New team. New voice.
The Newfoundland Growlers have announced Chris Ballard will serve as ECHL team’s primary play-by-play voice for its inaugural season.
The 31-year-old Ballard is a native of St. John’s and returns home after spending three seasons as play-by-play broadcaster and public relations co-ordinator with the ECHL’s Brampton Beast.
However, it won’t be Ballard’s first go at contributing to broadcasts of a professional hockey teams in the Newfoundland capital. Prior to joining the Beast, Ballard spent two seasons as part of the media team of the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps, providing content for the club’s website and working as the IceCaps Insider on Rogers TV.
“To get the opportunity to come back to my hometown to work for a first-class organization like the Growlers is truly a dream come true,” said Ballard, a graduate of Memorial University and of Centennial College’s sports journalism graduate program.
“I look forward to bringing my high-energy style to the fans and finding new and exciting ways to engage with the community.”
Brian Rogers had been the longtime and familiar play-by-play voice for AHL teams in St. John’s, but while Ballard will look after those duties for the Growlers, the team says Rogers, who has been recovering from some health issues, will be involved with the broadcast.
Details of Rogers’ duties are expected to be announced next week. That’s also when we might learn of plans for televised coverage of Growlers’ home games.
For now, it is known Ballard’s call of home and away games will be made available online using the streaming platform Mixlr at mixlr.com/NLGrowlers. Mixlr is compatible with home computers and mobile devices and allows for fan interaction with the broadcast team during the game.
The games will be not carried on radio as was the case for St. John’s AHL teams.
The Growlers will begin their first training camp Sunday with sessions at the Glacier in Mount Pearl before travelling out of town for exhibition games against the Beast in Stephenville (Oct. 4), Deer Lake (Oct. 5) and Clarenville (Oct. 7).
They play their first-ever ECHL regular-season game Oct. 12, against the Florida Everblades at Mile One Centre.
Sales of Growlers season tickets and 12-game ticket packages are underway, with single-game sales set to start Saturday.
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