod Rock co-owner Eric Frede, who won the award last year.

“I kind of joked that Eric’s been taunting me for the last year, so it’s nice to have my own now,” Hannigan said with a chuckle.

Hockey East director of public relations Brion O’Connor said Hannigan was a runaway choice as the winner of the 15th award, presented annually to someone demonstrating a superior body of work in covering and promoting Hockey East over an extended period.

“It was a no-brainer for us as far as his qualifications and service to the league,” O’Connor said. “Two things were particularly noteworthy: His longtime service to Maine Black Bear radio, which the guy travels three-plus hours every time to do a home game, and the job he and Eric have done promoting the league through their creation of the Inside Hockey East show.”

Inside Hockey East is a weekly, half-hour, features-oriented television show which Cod Rock created and began producing for New England Sports Network in 2005. Cod Rock specializes in producing training, fundraising, marketing and promotional audio-video presentations.

“It’s nice to be honored by people you deal with on a regular basis and as much as I knew them from doing Maine hockey, I got to know people around the league a lot better by doing the show,” said Hannigan, who started Cod Rock with Frede in the fall of 2003.

Ironically, Cod Rock will not produce Inside Hockey East this season as NESN has decided to take over the entire project.

“NESN certainly has some lofty standards to follow up on in terms of Dan’s and Eric’s efforts with Inside Hockey East,” O’Connor said.

Hannigan is entering his 12th season as the voice of Black Bears hockey on Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM). He has won the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association sportscaster of the year award for Maine three times in addition to several Maine Associated Press and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards in his career.

“It’s a tremendous honor because you look at the other people honored by this over the years and there are some great names,” Hannigan said. “This is very humbling.”

Maine-BC football on ESPN360

Saturday’s UMaine football game against Division I-A Boston College at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Mass. can only be seen on ESPN360, ESPN’s broadband service.

The telecast will be available to Verizon FiOS and DSL Internet customers in New England.

ESPN360 is one of the highlights of the Verizon broadband service and is available in Massachusetts and Maine along with 26 other states and the District of Columbia.

Verizon broadband customers can access ESPN360 by going to http://surround.verizon.net/tv and clicking on ESPN360 under the TV heading on the left side of the page.

Game time is 1 p.m.

NESN ices deal with Hockey East

When Hockey East started play in 1984, a fledgling regional cable TV network known as New England Sports Network was there to provide coverage.

The two entities have remained partners for 17 of the last 23 years and, thanks to a new contract agreed to this week, will extend that partnership for at least three more seasons.

“The first year of Hockey East happened to be the first year of NESN, so there’s a lot of history between the two,” said HE commissioner Joe Bertagna. “I’m thrilled with the relationship. It just seems to be a perfect match.”

Bertagna would not divulge the monetary value of the deal, but did say it includes a two-year extension clause that would kick in if both parties agree to it after the 2008-09 season.

The only break in the NESN-Hockey East relationship occurred in 1997, when HE opted to sign a six-year deal with SportsChannel New England (later Fox Sports New England).

Bertagna said both his league and NESN have enjoyed much growth and success the last two decades.

“We’re going to have more TV exposure this year than we’ve ever had,” he said. “I mean, we’re not challenging Desperate Housewives’ ratings yet, but our ratings are up on national and regional broadcasts of our games.”

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