Meet the Press: Mark Binetti goes from bands to booths

Photo by Mike Wolforth, submitted by Mark Binetti

 

Mark Binetti did not stay in his first sports-related trade long enough to experience ludicrous geographic misnomers. Nor did he come to his new calling in time for the most outlandish of the same in another game.

In South Dakota since 2013, he joined the rest of the Rapid City Rush in transferring from the Central Hockey League to the ECHL in 2014. By then, it had been 11 years since their new abode ceased to answer to the name East Coast League. Although, the sport’s topmost “Double-A” entity had stopped living up to that exclusive-sounding moniker ages prior.

Come what may, the former pep-bander and current play-by-play broadcaster is living his share of carry-overs. He is living the bus life for 12 of the 26 weeks on the 2018-19 regular-season docket. The majority of those road trips are the culmination of a week’s worth of preparation.

The Rush’s destinations for 2018-19 are Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. They will also entertain visits from the Atlanta Gladiators and Florida Everblades, but not reciprocate the journey.

Travel-wise, this regimen evokes Binetti’s football marching-band days at the University of South Carolina. Besides his school’s own state, he saw action in seven others: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Entertaining the throngs of the sinewy Southeastern Conference, he made it to eight of 11 opposing stadiums. (He graduated two years before Missouri and Texas A&M upped league membership to 14.) He only missed out on Auburn, Louisiana State and Mississippi State.

“It was a blast,” he told Pucks and Recreation with maximum emphasis. “Seeing how different stadiums and bands did things was eye-opening. And as long as the Gamecocks didn’t have a rough go, the football wasn’t bad either.”

By comparison to what Binetti has now, neither was the mileage. Spared the SEC’s spill beyond the Southeast proper, he joined the Rush for what proved an unexpected CHL swan song.

But barely being in the Mountain, Rapid City itself was one of the circuit’s exceptions to its title time zone. Its 10 teams ranged as far east as Brampton, Ont., for that 2013-14 campaign.

Today’s 13-member ECHL Western Conference boasts a similar geographic spread. Being the third-farthest west, the Rush cannot help charging up four-figure miles one way on some trips.

Contrast that with the 764 miles separating USC from its most distant Binetti-era SEC rival, Arkansas. Or with the fact that the Rush take twice as many annual rides as the Gamecock footballers.

But as with his belated entry into broadcasting as a whole, Binetti benefited from starting small.

“Looking back on it, it really prepared me for what I do now,” he said. “The travel in college football isn’t nearly as rigorous as what we go through in Rapid City. But we bus everywhere with the Rush, and there’s a routine on the road you need to get into to prepare and such. So it prepared me quite well, I think.”

Photo submitted by Mark Binetti

 

Timely crossovers

Binetti was born in New York, the second of three brothers, and lived in the metropolitan area through eighth grade. For the bulk of that time, music was his extracurricular lifeblood.

The piano, which his mother and maternal grandfather both mastered, was a mandated starting point. Two years of that spawned a web of skills, which Binetti transferred to self-taught clarinet lessons.

“It was a release,” he said. “It was something that allowed me to be a part of something bigger in a band, and was just so much fun.”

In his final year living in New Jersey, Binetti was an all-state musician in his newfound specialty. When his family moved to North Carolina, the accolades snowballed at Charlotte Catholic High School. As a sophomore, he cracked the 2004 South Central All-District Band.

He followed that with repeat appearances on the Charlotte Youth Wind Ensemble as an upperclassman. As a junior, he attended the 2005 Winthrop University Invitational Clinic just south of the state border.

Back at Charlotte Catholic, he broadened his horizons and attained the marching band’s drum-major position. In between, he built on his appetite for more of the same in college with another trip to South Carolina.

On Nov. 12, 2005, Binetti accompanied a friend to the Gamecocks football game against 12th-ranked Florida. His first live look and listen at USC’s legendary “Mighty Sound of the Southeast” sweetened a 30-22 upset.

“After that,” he said, “I did my research into the band, and talked to an old high school friend that was there. After meeting with some of the graduate assistants, and taking a tour of the university, I was hooked.

As one of 360 students in the Carolina Band, and specializing in the trombone, Binetti devoted nine hours to rehearsal in a typical school week. At the Saturday culmination, preparation would start as early as 6 a.m., depending on kickoff time.

Binetti would rise to be the captain of his instrument’s section. He also had his major in biological sciences to think about. But the literal payoff for his musical dedication substantially alleviated the cost of the curriculum.

Concomitant with Binetti, Dr. George A. Brozak arrived at USC in the autumn of 2006. A former Star Trek TV writer, Brozak assumed the position of director of athletic bands, and instituted a wave of scholarships and stipends. Among other perks, Binetti garnered a scholarship specific to the clarinet in the university’s concert band.

“Doc’s mindset behind it was to grow the base of the band simply by rewarding them for their sacrifice,” Binetti said. “It seems easy to say that, but to actually follow through with it meant a good deal to those of us in the program in his three seasons.” 

Brozak has since moved on to other institutions, but Binetti attests to his long-lasting mark at USC. Ditto the late Jim Copenhaver, who directed USC’s band program at large for 35 years, retiring the year Binetti graduated.

Copenhaver’s tenure transcended the university’s rise to prominence among pigskin pep bands. To that point, in September 2017, USA Today ranked the “Mighty Sound” third among its top 10 college football introduction shows.

“Mr. Copenhaver was an incredible individual who just loved music, and loved teaching it,” Binetti said. “So many of the people I was in the band program with went to USC just because of him. They knew they’d be world-class musicians or music educators simply because he was the director of bands. He was loved by everyone in the music community.”

Copenhaver died at age 71 in November 2014, Binetti’s sophomore season as the Rush announcer.

“The impact of his passing was felt nationally,” Binetti said.

Besides his collegiate family, Binetti’s bloodline savored finales of their own during his senior season. For his final performances at Williams-Brice Stadium, his grandparents traveled from New Jersey for their first live glimpse of college football.

Business-like as usual that day, Binetti now admits he sacrificed a little enjoyment of family antics at the pre-game tailgate. With a noon game time, it was one of those 6-a.m. last-minute tune-up sessions.

“Sadly, I was blissfully ignorant to my grandfather roasting my dad for everyone cooking in trailers and on mini-grills with these gigantic spreads,” he said. “But hearing my dad recap it all was absolutely hilarious. My grandfather passed away four years after that game, so it was definitely special to look back on.” 

As it happened that day, the Gamecocks doubled up on intrastate rival Clemson, then ranked 15th in the nation, 34-17. Their other home win over a ranked team (No. 4 Mississippi) that year marked the beginning of South Carolina’s “Sandstorm” custom.

In the decade since, the stadium DJ has routinely given the band a breather and aroused a rave-like rally with the Darude classic. The ensuing visual, complete with white towels for every spectator, is not unlike that of a professional hockey playoff crowd.

 

Photo submitted by Mark Binetti

Invincible ambition

Hearing Binetti summarize the story of his rise to the Rush booth vaguely evokes Vince Papale.

Like the unlikely NFL walk-on immortalized in cinema by Mark Wahlberg, Binetti logged a little time on a gridiron. But to crack the competitive ranks of pro hockey play-by-play, one might assume, he must have called action in college.

Yet if someone asked him where he called his college puck, he would say he didn’t call college puck. In fact, he called no athletic action whatsoever as an undergraduate. That is how mighty a commitment the “Mighty Sound” was.

The Carolina Band was also expected to be the grand finale of Binetti’s involvement of sports. After he graduated in 2010, he was supposed to pursue medicine. After all, his mother, both maternal grandparents and one uncle have all worked in the field.

But then there was Jason Shaya, his fellow transplant from the northern U.S. to the Carolinas. While Binetti was a senior in Columbia, Shaya was in his third year broadcasting the ECHL team in Binetti’s adoptive city of Charlotte.

Hailing fron Michigan, Shaya had also gone to a hockey-free university (Madonna in the Detroit suburbs). After working as a sports producer with his local NBC affiliate, he enjoyed play-by-play stints with short-lived Detroit- and Chicago-area teams in the now-defunct United League. With more bountiful offerings at the de facto Double-A level in “non-traditional” markets, he found the Charlotte Checkers in 2007.

Binetti had been in town since 2002, and had taken an easy shining to the Checkers. For the better part of their 17-year ECHL run, they were affiliated with his beloved New York Rangers.

Acting on a belated craving for a sports-oriented career, Binetti reached out to Shaya in 2010. Their initial discussion left him disillusioned, and he turned to Chicago, where his brother works as an anestheologist. But a lack of openings up his presumed alley turned him back to Charlotte and, for a time, back to college football.

“My brother had a friend that was a production assistant at ESPNU,” he said, “and said they needed loggers to watch games and help them cut highlights. After about two weekends on the job, I realized that I loved it too much to not try and see it through in sports.”

By this point, the Checkers brand had been promoted to the AHL. One of the few personalities to withstand the overhaul, Shaya accepted Binetti’s bid for a rebound.

The Checkers’ younger broadcasting brother started as a statistician and storyline builder. He then broke onto the air by filling in pre-game, post-game and intermission segments. From there, he started taking cracks at play-by-play, applying lessons he had absorbed through up-close observation during ESPNU football productions, during the second periods of home games.

“Once I got the opportunity at ESPNU, and got my first air time with the Checkers, I just knew this is what I needed to do for the rest of my life,” he said.

After two years under Shaya’s wing and a slew of go-nowhere applications to teams in Junior A, major junior and minor pro, Binetti received Shaya’s greatest assist for their last shift in Charlotte. While working at a Wells Fargo bank to supplement his income, he heard of Rapid City’s vacancy from his mentor.

In less than a month, he dished up his demos, pressed with continued interest, got the job and moved back north. He arrived in his new South Dakota home the day 2013 training camp commenced.

“The rest, as they say, is history,” he said.

Photo by Mike Wolforth, submitted by Mark Binetti

 

‘…the same between both worlds’

All of the crowds surrounding Binetti have plummeted in sheer volume since he shot up to South Dakota’s Mountain edge. He is apt to note that, at a capacity eclipsing 80,000 spectators, Williams-Brice Stadium at USC could more than fit Rapid City’s population, which is estimated at under 75,000.

The difference between those figures almost amounts to the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center’s capacity of 5,119. Naturally, Binetti’s audience is not in that seating bowl, but an unquantified figure beyond the building.

Regardless, the number of people standing by his side has drained from 359 to one. Only a rotation of color commentators will blend another voice in with his output for the listeners.

That aside, he says, “I’d argue that there are more parallels than differences” between the band and the booth.

“If there’s one difference, it’s that you can’t really rehearse broadcasts,” he continued. “Sure, you can have meetings on what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it, storyboarding pregame shows and such. But you can’t ever really script and practice anything.

“Plus, if you do, it comes across as inauthentic, and it kills your credibility as a broadcaster. So much of what we say, how we react, and the emotion that goes into and comes out of broadcasting is spontaneous.”

Even a reprise of old patterns can catch Binetti off guard. His two years as Shaya’s intern in Charlotte marked an instant immersion in AHL-caliber hockey. Unlike the lower levels, nearly every player is a protected prospect, and arguably matches the skill of overseas major leaguers.

Granted, the preceding Checkers had just logged 17 seasons in Double-A before giving way to the new edition. But Binetti had not seen as much of them since going to USC. While he was there, he was so absorbed in bands and biology that he also missed out on another ECHL team, the neighboring Columbia Inferno.

The Inferno would fold in 2008, after Binetti’s sophomore year. He partly regrets failing to catch their games because their mascot, Blaze, was portrayed by one of his fraternity brothers. In addition, defenseman Justin Sawyer played in Columbia during Binetti’s freshman year, then on the first Rush team Binetti worked with.

About that team: Rapid City granted Binetti a blast back to Double-A, albeit in the Central League to start. He figured he was in for a spectacle a little closer to Slap Shot than the “A” will ever produce.

“I thought I was in for a huge change in pace and speed,” he said, “and was surprised to see how wrong I was. The CHL was very physical, very veteran-laden. But it was a great league to break into the professional ranks with.”

Nonetheless, it was on thin ice at the time. Membership whittled from 10 teams to nine early in the 2014 offseason. Arizona and Denver’s teams, both languishing in the ever-pivotal attendance column, then withdrew for the approaching campaign.

With only seven active chapters to speak of, the Central League gave out and latched on to a welcoming ECHL. The Rush, who had always stayed within the 4,000 attendance range, were properly rewarded by the rescue. And a mere 10 days after the late-coming merger was announced, Binetti was back behind their mic.

Upon stretching his Rapid City tenure to five years this past spring, he has stayed at the same base longer than anywhere else since his days as an all-state middle-school musician and long-term in-the-making medicine man in New Jersey.

In that span, he has discovered gratifying quantities of leisure time and attractions to fill it with. He has taken up adult-league hockey and softball, joined Knights of Columbus and kept his voice sharp in the summer via American Legion baseball broadcasts.

But he has yet to add pure-sport percussions or winds to that mix. “It kills me that I haven’t been able to,” he admits. “I dust off the instruments every now and then and practice, but it’s really been a long time.”

That does not, however, mean he is letting his inner musician log mothballs. His second-nature instincts from the metropolis and the Carolinas get ample new use in his vocation.

“I liken calling a game to sight-reading music,” he said. “The pressure of people listening to you, the amount of preparation needed to be successful at both music and calling a hockey game and the performance ‘game-face’ mentality are all the same between both worlds.”

For Eric Lindquist, the ice is right with Worcester Railers HC

Photo by Rich LeBlanc

Eric Lindquist likes to be a full-fledged human on the job. He is not the mere eyes and ears of the Worcester Railers HC. And he will certainly not settle for the limitations of being a disembodied voice from above.

No, the Massachusetts- and California-seasoned sportscaster must move about his workspace, taking his audience with him. Families on hand and in the Railers network lean on him as a pivotal infotainer.

“There are 20 sets of parents listening to their sons play,” he told Pucks and Recreation. “It’s a long season, and calling X’s and O’s game in and game out can get a little tiresome and stale.”

So he animates the real-time chronicles the easy way — by living the game-night experience himself. During media timeouts at the DCU Center, while the ice-level laborers slug down sports drinks, he sneaks slurps of small talk in the stands.

At intermission, he savors longer helpings of the same while stretching his legs on the concourse. When the Railers score, he can and will reach out for high-fives with perfect strangers.

Sometimes, before any of that, he dons another metaphorical hat while guests are asked to doff their lids. He ventures from his perch within the seating bowl and enters the spotlight to perform the national anthem.

It is a welcome reversion for a man who prefers making his money and memories in an interactive manner. As the adage goes, caring means sharing. Depending on the setting and situation, Lindquist cares with creativity. He shares his experience and enthusiasm where appropriate — home — and divvies the details like a tourism guru on the road.

“I’m a fan, bottom line,” he said. “I want to be able to share what a hot dog tastes like in a visiting arena. What it’s like in the press box. What the fans are like. Where to get lunch in a certain city.

“I might not be the smoothest when it comes to play-by-play, but I think people recognize my energy.”

His five employers in his minor-league broadcasting career should expect nothing less. After all, Lindquist has obtained the most pizzazz on his resume by competing on game shows defined by contagious energy.

As a young teen, Lindquist fulfilled a dream by appearing on Wheel of Fortune, where he won a whopping $60,000. Later, while working at a Los Angeles sports agency, he won The Price Is Right’s Showcase Showdown. In all, his various stints in Southern California yielded 11 onstage game- or reality-show appearances.

“That’s generally the first thing anybody wants to talk about,” he said of subsequent sportscasting job interviews. “It’s kind of helped me in a strange way to be able to do what I’m doing.”

He could easily say the reverse as well. A North Andover, Mass., native who got his start as a student-broadcaster at Northeastern University, Lindquist calls a sport that requires swiveling heads and open-ended expectation. Anything can take a twist before or during game time (or show time). Accordingly, anyone’s agenda for the day can be altered on the fly.

Lindquist’s initial post-college dabbling in L.A. coincided with the birth and boom of reality TV. With his Showcase Showdown victory, he had cemented his name on the scene at and around CBS Television City. He was part of the pipeline that game-show and reality-show agents go picking at in a pinch.

“Like any other business, everyone sort of knows everyone,” Lindquist explained.

Odds are Lindquist’s affinity for sports made his name jump to precipitate one of his stranger improvisational experiences. While his penchant for pucks has defined his career, he admits he knows little about ball games. (Although he later did broadcast Lowell Spinners baseball for a time.)

Yet one morning, a representative from a dating show called to inquire about serving as a stand-in.

“‘But you have to pretend you know how to play tennis,’” Lindquist remembers being told. “I don’t think I picked up a racket once in my life,” he added with a chuckle.

Nonetheless, he got to the studio, got into uniform and got into character.

And when he was not letting cameras and makeup fall on him, Lindquist granted others a flicker of fame. When his tenure in sports agency “didn’t work out,” he tried working as a casting director for Fox reality programs.

The itch for ice, however, eventually resurged. When the AHL’s Lowell Lock Monsters dangled his first chance to return to the Bay State and broadcasting, Lindquist bit.

He has since made two more end-to-end moves each way. Before the Railers, he called the ECHL’s Long Beach Ice Dogs (2006-07) and AHL’s Worcester Sharks (2007-15) and San Jose Barracuda (2015-17).

The one season in Long Beach coincided with Bob Barker’s 35th and final year of hosting The Price Is Right. The coincidence made for a rare and timely joining of Lindquist’s passions.

As a team-building exercise, he led a 45-minute journey back to his old glorious haunts at CBS Television City. Leading scorer Ash Goldie even answered the coveted “Come on down!” call, though he did not advance beyond the podium.

Back out east, Lindquist occasionally experiments with game-show-inspired activities to keep players loose or humanize them before the fans. He has variously drawn inspiration from the defunct Three’s A Crowd and the time-honored Family Feud.

Of the latter, he recounted, “That didn’t work too well. Guys were cheating.”

Otherwise, in the past 14 years, he has at least put his formal game-show involvement on hold. With that said, he is always open to an eventual stint on Big Brother, Survivor or The Amazing Race.

For now, he expectedly watches from the living room with more-informed-than-average eyes. Just don’t expect him to revisit the grounds he has already covered.

Since Barker retired, Lindquist has eschewed The Price Is Right. When reached by Pucks and Rec, he hinted at giving Wheel the same treatment when Pat Sajak and Vanna White pass their torch. He fears the flavor of the shows may take a turn for the ’80s Coca-Cola formula after that much upheaval.

“I kind of like the old-school mentality,” he said, adding that he has a similar view of his beloved sport.

“I’ve always been a big fan of the hockey fight and the physical aspect of the sport. Not tradition, but things in the way that I enjoyed it or how I remember it.

“I’m not saying I don’t want change, but I grew up in the mid-’90s with Bob Probert, Tie Domi, Lyndon Byers, Chris Nilan. That’s what got me into hockey. I want to get back to how I grew up with it.”

As it happens, per hockeyfights.com, the Railers have engaged in 28 fisticuffs through their first 39 games. This past weekend, leading pugilist Yanick Turcotte engaged Wheeling counterpart Jeremy Beirnes twice in as many days.

Conversely, at that same mark in their schedule last season, the Barracuda had logged 18 fights. In 2015-16, San Jose recorded 22 scraps in its first 39 outings.

The ECHL yields generally chippier action than the league immediately above it. That aspect has ample company in befitting Lindquist’s move back to Worcester this past summer.

Railers HC foretold its advent in 2016, one year after the San Jose Sharks moved their AHL affiliate from Worcester to their own building. Effective a year later, Worcester’s first Double-A hockey franchise followed a self-proclaimed “cue from the European sporting club model.”

“Worcester Railers HC is introducing a new way to be part of professional hockey in North America,” says the de facto mission statement. It has already followed through by engraving the names of season-ticket holders on the backs of their respective seats. It has also spread its own name around the neighborhood without hesitation.

One block up the street from the DCU Center sits the Railers Tavern. A half-mile in the other direction will take you to the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center. Opened one month before the club’s debut, the two-sheet facility also houses a restaurant, a café and a training center.

Two Division III college programs, two youth programs and Worcester Academy have all started calling the Ice Center home. There remains the question of whether the Division I Holy Cross men’s team will ultimately hop over. The added ice also allows Railers personnel to introduce beginners to the pleasures of leisure skating.

“We do have that sense that we want everyone to be a part of what’s going on,” Lindquist said.

As an outspoken, outgoing middle man between the team and fan base, Linquist suits that system. He jumped at the chance to return to Worcester after two fish-half-out-of-water campaigns with the Barracuda.

With the Railers, the 12,239-seat DCU Center wedges its radio booth between its seating bowls. As an NHL facility indefinitely sheltering the organization’s child club, San Jose isolated Linquist above its entire 17,562-spectator space.

But naturally, being a minor-league club, it never filled that cavernous coliseum. The largest audience the Barracuda drew in Lindquist’s lonely SAP Center tenure was 7,664.

“I was sitting all the way up in the ceiling, and I didn’t feel as close to the fans, the players and the action,” he recalled. “I wasn’t in my comfort zone.”

And so that Bay Area fling may be the 38-year-old’s only career stop in a major-league mansion. His return to the Double-A league after a decade in Triple-A is a step down in technical terms only.

Linqduist’s eye-catching game-show track record speaks to his poise before substantial, major-level audiences. But his success formula there of “don’t take it too seriously and don’t take yourself too seriously” also reaffirms his mutual fit with Railers HC and its “eccentric” European marketing model.

“I enjoy doing it at the ECHL level. I’ve have more fun this year,” he said. “Sometimes you kind of have more freedom in minor-league sports to have more personality.”

Rachel, Brandon Kisker taking stock in civic endorsement

Even before he saw them in action, Brandon Kisker favored the Rough and Ready Islanders uniforms.

The ECHL’s Stockton Thunder were to assume a temporary persona Feb. 7 and 8, 2014. It was the front office’s choice of costume for the league’s answer to a masquerade ball.

As the Alaska Aces’ guests when Anchorage observed Hockey Heritage Weekend, the Thunder were to sport a celebration of their history and the ECHL’s relationship with the NHL. Being the New York Islanders’ Double-A affiliate, they had a natural choice to checkmark all of the criteria.

Per a press release announcing the promotion, club president Brian Sandy thought back to Stockton’s welcome sign. It reads “Port of Stockton – Rough and Ready Island.”

Accordingly, the Thunder took the template of their parent club’s road white jersey. They then modified the iconic Long Island/NY/stick-and-puck shield to display their own offshore locale. To complete the local flavor, they emblazoned “STOCKTON” on the band of orange trim along the midsection.

Kisker, then a rookie commentator for the Thunder’s radio crew, was intrigued. By that point, the lifelong citizen of the Eastern Time Zone had been working in California for four months. But he elucidated his love affair with his new home through a Twitter chat with a fan named Ren.

Ren, whose handle is @ren870, wanted to settle a score. Was this upcoming promotion or a prior “Fantasy Team” jersey showcase better?

Kisker engaged in the Jan. 28, 2014 chat with this reply: “Rough & Ready no doubt. It’s such a unique thing and pays such a great tribute to both affiliate and city. #loveit #sandydidgood.”

The dialogue carried on for four more posts apiece. It proved to be a preemptively refreshing inside chat among natural-born and naturalized Stockton citizens. A week-plus later, the concept failed to resonate among the host Aces fan base.

“To an outsider, those jerseys were meaningless and lame,” Kisker conceded in an interview with Pucks and Recreation. “I can’t tell you how many tweets we had that picked on the name. But what locals know is that Rough and Ready Island is actually a real island here in Stockton.”

The island’s history began late in World War II as a naval base. It has since transitioned to a private-sector shipping port. In addition to foreign trade, the site connects Stockton with the likes of Oakland and Sacramento.

The port’s past and present purposes also make it a symbolic inlet to understanding an undersized, underpublicized California city. For Kisker and his wife, Rachel, underappreciated is another operative term.

“When you Google Stockton, very little comes up that is positive,” said Brandon, now the play-by-play announcer for the AHL’s Heat. “People assume there’s nothing to do in our community.” 

Rachel Kisker (nee Saiger), the Heat’s membership retention executive, seeks to solve that scurvy of knowledge day and night. Her official bio’s job description entails ensuring “a memorable time at Stockton Heat games and special events.”

Beyond Stockton Arena, both Kiskers are keen on illuminating all of their adopted home’s attractions. In 2015, while staying through the transition of hockey franchises, they pursued certification in the Stockton Ambassador Program. The program is one of 41 chapters of the Certified Tourism Ambassador™ network, which covers 17 states plus Bermuda.

“It tends to be people connected in the tourism industry,” said Brandon of the program’s membership. “However, we felt that it could also help fans who come to our games by providing them excellent service and recommendations on where to go before and after games — and if they’re staying in town, any other fun things they can do in the area to keep them occupied.”

Since 2013, the Visit Stockton tourism bureau has offered two-and-a-half-hour seminars on the city’s fundamentals and finer points. That class, along with marathons of homework, will culminate in a test.

To date, the Kiskers plus retail/promotions director Rob Cvetan have passed the course, allowing them to represent the Heat as local CTAs™. Five colleagues are hoping to join in the club that already boasts 495 members in total.

“When Visit Stockton offered the program to us, we immediately saw value,” Rachel said. “And as native Ohioans, it gave us a chance to learn more about the history surrounding our arena and team.”

Fish out of fresh water

Brandon Kisker and Rachel Saiger missed intersecting early in life. They each spent portions of their respective upbringings in Cincinnati and along Lake Erie. Brandon was born in Buffalo, N.Y., then raised in the Queen City. Rachel returned for college after being born there and raised in metropolitan Cleveland.

They finally converged upon enrolling in the electronic media studies program at the University of Cincinnati. They overlapped in a class for the 2010-11 academic year, and teamed up on an assigned interview.

As fans of Cincinnati’s edition of Oktoberfest, they surprised few by selecting Dr. Manfred K. Wolfram, who directed a study-abroad program in Germany, as their subject. In the interview, Wolfram peddled modern Munich as a recreational and educational tourist destination.

Brandon went on to intern with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The two otherwise remained in Ohio until the Thunder came calling. With the offer, he was effectively two steps away from his dream of filling an NHL booth full-time.

Hockey still needed to grow on Rachel almost as much as the new region would on both of them. But she followed Brandon out west and joined him at Stockton Arena as the Thunder’s inside sales representative. She has since ascended the ladder in her department, and now says, “We’re chasing an NHL dream.”

With the Kisker and Saiger families back in the Buckeye State, the two households’ long-distance breakaways united via necessity. But together, they took a rapid liking to the bevy of taco trucks, homegrown fruits and the annual Asparagus Festival. (“Be sure to get your asparagus ice cream and your deep-fried asparagus,” said Brandon, endorsing the event.)

By the end of their first season with the Thunder, Kisker and Saiger’s comfort zones had expanded to self-explanatory lengths. Rather than return to their old home for as long as possible, they ventured further west to Hawaii. Brandon punctuated the vacation by taking Rachel to the top of a Big Island volcano, where he popped the question.

They wed two summers later — on July 16, 2016 — at a German-inspired ceremony in Cincinnati. They subsequently jetted across the other great pond to honeymoon in Munich.

“Brandon and I love to travel,” said Rachel. “I’d like to think we bring some flavor from each place we visit to our lives.”

By the time of their wedding, they had elevated to Triple-A in their respective lines of work. And they were fully trained to tout Stockton’s offerings to prospective residents and vacationers.

“We’ve done a lot of growing in this city,” said Brandon. “To the point that I will always have fond memories of my time spent here with her.”

Better reads

In their final season, the Stockton Thunder had two intrastate rivals in Bakersfield and Ontario. They gave way to the Heat — the Calgary Flames’ new partner — as part of the AHL’s push to the Pacific.

With the Triple-A league fulfilling NHL clubs’ desires for closer-range affiliates, the Golden State gained five franchises. Bakersfield (Edmonton) and Ontario (Los Angeles) joined Stockton in its upgrade from the ECHL. San Diego and San Jose became the development bases for the Ducks and Sharks, respectively.

With Bakersfield and San Jose, in particular, the Kiskers have more radiant opportunities to employ their tourism pitching prowess. The Bakersfield Condors have enjoyed a natural rivalry with Stockton, a fellow Central Valley community roughly four hours away. The addition of the San Jose Barracuda one hour away in the Bay Area opens more avenues.

“Most of the people here are Sharks fans,” Brandon notes. And with a 12-game Stockton-San Jose season series, there is ample interaction between the regional fan bases. When the Heat are the hosts, the locals have the harder sell, at least on paper.

“Visit Stockton definitely does a good job welcoming tourists in and helping educate the community about the Heat,” said Rachel. “I think the longer the AHL is in Stockton, the more people will travel out for it. We do have fans from Bakersfield and San Jose come in for games. And after their first visit to the city, we see a lot of them returning for all of our team’s matchups.”

There is just as much give as there is take. Brandon feels obliged to learn about the greater Central Valley and the nearby Bay Area in his side gig. And as the team broadcaster, he constantly interacts with players and coaches who come in with as little familiarity as he had circa 2013. Except many of the young players have the disadvantage of not having found a soul mate to join them.

At best, the new players have the same initial geographic barrier as the Kiskers did. Only three Americans have suited up for Stockton this season, with no Californians. The other players outside the Canadian majority include three Swedes plus one Belarussian, Czech and Slovak apiece.

“It certainly is an adjustment for some of these guys,” Brandon said. “So I do my best to help them out by giving them ideas on places to go, eat, live while also making sure they understand and realize the areas of the city that aren’t in their best interest.”

Yes, even as a communications employee, Brandon will not take C-cuts around every flaw. Stockton has had its reasons to scramble for a reputational redress, especially within the last five years.

Forbes magazine has twice ranked Stockton among America’s 10 most dangerous cities. 24/7 Wall St. had it at No. 12 in the same category last year.

If you took Brandon and Rachel’s challenge to Google the city’s name on Nov. 22, unflattering headlines leaped out. The first three news results, listed horizontally with mugshots over the text, concerned two sagas of manhunt and arrest. The outlets relaying those stories were from San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento.

Most of Stockton’s local TV reportage comes from stations based in Sacramento, more than 40 miles away. As a result, it lacks the luxury of more intimate everyday scrutiny Cincinnati might receive.

But Rachel, for one, was broader-minded when she joined her then-boyfriend on the uncharted ground. “We knew from experience with Cincinnati and other cities that there is bad and good everywhere,” she said.

Added Brandon: “The people of this city are really friendly and eager to do good things for those in need. This is a big city, and crime is always an issue in big cities. But what always goes unnoticed is the good people that call this city home. 

“Too many times, I have seen the media ignore positive stories in this city and instead report on another shooting. So I think for me, there was an expectation that I was coming to a very dangerous city. And in reality, it’s like any city. Be aware of your surroundings and you’ll be fine.”

As the Kiskers quickly assimilated, diversity dethroned danger as their pick for Stockton’s defining characteristic. Area Vibes gives the place an A-plus for amenities and notes that more than 11 percent of its population is African-American, more than 20 percent Asian. The Hispanic demographic nearly matches the number of residents identifying as “white alone.”

“It excited me to be around people with new and different ideas,” said Brandon.

Between that revelation and a craving among seasoned Stocktonians for improved perception, the CTA™ program was a natural step. The Stockton Ambassador Program began in April of 2013, mere months before Rachel Saiger and Brandon Kisker moved in.

By the time they were an engaged couple of ex-outsiders, the saw the interconnectivity between the program and their jobs. Engaging visiting fans was a natural incentive, but even locals are never finished learning about their community.

“We’re able to better serve our fans and make sure their whole experience is an amazing one,” said Rachel. “Oftentimes, a fan’s experience with the team starts well before they enter the arena and doesn’t end until they arrive home.

“With information about other local attractions, places to eat and even detours or alternate directions to the arena and parking, we’re able to make sure their whole experience is a great one. The more time people want to spend near the arena, the better chance they’ll want to attend more games.”

The apt adage about sports tightening a community radiates with merit in the Kiskers’ intramural and extramural endeavors. As the Heat’s communications anchor, Brandon often accompanies players to appearances at schools and other engagements. This past October, team representatives joined city government officials in a classroom to launch a joint literacy initiative.

In Rachel’s role, she ensures the regular return of those flaunting the crests and colors of other Stockton institutions. Everyone from essential public-service departments to nonprofit organizations is targeted for frequent arena visits.

Already this season, Heat games have coincided with canned-food drives and coat donations. The beloved Teddy Bear Toss — a junior and minor-league staple that never loses its luster — is set for Jan. 20. The Stockton edition partners with its United Way chapter, and involves representatives from the police, fire and education departments.

“To see the pure joy on peoples’ faces when that first Heat goal is made is priceless!” Rachel said. “I love being able to bring people out and leave them with an amazing memory not only from our team but of Stockton coming together for a cause.”

Student-teachers

Despite his critiques of the Sacramento media’s portrayal of Stockton, Brandon counts the California capital among the “most underrated cities.” He appreciates being based in a location that is “pretty central to a lot of things.” It grants him and Rachel easy access to Sacramento, the Bay Area and numerous as-yet unexplored landmarks.

“There’s still so much we haven’t done,” he said. “Like Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, et cetera.”

Once the Kiskers check those boxes, odds are the experience will amplify their informed appreciation of their city’s offerings. And Brandon has high hopes that precocious first-year mayor Michael Tubbs will accelerate and illuminate the attraction within city limits.

The age-old hockey humility bug bit Brandon long before it did Rachel. As such, he was less inclined to credit the ECHL-to-AHL upgrade for making his second job easier. He defers generous recognition to the neighboring Stockton Ports, Single-A partner of the Oakland Athletics. (Banner Island Ballpark and its tenant sit next door to the Heat’s house.) The rest goes to the visionaries in elected office and the tourism leaders.

“I’d give credit more to Mayor Tubbs on helping to reinvent Stockton,” Brandon said of His 27-year-old Honor. “And Visit Stockton for making it fun for tourists to visit this city.”

Of Tubbs, he added, “I think the strides he is making will turn this city back around completely and restore its old glory.”

Maybe not quite as old as the naval-base days of Rough and Ready Island. That legacy will likely live but spiritually in history festivals and minor-league promotional sporting events.

But if Brandon’s optimism comes to fruition, that will mean more material for Stockton CTAs™ to cover. In turn, there could be more Kisker couples to come.

Of the test he passed in 2015, Brandon said, “there really isn’t anything too challenging, in my opinion. You just have to want to learn it.”

As far as Rachel is concerned, that principle has no better exemplar than the man who literally tells the world about their city’s highest-ranking athletic institution.

“Brandon’s passion for what he does is contagious,” she said. “And he puts his whole self into everything he does. His eagerness to learn — not just more about his position but about those around him — and help out wherever he can is such a rare quality."

Meet the Press: Kelly Schultz sports many hats in Bemidji

(Photo courtesy of Kelly Schultz)

Kelly Schultz had a friend who had a good problem to have. With that said, it was still a problem.

Karin Housley, a Minnesota State Senator, had hoped to attend the 2017 Kentucky Derby. But her husband, NHL veteran-turned-assistant coach Phil Housley, had commitments south of the state border.

Phil’s Nashville Predators were on a travel day between Games 5 and 6 of the Central Division Final. They would be home the next day to ultimately abolish the St. Louis Blues, their second obstacle on their road to the Stanley Cup Final.

Schultz, whose own hockey knowhow manifests itself through play-by-play duties with the Bemidji State women’s program, learned Sen. Housley would be attending a Derby viewing party in Nashville. The founder of her own millinery company, she enhanced Housley’s experience by crafting her a fascinator in Predators colors.

“What is a fascinator? That’s what everyone asks me,” she said in a recent email exchange with Pucks and Recreation. “Well, that’s what our friends across the pond call those elaborate headpieces worn at royal weddings.”

Royal weddings, and other occasions that have the look of a time warp to The Age of Innocence. For example, annual horse races on this side of the Atlantic that date back to 1875.

That was how Schultz came through for Housley. She eased the downside of her dilemma by making her look the part as both a horse-racing and hockey enthusiast.

The premise and destination of the lavish lid resonated on multiple fronts for the Beavers broadcaster as well. When she is not immersed in sewing or sports, Schultz is spinning music for Babe Country 98.3 FM in Bemidji.

“I think most people outside of Minnesota would be surprised about how popular country music is here,” Schultz admits.

Babe Country — whose moniker is a takeoff on Paul Bunyan’s pet blue ox — is one of two country stations in the market. Both happen to be the two most-listened to stations in the area.

But for the St. Paul native, it took a childhood journey to the Tennessee capital to get hooked. Before that, she was content with a steady diet of Neil Diamond and Minnesota’s own Prince.

“My dad owned every one of Neil’s albums,” she said, “and I could sing ‘Sweet Caroline’ word for word before it became a popular stadium anthem.”

Schultz’s parents were regulars at the annual Marine Corps League convention, which was generally the basis of the family of three’s summer vacation. Country stations were practically more rampant than rest areas in most of the rural locales they drove through. But that alone was too impersonal to sway the budding all-round radio connoisseur.

The year she traveled to Nashville, an encounter with Lorrie Morgan filled that void. The “Five Minutes” singer became Country Music Acquaintance Zero when she posed for a photo and gave Schultz her autograph.

“Since then, I’ve met Little Big Town, Jo Dee Messina, Craig Morgan, Phil Vassar, Trace Adkins and Lee Ann Womack,” said Schultz. “All thanks to working in country radio.”

Twin piques

Where Schultz (nee Freichels) credits her father, Arthur, for instilling an infatuation with music, she credits her late mother, LaVanche, for imparting an interest in design and a sports zeal. Taking the latter love to the airwaves has yielded a similarly quantitative and qualitative list of friends and influences.

After her first season of calling the Beavers in 2007-08, Schultz joined the Association for Women in Sports Media. The AWSM’s roster is a who’s who of broadcasting and print pioneers. Those who Schultz has rubbed elbows with include Christine Brennan (USA Today), Linda Cohn (ESPN), Suzy Kolber (ESPN, Fox) and Lesley Visser (Boston Globe, ABC, CBS).

But long before that, she had another female sports-crazed voice to feed off of at home. LaVanche all but single-handedly orchestrated one of her daughter’s earliest hockey memories when she scored three North Stars tickets. The game in question yielded one of many memorable melees between Minnesota’s Dino Ciccarelli and Chicago’s Denis Savard.

“My mother stood up and yelled, ‘Let’s see some blood. C’mon Dino!’” Schultz recalled. “My dad and I slumped down in our seats, pretending not to know the crazy woman screaming.

“I loved that about her, her passion for the game.”

That fervor trickled down and built a steady depth in the next generation. Schultz’s former babysitter, who dated a member of the Hill-Murray School’s powerhouse team, inspired her to enroll at the St. Paul-area Catholic institution herself.

Much like Nashville with country music, going there enlivened what she already knew through the media about her state’s unique high-school hockey craze. She graduated in 1990, as did Craig Johnson, a soon-to-be Minnesota Gopher and eventual veteran of 10 NHL seasons. They both barely missed out on Hill-Murray’s fourth state championship run the next winter.

But tragedy struck in the home barely six months before Kelly Freichels’ commencement. On Nov. 12, 1989, LaVanche suffered a fatal heart attack at age 47. Kelly’s sports and sewing mentor was gone far too soon.

A self-proclaimed “self-taught milliner and costume designer,” Schultz has carried on to retain a repertoire that neglects no aspect of LaVanche’s legacy.

In the process, she has found ways to honor other influential relatives. She named her enterprise the Angeline Alice Millinery after her two grandmothers, Angeline Freichels and Alice Grubich. With it, she has produced such sports-oriented gear as BSU newsboy caps and a Minnesota Vikings fascinator.

Of her mother, Schultz says, “She made everything from blankets to curtains to cute little jumpsuits and dresses when I was a little girl. She taught me how to sew when I was about eight years old, and the rest is history.”

If she did not put that history on hold, she at least relegated it to the proverbial backburner for a time. The way LaVanche’s other pastime lived on through Kelly all but derailed the latter’s fashion design dreams in college.

Enrolling at the University of Minnesota, she went to class in a Twins 1987 World Series championship sweatshirt. Most of the other would-be design majors, she recalled, “had multi-colored hair and fingernails painted black.”

Apparently, the notion of creatively combining different interests did not strike the professor. The concept of team-inspired clothing was as foreign as that of, say, the Nashville Predators at the time. (The franchise came into existence in 1998.)

Hearing her professor single out her attire as “what not to wear if you wanted to be a fashion designer,” Schultz shifted gears back to sportscasting. And once again, the comfort of home fostered her path. A TV ad for Brown College in Minneapolis touted the institute’s radio and television certificate program.

“I had already tried community college, university and now decided technical college might be the way to go,” she said.

Upon graduating in October 1993, Schultz moved to the Wisconsin border town of Hudson. Her first array of radio duties there set the tone for her present-day regimen. By weekday, she jockeyed for a big band station. By weekend, she served a contingent of University of Nebraska alums determined to pick up Cornhusker football games in Stillwater, Minn.

“I spent every Saturday during the college football season making sure those listeners got to hear every play,” she said. “I even became a bandwagon fan. The Cornhuskers were pretty good that year. And I’m still friends with my very first radio manager, Tom Witschen.”

The ‘one-woman-show’

Professionally speaking, Schultz’s relationship with Bemidji State has easily outlasted all prior attachments with any other entity. Five years into her tenure, she attained an undergraduate degree in sports management from the university.

Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, she is not afraid to be firm with the Beavers when the situation calls for it.

After answering Pucks and Rec’s inquiry, Schultz jetted off to Potsdam, N.Y., to call BSU’s two-game set with defending national champion Clarkson. In the series opener, the contesting goaltenders waged a classic arm-wrestling marathon before Bemidji broke down late. The Golden Knights escaped with a 2-0 victory.

Upon returning to the booth for Game 2 this past Saturday, Schultz had a blunt introductory mashup prepared. Based on Friday’s postgame pickups with head coach Jim Scanlan and her own observations, she drew a clear-cut conclusion.

And being the DJ that she is, she cued up the perfect song of the day for the background. She set Saturday’s opening essay and highlight package to a soundtrack from the British pop band Keane. Whether the emphasized refrain, “You could do so much better than this,” illustrated or lightened the mood was in the ear of the listener.

“The Beavs are way better than how they played last night,” Schultz offered in the intro. “At least, I think so. And most BSU fans would agree after watching them a week ago.” (Bemidji had tied Syracuse, 0-0, then crushed the Orange, 5-0, to start its regular season.)

That is what 13 years going on 14 of seven-day autumn and winter work weeks have done to her. She has a life beyond the Beavers, but willingly uses her outside passions to underscore her care for the team.

After her Hudson gig, five years back across the state border took Schultz around a multitude of Mississippi River towns. In June 2004, she moved north with her husband, Brian Schultz, and joined him on the Beavers beat.

For the first year, she produced the football and men’s hockey broadcasts that he announced. She kept her vocal cords in shape as a sideline reporter and substitute studio anchor.

Those dues became dividends after three years. BSU women’s hockey went in house for a play-by-play announcer, granting what Schultz dubs “the opportunity of a lifetime.”

The gig began with seven lean seasons under Steve Sertich. The Beavers finished .500 in only one season under his direction. They have more recently risen to a reckonable status under Scanlan. They cracked the 20-win plateau in his first two seasons, reached the 2015 conference tournament final and pushed the dynastic Gophers to a rubber game in a best-of-three quarterfinal series last year.

The first winning campaign she covered, 2011-12, coincided with another upgrade of sorts for Schultz. She started her first DJ job since her Hudson days with a Beaver Radio Network sister station, WMIS FM 92.1. She added the country station to her plate in 2016. But she has not subtracted much, if any, glamorous or grunt work from her sportscasting side.

“I have always said, ‘I’m at my best when I’m busy,’” she said. “Proudly, I also wear many hats, pun intended.”

Unless the Beavers are on the road, Schultz spends five weekdays hosting a four-hour midday music program on Babe Country. The rest of the time, she takes charge of fielding off-air phone calls and welcoming visitors to the studio.

In a typical travel-free week, she will accumulate no fewer than 26 hours on the air. Outside of her primary day job, the other six hours come from two games, plus the two-hour “Go Green Mill Coaches Show” on Wednesday nights.

That does not take into account her research and reception hours. She spends her Sundays preparing questions for Monday media day with BSU’s other women’s athletic teams. Hockey grants access on Tuesday, and Schultz wastes no time weaving what she extracts into the coming weekend’s first game broadcast intro.

Thursday’s extracurricular activity, as it were, entails cobbling clips from around the women’s WCHA. Last season, her 10th covering the league, Schultz began producing a podcast condensing the conference’s week that was into a span of three-to-five minutes.

And all of this is still leaving out her millinery minutes. That notwithstanding, the aroma of artificial ice never fails to pump a second wind into the State of Hockey native’s tank.

“Friday is my favorite day of the week,” Schultz said. “I’m a one-woman show. I engineer, produce and voice my broadcasts, which includes pregame coach and player interviews, intermission interviews with players and postgame with our BSU coach.”

The single-sleep turnaround between Games 1 and 2 may constitute the cruncher of the week. But the call for creativity helps to cancel some of the pressure. Case in point, the “better than this” motif of the Clarkson series.

When the Beavers perform favorably and get results, country star Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind Of Night” may cue up. Or Hunter Hayes’ “Where It All Begins” may punctuate anticipation, as it did for this season’s opening game.

“That’s where my love of music really shines,” said Schultz. “I love finding songs that fit what just happened.”

Royal inspiration

The 2017 Kentucky Derby brought symmetry to two crucial developments in Schultz’s life. She had befriended Karin Housley from a distance during the 2009 Men’s Frozen Four, where Brian broadcasted BSU’s semifinal appearance. Schultz tagged along and used her new Twitter account to keep the future state senator up to speed.

“I later found out that she was married to former NHLer Phil Housley and that they had a cabin on Leech Lake in Walker, Minn., just 40 minutes from where Brian and I called home,” she said. “We’ve been friends ever since.”

Two years later, while Prince William and Kate Middleton were tying the knot, Schultz read a text from another friend. Highlighting the headwear of the wedding guests, the message insisted, “Kel, you could totally make these!”

On that particular Friday, the Beavers had been out of season for nine weeks. The woman whose Twins sweatshirt once ostensibly precluded such activity spent the evening tinkering with textiles.

The productive burst of inspiration was the basis for her business. Within a year, she was invited back to the Twin Cities for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Fashion Week’s Emerging Designer Showcase.

Leading up to this year’s Derby, the Angeline Alice Millinery garnered a mention in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The May 5 listicle singled out seven dealers of “stylish Minnesota hats,” and Angeline Alice was one of the few establishments based outside of the Twin Cities area.

Schultz’s insatiable appetite for originality is the enterprise’s key intangible.

“Since April 29, 2011, I have made hundreds of fascinators,” she said. “Every one of them I make is unique. I pride myself on that, because who wants to show up to a party wearing the same thing as someone else, right?”

But granted, “unique” does not mean devoid of any similarity to another product. Schultz’s ambition last spring was such that her fascination with Predators fascinators did not stop with one Nashville hockey wife.

The Preds’ playoff run would prove to be veteran forward and first-year captain Mike Fisher’s swan song. He had spent his last six-plus seasons in the city most natural for his wife of seven years, Carrie Underwood.

With Housley’s fascinator, Schultz had already intertwined two of her three defining passions. With the Queen of Country, she saw a seam with which to complete her ultimate (pun inescapable here) hat trick.

Housley happily accepted her fascinator, and passed along the other to Underwood. Two-and-a-half weeks after the playoffs ended, the Angeline Alice account fished for feedback via Twitter. “Hi @carrieunderwood! How did you like the fascinator I made for you in @PredsNHL's colors? Hope you ❤ it!”

More than four months later, there is still no confirmation of receipt from the Queen herself. But Underwood’s silence does not miff a levelheaded radio personality whose own itinerary can make a honeybee blush.

“I didn’t take it personally,” Schultz said. “I’m sure she gets inundated with fan mail, gifts, et cetera.

“Maybe someday Carrie will reach out to me for something special to wear to one of those award shows. A girl can dream, right?”