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It’s hockey and more hockey for analyst A.J. Mleczko
This is how busy A.J. Mleczko’s life has been over the past few weeks: Her world actually got a bit calmer during that traditionally chaotic stretch of February known as school vacation week.
“It feels very sane and very quiet, and so it’s been nice to get some sleep and just relax,” said Mleczko, the former Harvard and US women’s hockey star who lives in Concord with her husband, Jason, and their four children, two of whom were on break this past week. “Watch some movies, catch up, exhale a little bit. Oh yeah, it was a hectic couple of weeks for a variety of reasons.”
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The primary reasons: hockey and more hockey.
Mleczko, who grew up on Nantucket, is an analyst for ESPN, which this season owns NHL broadcast rights for the first time since 2005. She also does some Islanders games for MSG Network, and during the recent Beijing Olympics she was part of the men’s and women’s hockey broadcast teams.
While the Olympic hockey games were called off monitors in studios at NBC Sports’ Stamford, Conn., home base rather than from Beijing, there were still logistical challenges that had to be met, and to meet them usually meant keeping absurd hours.
In the middle of the Olympics, Mleczko had to get from Stamford to Las Vegas for ESPN’s broadcast of the NHL All-Star Game. That required a 4 a.m. wakeup to call the US-Finland women’s game on NBC, hopping on a plane to Vegas that arrived around 7 p.m., and trying to stay awake so that she would be adjusted to the different time zone for the Skills Challenge the next day.
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“I knew if I went to sleep then, I’d be awake at 3 a.m. and up all day after that,” she said. “So I tried to adjust for the moment and get on a normal schedule. But the funny thing was I’d actually just gotten an Apple Watch like the week before and it tracks your sleep. And I was getting constant notifications about how it’s better for me if I go to bed at this time, and get on a more consistent sleep schedule. Like this is the exact wrong time to get an Apple Watch.”
It’s apparent why Mleczko is in such demand as a broadcaster. She analyzes women’s and men’s hockey with equal knowledge and the kind of insight that comes from preparation and experience. She’s versatile, an adept and incisive analyst, whether situated in the booth or at ice level.
“I like both roles, I really do,” said Mleczko, who was between the benches when the Rangers’ Artemi Panarin threw his glove at the Bruins’ Brad Marchand in November.
“I enjoy the energy, the speed, the sounds, the competitiveness from the players when you’re down between the benches. When you’re up in the booth, you’re a little more detached, but when you’re up top, you can analyze a little better, see how plays develop.”
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A gold medalist as a defenseman in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, and a silver medalist in Salt Lake City four years later, Mleczko didn’t plan on becoming a broadcaster when her playing career ended.
“Actually, I never really retired. I just sort of stopped playing,” said Mleczko, whose first child was born in 2003. “My kids joke around now that at age 46, that I’m going to come out of retirement.”
Mleczko had figured she might become a coach and teacher like her father, Tom, who taught middle school science in New Canaan, Conn., and captained a Nantucket charter boat in the summer. But in the spring of 2005, she got a call from NBC Sports executive Molly Solomon, asking if she’d ever thought about broadcasting.
“I don’t know why I said this,” said Mleczko, “but I said, ‘Yes, I always thought it would be such an interesting thing to pursue.’ ”
Solomon had Mleczko come to Stamford to audition to be a women’s hockey analyst for the 2006 Turin Olympics. Solomon told Mleczko they would have her call a taped game from the Salt Lake City Olympics, but didn’t tell her which one or who she would be working with for a play-by-play voice.
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“And so I get there,” said Mleczko, “and who’s there? Doc Emrick, of all people. He’s a dear friend now and one of my favorite people in the world, but he’s a legend. He was prepared, had created these boards with all this information, and I walk in with no notes, nothing. And it’s the gold-medal game from Salt Lake, which I hadn’t watched and had no interest in watching because we choked and went down in a blaze of glory and lost [to Canada, 3-2]. I’m sitting there sweating and watching myself give up my coverage while they scored their first goal, and I’m thinking, ‘How do I blast myself, like, “Terrible job by No. 11 right there.” ‘
“We get to the end of the second period, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘If they make me call the third period and the celebration, I might start crying.’ They didn’t make us call the third period. They were very nice, and I went on my way, got on the train, called my husband, and I sort of started laughing and told him, ‘That was the shortest broadcasting career on record.’ ”
A few weeks later, Solomon called: Mleczko had the job, and her broadcasting career was just beginning. She did well enough in Turin that NBC Sports brought her back for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and again in Sochi in 2014.
“At that point,” she said, “I was thinking to myself if I want to get the call in four years, I’ve got to stay involved and relevant, because there are more and more women like me that are coming out of playing at a high level that will be more familiar to younger players.”
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Mleczko has only become more versatile, calling men’s college hockey on NBC, field hockey at the Rio Summer Olympics, among other assignments. She got her first shot at calling the NHL with a Bruins-Red Wings game in 2018. More NHL opportunities soon came, and by the time ESPN landed part of the NHL rights package in March 2021, Mleczko was an obvious hire.
“I am forever grateful for [NBC], taking that risk on me and seeing something,” she said. “It really meant a lot to be able to catch up with my NBC family during the Olympics and reminisce. And it’s incredibly special to be able to do my job at ESPN, where there is so much happiness and energy about having the NHL back.”
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