Mike Lange, the legendary Pittsburgh Penguins who expressed some of the best moments in the game, has died at 76.
The team confirmed Lange's death on Wednesday. No cause was given.
“Mike was Unmithmith, a magician behind the microphone,” the penguins said in a statement, then added that “Mike could only make the most important names in the hockey look more magical with just their voice.”
Phil Bourque, a former penguin who spent years with Lange in the team's radio post, called his former partner “one of the most friendly, loyal and loving humans that I have met.”
Lange spent almost five decades recounting the rise of the franchise also in the Stanley Cup champion five times, its unique delivery and its extravagant sayings that serve as the soundtrack of the iconic moments of the member of the Hall of Fame Mario Lemieux and Fortaleza Jaromir Jag's partner and current stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
“There was nothing like this,” wrote a fan in X. “Mike Lange calling Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagg Games. Many electric nights.
Mike Lange shakes hand with Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2019
Mike Lange shakes hand with Mario Lemieux during a ceremony in honor of his 45 years as a Pittsburgh Penguins station in 2019
“The best of all time,” said another fan before referring to the late voice of the Buffalo Sabres. “I hope he and Rick Jeanneret can call hockey from heaven for the rest of eternity.”
The Hockey Hall of Fame included Lange in 2001 when he received the Foster Hewitt Award for Transmission Excellence.
From 'It is a Night of Hockey in Pittsburgh' to 'Elvis has left the building' to 'overcome it as a rented mule', the distinctive turns of the lange phrase made their voice recognizable at the moment.
When Pittsburgh defeated Chicago to win a second consecutive Stanley Cup in 1992, Lange scored the title on the radio network of the team by telling Lord Stanley of the listeners, Lord Stanley, Get the Brandy.
Born in Sacramento, California, on March 3, 1948, Lange called games at the Western Hockey League before making a period of one year with the Penguins in 1974.
He left while the team experienced financial difficulties before returning to Pittsburgh forever in 1976. Marquesine clubs.
It was not uncommon for Lange's calls to be imitated by athletes everywhere, with former ESPN presenter Keith Olbermann giving his own turn in a Lange classic when using the line 'he hit him as a rented goalkeeper' occasionally during the prominent packages of the NHL.
Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jag's from Pittsburgh Penguins are with the Stanley Cup
Lange even appeared as a radio station, and jogged some of his unique sayings, in Jean's action movie -Van Damme 'sudden'. The fictitious 1995 film was established in the context of a Stanley Cup confrontation between the penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks.
“The first time I heard Mike Lange was in the 'sudden death' of 1995, providing the game per game, building the suspense,” wrote an X. “After realizing that he was playing, I suspect that the producers They wanted it, and I had to include the pen in the movie to get it.
'Thank you, Mike!'
Lange moved to the full -time radio team in 2006, calling the team's Stanley Cup victories in 2009, 2016 and 2017 before retiring in August 2021 after 46 years with the Penguins. The team honored him in October of that year, which Lange said he scored his 50th in the transmission.
“They did not deceive me in my search to do what I always loved,” Lange said in a statement that coincided with his retirement.