Pang, who spent Christmas in St. Louis, excited about broadcasting Winter Classic: Media Views

It’s quickly closing in on a season and a half since gregarious Blues television commentator Darren Pang jumped to the Chicago Blackhawks’ TV crew. But after 14 years in St. Louis he still maintains close ties to the area on a personal level, and on Tuesday, he’ll be highly visible in the city — and rest of the country — in a professional capacity.

Pang will be a key member of TNT’s telecast of the Winter Classic game, in which the Blues play the Blackhawks at Wrigley Field. He has moonlighted for national TV networks for many years and will be working on his ninth Classic, conducting player interviews. The game is set to start at 4 p.m., with TNT’s coverage also streamed on Max. Pang said covering the annual event, an outdoor game played in baseball or football stadiums, hasn’t lost its luster despite 15 of them having been played.

“It’s so great because every time you walk ... to the field, there’s just something we don’t have as hockey players,” he said. “I still walk around amazed at how impressive it is. Just the energy of the fans in sometimes god-awful weather and yet they have the energy and enthusiasm to be there. It does not get old.”

The weather forecast for the game isn’t bad, at least not by late-December standards in Chicago — the temperature in the upper 30s but breezy and dry conditions after rain earlier in the day.

The setting makes for picturesque TV coverage, and this time the rooftops on buildings across the street from the ballpark will be in use as they are for Cubs ballgames. That was not the case the other time the Classic was played there, in 2009.

“We’ve really tried to take advantage of what would be a Cubs game in so many different matters,” NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer told the Chicago Tribune. “And the rooftops will be pretty cool.”

Also planned is a homage to the Wrigley baseball tradition of the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch. The hockey-adapted version is set for early in the third period.

Pang’s St. Louis ties remain

Pang’s St. Louis ties remain strong. His daughter and her husband live in the area, with three girls younger than 5. So does his sister and her husband. So he spent the NHL’s Christmas break in town.

“I was asking the grandkids if they want to take a Blues sweater and a Blackhawks sweater and cut them in half and sew them together with ‘Holy Jumpin’ on the back,” he said, chuckling, while referring to the phrase he uses on the air in exhilarating situations.

Pang remains popular figure in town and made some of the rounds while not spending time with family over his four-day stay last week. It was like old times.

He visited former Blues forward and broadcaster Kelly Chase, who was hospitalized as he has another battle with leukemia.

“He had a couple of (tough) days, he said it was the most pain he’d had in a little bit,” Pang said. “But I grabbed his arm and we walked around the floor, he got almost 300 steps in and then he went back and laid down.”

Pang was impressed by Chase’s toughness.

“It will not take his spirit away,” he said. “He’s got gumption as I like to say — or stubbornness! I’m not sure if it’s gumption or stubbornness, I often tell him. Whatever it is, it gets things done.”

Pang had other stops.

“I’m at Pure Hockey in Chesterfield,” he said of a store that sells hockey equipment. “I walk in the door and there are so many hockey fans, and they turn around right away and want to take pictures and they want to talk hockey and tell you they miss you or ask how you’re doing. I will forever appreciate the kindness of these Blues fans. They’re unbelievable.”

So why did he leave? It was a combination of financial uncertainty with Blues telecaster Bally Sports Midwest (now FanDuel Sports Network) owner Diamond Sports Group, which was headed toward bankruptcy, and relentless (and more financially lucrative) pursuit by the Blackhawks, for whom he was a goaltender in the 1980s.

“As I reflect on it now, I’m really ... appreciative of how aggressive they were and how they approached me,” he said. “That doesn’t happen all the time. It’s nothing from here (in St. Louis), I never had a plan of leaving here, but I guess there’s always that fork in the road. The bottom line is that when someone wants you that much and makes that move, you feel pretty good about it.”

There were other emotions involved, too.

“You don’t just pour your heart and your energy and effort into it and just walk away,” Pang said. “If you do that, you’ve got no soul, and I’m not like that. It was not easy at all, there were many anxiety-filled moments to take place.”

His memories of his long run in St. Louis are pleasant.

“I’ll always be part of their family,” he said of the Blues, and is excited about being able to be on the national telecast of a special event involving the team he formerly covered and the one he does now. He has been on the national and Chicago broadcasts of several Blues games since leaving St. Louis, but the Classic should be special.

“This is pretty cool,” he said.

New look

For the first time, the Winter Classic will be played on New Year’s Eve after the previous 15 editions were conducted either on Jan. 1 or the next day (the legal holiday) in years when New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday.

But with the expanded playoff field this season in college football, there will be three quarterfinal games on New Year’s Day played back to back from early afternoon to late at night. So the NHL showcase will begin late on New Year’s Eve afternoon, although there likely will be some overlap with the first college playoff quarterfinal — the Fiesta Bowl (Boise State vs. Penn State) is set to kick off at 6:30 p.m., 2½ hours after the hockey game is scheduled to start.

Pang endorses the new slot for the Classic.

“You can’t compete with that stuff. You just can’t,” he said of the college playoffs. “Having it at 4 o’clock Central time on New Year’s Eve is perfect.”

He pointed out that people can go to the game then have plenty of time for their evening celebrations.

“I think we’ll get more energy because with a 12 o’clock game on New Year’s Day (as in the past), people have gone out the night before, they’re banged up, they’ve had a long night and now they’re trying to do it again. I think the energy and anticipation of New Year’s will be fantastic. I’m hoping it will be, and I know TNT is hoping the same thing.”

While the Classic is a showcase event for the league, the NHL isn’t featuring elite teams. The Blackhawks have the worst record in the league and the Blues are sixth among the eight Central Division teams. But Pang said the event is much bigger than the clubs participating.

“It’s the moment, it’s the atmosphere almost more than it is the game itself,” he said. “Especially at a place like Wrigley, or Fenway (Park in Boston), where we’ve had a couple of these.”

He expects the players to be revved up, though the Blues-Blackhawks rivalry has lost much of the oomph that it carried when the games in St. Louis were played in The Arena and the ones in the Windy City were in Chicago Stadium.

“Do they despise each other right now? I wouldn’t say so,” Pang said. “But I do know that the core players understand the history of the cities, so whether they’re the two best teams in the league or two teams on the bottom rungs of it right now, I would hope that they would have the pride of representing their city and battling the way the cities would want them to battle. That’s what I’d bank on, not necessarily the standings but the event and the two cities.

“The crest on the front better mean something to these players, because it’s a big moment, it’s a big stage, there’s a lot of people watching (on TV), there’s a lot of people in the stands. If you don’t give it your best in that moment, you are missing the boat and maybe you don’t belong in this league.”

But he doesn’t expect that to be the case, adding that it’s a personal thrill to have done the teams’ Winter Classic matchup at Busch Stadium eight years ago and now set to be on the telecast of the one at Wrigley Field.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “It’s going to be unbelievable.”