Broadcaster Profile- Darin Pritchett, Notre Dame Fighting Irish

I hope you enjoyed the first installment of my broadcasters profile here on the Hockey on the Radio Blog. I'd like to take this opportunity to showcase the next radio broadcaster in Hockey East, Notre Dame's Darin Pritchett.

I met Darin Pritchett for the first time in November of 2013 in South Bend, Indiana, when Merrimack headed out to face Notre Dame for the first time as a member of Hockey East. I was immediately taken by his professionalism and his knowledge of the game. He is an award winning broadcaster who was named as the voice of the Fighting Irish hockey team prior to the start of the 2009-10 season, What a lot of people don't know is that Darin took the job under very trying and difficult circumstances. In February of 2009, Mike Lockert, who had been the voice of Notre Dame hockey for seven seasons, passed away suddenly. Darin took the job at a moment's notice, filling in starting in February and continuing on into the NCAA tournament.

Darin made history on the night of March 6-7, 2015, as he called a five overtime marathon overtime game between Notre Dame and Massachusetts in Game 1 of the Hockey East tournament.The game, which took just under six hours to complete, became the longest college hockey game in NCAA history. What made the feat even more incredible is that Darin did the game alone with no analyst.

Darin has been the host of many sports programs over the course of his career, including " JT in the Morning", "Weekday Sportsbeat", and " Gameday Sportsbeat", which is the pre-game show for Notre Dame football. Darin was honored in 2004, 2005, and 2006 by the Associated Press for excellence in broadcasting in a major market division. He has done men's and women's basketball on radio and television for Southern Illinois / Edwardsville, while also working as a sports producer for KMOX radio in St. Louis (longtime flagship station of the St. Louis Blues).

He was named the play by play voice of the South Bend Cubs beginning in the 2015 season, the A level affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

Here's a nice story about Darin and how he acheives excellence in his broadcasts on a consistent basis.

http://hottytoddy.com/2013/10/01/seeking-excellence-in-all-you-do/


Here is a sample of Darin's work during an Irish home game against UMass Lowell at the Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend:

https://archive.org/details/DarinPritchettPlayByPlayClip


To listen to Darin on the air call Notre Dame hockey, you can hear him live at http://www.newcountry999.com/live/audio_stream/.

In summation, it is great having a true pro like Darin in our league. He adds class and professionalism to an already deep and talented group of radio broadcasters to our league.