If Rumford’s Gary Tanguay wasn’t hosting Fox Sports Net New England’s Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight sports show, he’d be trying to figure out a way to call in.

Of course, the twice-daily weeknight program is not a call-in show, but it does have that kind of feel to it.

“It’s more like sports radio on television, and that’s what we were going for four years ago when we started this,” the 41-year-old University of Maine alumnus said. “Our slogan is ‘never script it,’ and we don’t. Most of it comes off the tops of our heads, which sometimes gets us in trouble.”

Sometimes, but not often. Viewers have embraced the show’s loosely structured, shoot-from-the-hip style.

“Some people love us and others hate us. I get a different opinion from every person I talk to,” Tanguay said. “But they like the characters and the strong opinions.”

There’s no shortage of characters on the half-hour live show airing at 6:30 and 10 p.m.

Tanguay and Greg Dickerson are the ringleaders of a constantly rotating nine-ring circus featuring regional football beat writers Michael Felger and John Tomase (Boston Herald), Alan Greenberg (Hartford Courant), Tom Curran (NBCSports.com), Paul Perrillo (Patriots Football Weekly), and Andy Gresh (The Score); WEEI radio of Boston’s Glenn Ordway; and Patriots players Vince Wilfork and Mike Vrabel.

These guys are so into football, they even formed their own fantasy football league, which held its first player draft Wednesday night.

“We have the Belichick Division and Kraft Division,” Tanguay said. “Gresh is the commissioner and the other guys are Scott Zolak, Ron Borges, Gil Santos, Gino Cappelletti, and me. Borges wasn’t a big fantasy fan, but his girlfriend does it and he’s into it now.”

Guess that puts a new shine on the fantasy football segment added to the show last season.

Speaking of fantasy scenarios, even Tanguay didn’t envision the show becoming so successful in four years.

“No I didn’t. I’m pleasantly surprised,” he admitted. “I think it is a niche kind of thing, but this is bigger than I expected it to get in terms of viewership. It tells me people can’t get enough of sports talk.”

Ah yes, the rise of sports talk – the darling of fans and the bane of many pundits, coaches, players and team personnel, who loathe the way it puts sports under a microscope and blurs reality.

Tanguay’s heard the criticism.

“The question is does art reflect life or life reflect art? I think art reflects life because what we’re talking about is what the fans are talking about,” he said. “The problem is sometimes it’s very easy to get opinion confused with fact.

“I think for the most part people are becoming accustomed and educated as to how shows are presented and opinions vs. facts, but there will always be those who don’t get it or go overboard.”

Giant step for WRKD

It’s a Giant leap for New York football fans in Maine.

For the second straight year, Rockland all-sports radio station WRKD (1450 AM) and fellow Clear Channel stations WIGY (97.5 FM) of Madison and WFAU (1280 AM) of Gardiner are members of the New York Giants Network.

All three stations will carry all Giants regular season and available playoff games.

“It really was a good pickup for us,” said WRKD program director Don Shields. “We looked at it this way: The Patriots were already taken in our markets and with the heritage of the Giants in New England – I mean it was Maine’s team before there was a Patriots team – there were lots of Giants fans and we thought there was a void out there.”

Shields also liked the fact the Giants network’s pregame (15 minutes) and postgame (30 minutes) shows are much lesser commitments than the three-hour Patriots pre- and postgame shows.

“It made sense for us and advertisers supported it, so it was a good marriage,” Shields said.

The marriage doesn’t seem to be short-term in nature either as WRKD has already signed a two-year deal with the network.

“It’s part of what the core of our station is,” Shields explained. “We’re Red Sox, Giants, Celtics and high school sports. When we jumped on last year, we were looking at it as a long term thing and I look at us being with the Giants for a long, long time.”

The Giants kick off Sunday at 8 p.m. against Indianapolis. The game will also be televised on ESPN.

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