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Murrysville native Mears replaces Steigerwald as Penguins' TV voice | TribLIVE.com
Penguins/NHL

Murrysville native Mears replaces Steigerwald as Penguins' TV voice

Jonathan Bombulie
Jonathan Bombulie
450131788
NHLI via Getty Images
NHL Network on-air talent Steve Mears hosts NHL Live during the Stanley Cup Final on June 5, 2014, at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

A veteran of the broadcast business for more than three decades, Paul Steigerwald often gets requests to speak to young announcers looking for career advice.

He remembers one such request that came from Bob Brooks, former owner of the Wheeling Nailers, in 2004. Steigerwald went to the Carlton Restaurant to meet with a fledgling broadcaster just out of Bowling Green who was calling games for the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs of the Central Hockey League in Louisiana.

It was Steve Mears.

On Tuesday, Mears was announced as Steigerwald's replacement as television play-by-play voice of the Penguins starting next season. Steigerwald will work for the Penguins in the communications and marketing departments.

"The first thing I noticed was that he had an incredible voice, a voice I would kill for," Steigerwald recalled. "In broadcasting, we call it pipes. He just has phenomenal pipes."

"He could not have been more gracious with his time," Mears said. "He gave me optimism when I was trying to take the next step in my career. He gave me that sense of hope that if I kept working and stuck with it, I'd have a chance."

In 2009, the Penguins hired Mears to work with the team's online radio operation. His role expanded to include studio work on Root Sports broadcasts.

"I watched him and I thought, 'This is the going to be the guy to replace me,' " Steigerwald said. "I really thought that. I didn't know when. I thought it might take years. I wasn't sure. He just looked like an heir apparent to me."

Steigerwald began working on Penguins broadcasts in 1985 and became the lead television play-by-play voice in 2006. Broadcasters rarely get to plan an exit strategy, and Steigerwald is no different.

He said he's at peace with the move, though.

"I don't feel remorseful or a bitterness or any kind of vengeful feeling. It's all about feeling lucky that I've had a chance to do what I wanted to do since I was a teenager for a long time and make a good living at it," said Steigerwald, 62.

Shawn McClintock, general manger of Root Sports, said the decision was motivated by the opportunity to add a "rising star" in the sports broadcasting business in the 37-year-old Mears. When contract situations lined up right, the network made the move.

Penguins' broadcasts are among the most-watched in the league, though ratings have fallen slightly since reaching a peak in 2014. McClintock didn't have the goal of overhauling the broadcasts, just adding to them, he said.

Mears will calls games with Bob Errey, who will stay on in his color commentator role.

"We're always looking to be better. You're always trying to expand, whether that's a bigger distribution to send the team to or looking for higher ratings," McClintock said. "We're always looking for these ways to improve ourselves to ultimately tell a better story, the Penguins story, to the fans."

For Mears, it was an opportunity at his dream job.

While serving primarily as a studio host at NHL Network the last five years, he had the goal of filling one of the league's 31 television play-by-play jobs. To do so in his hometown, where he grew up listening to Mike Lange, is the icing on the cake.

"I thought he was always the perfect narrator for the outstanding teams that we had," Mears said. "We had the greatest player and two Stanley Cup champions when I'm 10 and 11 years old, and enhancing that, like a soundtrack enhancing a movie, is Mike Lange. To be able to do that, that's always the goal."

Jonathan Bombulie is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @BombulieTrib.

The reaction was mainly positive on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Bobby7Johns/status/864493481737191424