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OT - Legend Mike Lange dead at 76

Wow. Sad news. My parents got me his autograph up at the Huddle when I was a kid back in the 80s, and I kept it for all these years.
He was definitely a reason alot of people in Pittsburgh were hockey fans.
The Penguins broadcasts were never the same after he left.
 
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I saw and talked to Mike a few times at North Park Lounge in McCandless. A really nice guy. I watched a replay of a Pens game with him and Dan Potash. Mike signed autographs and talk to fans the entire time. He would ask people questions and have conversations with them.
R.I.P. Mike Lange
 
I did not know Lange was originally a baseball guy because it seemed he was born to do hockey.

Doug McLeod was a worthy successor when Lange moved to TV full time.

Trivia: Who were the two Pens announcers other than Lange in the 60s- early 70s? And who called the Pens on WIIC channel 11? Scroll down.






Jim Forney and Joe Starkey (better known as the guy who called the infamous Cal v. Stanford football game. Sam Nover and Terry Schiffauer on WIIC.
 
Crude question, perhaps, but does anybody know what did he die of? He wasn't that old. He's had significant limitations for a while now.
 
Crude question, perhaps, but does anybody know what did he die of? He wasn't that old. He's had significant limitations for a while now.
It sounds like it was cancer according DVE’s Sean McDowell. Greg Brown said he’s “no longer suffering”… sad to hear he had a rough go of it towards the end.
 
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He was a heavy smoker and drinker and it was cancer. His voice was really feeble the past few years. He couldn't even attend the Jagr ceremony last year. That is when I knew his health must have been failing him.
 
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Mike Lange, John Barbaro, and Vince Lascheid helped me love Penguins hockey just as much as the players when I first started watching in the early 90s. An absolutely legendary announcer who we would all imitate as kids.
 
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What a legend. I’ve got a cassette tape from the late 80s of 5 or 6 year old me, playing knee hockey in the hallways of my childhood home, announcing games as if I were Mike Lange. RIP.
 
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