Wheeler ready to hit the road

Doug Wheeler, who has been a staple of the Boston sports scene for the past 40 years, is calling it quits after the Bruins' season. Wheeler is not a player or coach, but rather the producer for Bruins games on NESN.

"I have great memories, and I can pop in a videotape any time and relive them with my grandchildren," said Wheeler, 62.

Wheeler graduated from the Cambridge School of Broadcasting in 1965, then got a job as a radio engineer before he became the sports anchor at a TV station in Northampton for three years. He then went to work at a TV station in Lowell, which went bankrupt after three months.

"But as luck would have it, there was an opening at WSBK [in Boston]," he said. "It was so fortunate because in March of 1970 I drove to WSBK, and the Bruins won the Stanley Cup." Wheeler started out as an engineer during his 30-year stay at Channel 38, then worked as a cameraman for 11 years, and then was in charge of producing and directing special programs.

In 2000 he moved to NESN, where he became senior producer of Bruins broadcasts.

He arrives at TD Banknorth Garden at 10:30 a.m. on game days to develop story lines and interviews. During the game, he sits next to director Rose Mirakian-Wheeler (no relation) in the HD Mobile Unit behind the Garden, where he coordinates the video elements and replays.

Two of Wheeler's most vivid memories are from the old Boston Garden. One was a small pregame fire that melted all the cables and sent Wheeler and his crew into scramble mode. The other was Bobby Orr's retirement, with Wheeler on the ice with a hand-held camera.

The director asked Wheeler to get a shot of Orr's wife, but there was a problem.

"I went to frame the shot, and realized Orr was standing on one of the cables," said Wheeler, who was kneeling on the ice. "I didn't know what to do, so I just tugged on his cuff and pointed down and he just smiled and moved and I got the shot. That was something you never forget."

Wheeler said he's been going through a slow withdrawal.

"It's been great, but I'll enjoy not having seven months of travel," he said. "I'd definitely do it again."

The Arena Football League, which just opened its 21st season, has flown under the radar in Boston. Hopefully that will change in a few years, said Chris McCloskey, senior vice president of communications for the AFL.

"We think [Boston] would be a great market for the AFL. It's just a matter of getting the right ownership group there. We've had discussions with numerous potential groups; it just hasn't worked out yet. But we're optimistic that one will emerge relatively quickly, and if that did happen, you could possibly see [a team in] Boston in 2008."

Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, hosts of "Mike & Mike in the Morning" on ESPN Radio, will be the lead announcing team for ESPN, beginning with the Dallas Desperados-New York Dragons telecast on ABC Sunday at 12:30.

The ESPN Classic show "Missing Link" will premiere Wednesday at 10 p.m. Hosted by ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd, the show will challenge sports fans to find the link between two seemingly unconnected athletes. The first episode will connect "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig to "Iron Mike" Mike Tyson, Joe Paterno to Anna Kournikova, and Alex Rodriguez to Chi Chi Rodriguez. "We found that there is a treasure trove of unexplained associations that range from the intriguing to the bizarre," said John Papa, vice president of programming at ESPN Classic. One link is purposely left out and not revealed until after the commercial break, when the audience has a chance to guess what that missing connection is . . . Bill Parcells didn't stay away from the NFL for long. It was announced yesterday that, as expected, Parcells will be joining the ESPN family. He'll be a studio analyst for "Monday Night Countdown" and other programs, write weekly columns for ESPN.com, and co-host a new ESPN Radio show with Chris Mortensen Fridays at 7 p.m. during the NFL season . . . New Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella holds nothing back during an interview with Frank Deford on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" Monday night at 10. When asked if he can deliver a World Series title to a team that hasn't won one since 1908, Piniella said, "I'll tell you this, we are going to win now . . . I don't care about the past. What we have to do now is get our team to develop a little bit of the what I want to call 'Cubby Swagger.' "

Susan Bickelhaupt can be reached at bickelhaupt@globe.com.