It will be a homecoming of sorts for ESPN senior operations producer Kevin Hendel when he arrives in Bangor on Friday afternoon.

The 16-year veteran of the all-sports cable and satellite television network moved from Bristol, Conn., two years ago to work at ESPN’s Charlotte, N.C., headquarters, but he’s been farther north in New England.

“My mother’s family’s from Jackman and I spent a lot of summers in the Embden Pond area around Bingham when I was growing up,” Hendel said.

Hendel hopes to have a little time to visit with family friends after his official work duties are wrapped up Saturday afternoon, when ESPNU broadcasts the Senior League World Series championship game live from Mansfield Stadium in Bangor.

“I purposely booked a late flight back,” Hendel said.

Live coverage starts at 3 p.m. Saturday. The game will also be rebroadcast on ESPN2 on Thursday, Aug. 30 at 2 p.m.

Although a broadcast like this isn’t as labor-intensive as it used to be before the advent of digital, satellite and computer technology, it still involves a lot of preparatory work.

“We’ve already had all the players fill out a bunch of get-to-know-you sheets so we can get some personal info and trivia on players and coaches,” Hendel said. “At this point, we still don’t know who’s playing in the championship, so we sent them to everybody.”

Hendel will be one of the ESPN employees arriving in Bangor at noon today to watch both Series semifinal games.

“It’s really kind of an overnight cramming session,” he said. “Our talent and production team will sit down with the winners after the semifinals and try to get to know more about them. We may need some more follow-up time early Saturday.”

Hendel said the goal is to get as much background info on players and coaches as possible without infringing on the Series participants’ time.

Normally, ESPN has its announcers do their pregame introduction live from the broadcast booth, but due to the configuration of Mansfield Stadium and time constraints, they’ll record the pregame segment by play-by-play man Clay Matvick and analyst Kyle Peterson ahead of time.

ESPNU will use a full audio engineer crew, a 53-foot mobile production truck rented from Congress Street Productions in Saco, a satellite uplink truck, five cameras, several microphones throughout the park, special generators to power the trucks, and five monitors.

Hendel will use a robotic camera mounted on the backstop, hand cameras on the first base line (one low and one high on a mechanical scissors lift), one low at third base, and another on a lift in center field.

Both team managers will get headsets for live interviews from the dugouts with the announcers during the game.

Hendel said Mansfield is one of the “easier and friendlier” venues he’s worked with, and although it’s much more broadcast-friendly than other parks, it’s not without its challenges.

“We’re broadcasting from venues that were never meant for worldwide live broadcasts,” he said. “We’ll be out there setting up at least eight hours beforehand and we’ll have people running cable Friday night and early Saturday morning.”

Dismantling and cleanup time will be considerably shorter. Hendel estimates it should take 90 minutes to two hours for everyone to clear out.

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