Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play announcer: Mike Lange with Jim Lachimia

PM: Do you think you’ll have mixed emotions moving out of Mellon Arena after so many years? As fantastic as the Consol Energy Center will be, you’ll be leaving tons of memories behind.

M.L.: There’s no question I have a lot of great memories at Mellon Arena, but this is just progress and part of life. I don’t have any reservations at all about moving into a new building. It’s like that phrase, "It’s time to buy news shoes" – and it is. There’ll be a boatload of events for the city of Pittsburgh and the surrounding area that they’ll be able to put in that new building. For me, the only drawback is, I wish they would have made it a second Igloo. You know what I mean? It’s different than any other building in the league and around the country. Every team that comes in here – every team – talks about the Igloo. That’s the kind of thing that I think makes Pittsburgh so special. If I had my druthers – and I don’t know about the cost; it may have been prohibitive – something along those lines of making it so unique is what I would have liked to have seen.

PM: Do you get caught up in the emotion of wanting the Penguins to win? When you’re around the team day in day out like you are, it’s tough to be a strict, objective journalist, isn’t it?

M.L.: This past season it was 106 games we spent together from Sweden until the end in Detroit. It’s kind of hard not to have friends and be a part of it on a daily basis, so there’s certainly no question that you want them to win because of that. You’re around them every single day and you know what they’ve gone through. Part of being a play-by-play guy for the team for every game is the fact that you’re pretty much a part of it all. A separate part, not the part that makes the success happen, but when you’re there on a daily basis, you’re getting home at 3:30 in the morning from Ottawa just like they are, so you appreciate what’s been accomplished. You really do.