Two former Sacramento State students, Mike Lange and Marc Moser, are currently radio announcers for National Hockey League teams.

Lange, the voice of the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, attended Sac State from 1968-70. He graduated with a degree in broadcasting.

He said he worked at The Sacramento Bee to help pay his way through college. Lange said he started working there at the age of 12.

Lange also announced basketball, baseball and football games for the Hornets on KERS, the university radio station at the time he attended Sac State.

“(Sac State) was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life, because it gave me the opportunity to broadcast games on KERS,” Lange said. “Which in turn made me prepared to actually step out into the real world and broadcast.”

He did not follow hockey until a fellow broadcasting major who called games for a former National Hockey League team, the California Golden Seals, introduced him to the game of hockey.

“He asked me to go to the Sacramento Ice Hockey Association rink, where they had amateur games, and I said ‘well, I really don’t know much about hockey,'” Lange said. “He said ‘you should learn because someday, you never know, you might need it.'”

After persuading his college adviser to broadcast Golden Seals playoff games on radio, Lange used tapes of his play-by-play to get employment with other sports teams.

His first job after college was working in the broadcast booth for the Western Hockey League’s Phoenix Roadrunners.

Lange then announced for the WHL’s San Diego Gulls. In 1974, the Gulls folded because the New Jersey Knights were relocated to San Diego. The Gulls’ management decided the team could not financially compete with another hockey team in San Diego.

This bump in the road did not prevent Lange from pursuing his passion.

“I wanted to be a play-by-play man, and I pursued that and kept it up. I still have done that most of my life,” he said.

Lange’s big break in the NHL came in 1974 when he was hired as the Pittsburgh Penguins announcer on KDKA 1020 AM, Pittsburgh’s local news talk radio station.

“For a young guy who came from California and didn’t know a lot about hockey but learned the game, I was very fortunate to be inducted into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame in 2001 in the broadcast category,” he said.

Moser, announcer for the Colorado Avalanche, had similar experiences with broadcasting while attending Sac State.

He attended Sac State in the late 1980s and early 90s. He broadcasted basketball and football games for the Hornets on a radio station that aired only in the dorms.

He then got an internship with KFBK 1530 AM, Sacramento’s local news talk radio station.

With KFBK, Moser got his first opportunity to do play-by-play, announcing Sac State basketball and football when the Hornets joined the Big Sky Conference. He also covered Sac State baseball and did live updates as well as sportscasts for the school on Saturdays.

While still attending school, Moser got a chance to cover the Sacramento Kings, the San Jose Sharks and the San Francisco 49ers’ training camp in Rockland. Eventually, with only a few credits left until graduation, he got a full-time job with KFBK working as a sports director.

Moser said that his internship with KFBK was the thing that really sparked his interest in broadcasting.

“I always had an interest in sports and was always interested in broadcasting, but I never really thought of making a career of it until I got into KFBK,” he said. “What I learned there was absolutely invaluable.”

He grew up in Sacramento watching the San Francisco Giants and was a 49ers fan, but he never developed an interest in hockey.

He moved to Chicago in 1989 and befriended several Chicago Blackhawks fans.

“Sacramento itself never really had a hockey mentality and all,” Moser said. “But once you’re exposed to this game, especially live and in person, it is impossible not to fall in love with it.”

In 1996, Moser was hired by the broadcast wing of Hockey Enterprises, Altitude Sports and Entertainment, to broadcast play-by-play for the Colorado Avalanche.

“The Avalanche had just moved here (from Quebec) and just won the Stanley cup,” he said. “This town was absolutely on fire for hockey and it was just a great experience.”

Jeondra Arrington can be reached at [email protected]