ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610150022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
It took six years, but Mitch Peacock finally has reached the East Coast Hockey League.
In the years since Peacock was one of the last cuts by the Louisville IceHawks, the British Columbia native has been a social worker, a student, a scholarship college soccer player and now a broadcaster.
The former goaltender has gotten married. He's interviewed for two ECHL jobs five hours apart in the same state on the same day. And in one fashion, he's paying to do his job, too, a job he got because he mastered a cliche.
``I had to practice what I was preaching,'' said Peacock, the Roanoke Express' new play-by-play broadcaster.
Peacock, 29, arrived in September to replace irrepressible Tim Woodburn, the Express' voice who moved up to the expansion Kentucky Thoroblades of the American Hockey League. Woodburn is destined for the NHL. Peacock would like to follow Woodburn there, too. It just took Peacock a while to figure out what he wanted in life.
He had been a social worker in Edmonton and Calgary, but the production-line mindset in the job - statistics counted as much and sometimes more than helping people, he said - were beginning to weigh heavier than the goalie pads he once wore.
``I went for a walk along the river one night,'' said Peacock, who will call his first ECHL regular-season game Thursday night when the Express opens at Knoxville. ``I had been thinking a lot about what I wanted. I had always enjoyed and been pretty good at public speaking. I loved hockey. Then it hit me.
``Broadcasting. I was almost embarrassed I hadn't thought of it before.''
Although boisterous Woodburn and the more-reserved Peacock are different personalities, they are very alike in one way. Each can talk, seemingly forever. And Peacock has plenty to talk about on his own resume.
He grew up and played youth hockey in Castlegar, B.C., a town of two arenas and about 6,400 residents in the southeastern part of the province, about a 21/2-hour drive north of Spokane, Wash. He was a goaltender at the University of Alberta, where he earned a recreation administration degree. Peacock then went for his master's at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, where he was a backup goalie.
He left school after a year and tried out with Louisville in what was a very different ECHL from the league today.
``Basically, I had to decide what to do,'' Peacock said. ``I was 23. I went out and marketed myself with my bachelor of arts degree, not recreation administration. I had taken psychology and sociology courses, so I got into social work, in career planning and job searching.''
He enjoyed it for a few years, and he met his future wife, Arlene, who was changing careers from legal secretary to massage therapist. He moved to Calgary, ``and I began wondering, `Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?' The answer was no. I thought if I wasn't 100 percent into it, I was just taking someone's spot.''
That's when he went for that career-changing walk. He began to inquire about building a background in broadcasting. He was 27, but he returned to school, at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and completed one year of a two-year program in ``broadcast news.''
``I started canvassing for jobs,'' said the dark-haired broadcaster, who also is the Express' media relations director. ``I knew how to do that. I had been teaching other people how to do it. I had a bachelor's degree, part of a master's and I'd been to school for broadcasting.''
Peacock didn't get a job. He got two last season. He became the play-by-play voice for the Junior A Bow Valley Eagles in Canmore, Alberta, west of Calgary. He also was the color analyst for the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League.
``It was great experience,'' he said. ``I saw the job from both roles. Now I said, `How do I really get into this?' There are very few jobs at this level and a lot of competition. I knew I'd have to do more than just broadcasting, and I thought I could do that.''
Peacock landed interviews this past summer with the Express and the Hampton Roads Admirals, interviewing with both clubs on the same July day. The Express had more than 90 applicants to replace Woodburn, and Peacock remembers telling Arlene - they've been married for nine months now - how he liked the Roanoke Valley because it reminded him of the landscape of his native province.
He was offered the Express' job, and he accepted, but it wasn't that easy. The Express had to obtain a work visa for the Canadian. The club agreed to pay the $2,500 work visa fee up front, and Peacock is reimbursing the club through his paychecks. His wife has sold her business and is moving to Roanoke to join her husband this week.
``I'm really looking forward to doing this,'' said Peacock, who made his debut Wednesday with an exhibition game broadcast. ``It's all about how much you respect what you're watching, and I respect what's here. It's professional hockey, and this is a good league. In broadcasting, whatever broadcasting, the job is not to lie.
``Being a Canadian, hockey is special to me. There's a certain pomp and circumstance about it. Having the opportunity to do this means a lot to me.''
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