by Ron Spence
There were five seconds left in the game, and I was waiting for him to say: “Lord Stanley, Lord Stanley, get me the brandy!”
That’s what Mike Lange had quipped – in 1992 – when Pittsburgh won their second Stanley Cup.
Today, Lange said: “Lord Stanley, scratch their names on your fabled Cup.”
I had never heard of Mike Lange, and only discovered hims because I had to follow the finals on Pittsburgh radio (I had tried Detroit’s play-by-play first, but found them boring.).
I was listening to the radio because there were no televised hockey games where I live in Thailand.
Mike Lange was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 12, 2001. He has been the Penguins’ announcer since 1974, with a one year sabatical in there somewhere.
Before I had researched who Lange was, I had written down a few of his lines:
When Pittsburgh scored: “I’ll buy Sam a drink, and get his dog one too.”
And then, when the Pens were going to Detroit for game 7: “And I’ll meet you in the schoolyard for all of the marbles on friday night.”
Some of his quotes aren’t the most exciting: “They take the heat out of a hot kitchen!”
He’d said this after the Pens had survived a penalty kill, and then when Pittsburgh scored: “Beats Chris Osgood like a rented mule!”
My favourite, however, was when Pittsburgh scored their winning goal: “Get in the fast lane, grandma, the bingo’s ready to roll.”
*****
CrashingTheGoalie 