It's that time of year again. It's the time of year where a certain North Side baseball team takes over 720 WGN Radio and the Blackhawks are bumped to another radio station in Chicago regardless of how good or bad the team is.

If you're looking for tonight's Hawks/Wild game in St. Paul, it'll be found on Comcast SportsNet Chicago & 560 WIND-AM, as well as NBC Sports Network, DIRECTV 220, outside of the Chicago metro area nationally starting at 7P. While WIND will once again carry a handful of Hawk games the next couple of months due to Cubs' games on WGN Radio, there are 3 games you will NOT find on 560 AM due to scheduling conflicts there.

That's where 97.9 The Loop comes in. Yes, "Chicago's Classic Rock Station" as they call themselves now will interrupt the music on 3 dates this month due to scheduling conflicts WIND simply can't get out of. WLUP will pick up 3 Hawk games this coming Sunday when they face the Blues in St. Louis, also on NBC at 11:30A. The Merlin Media-owned classic rocker will also carry the Blackhawks' home game Saturday, April 20th vs. the Coyotes at United Center, also on WGN's CW9 at 7:30P & the regular season finale the following Saturday, April 27th in St. Louis, also on Channel 9 at 7:30P.

For the record, 560 AM will carry the bulk of Blackhawk games that confict with Cubs' games on WGN Radio. John Wiedeman & Troy Murray will call the games as always, while Jim Memolo hosts pre, intermission & postgame for the games. WIND will also carry the Blackhawks' home game vs. the Predators Friday, April 19th at 7:30P, the road game in Vancouver Monday, April 22nd at 9P, and the second to last home game vs. the Flames Friday, April 26th at 7:30P. All 3 of those games will also be broadcast on CSNC.

But who will overplay the same Zeppelin, Van Halen, AC/DC, and Rolling Stones song now?

I know...every other classic rock station in this city.

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97.1 The Drive. They're sounding more like The Loop these days.

It's more that the Loop is sounding like the Drive than vice-versa. The Loop has picked up a lot of gentler "classic hits" and dialed down the butt-rock pretty hard.

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One of the noticeable differences between the 2 stations is that The Drive has LIVE jocks spinning the tunes, while The Loop has gone towards something that a handful of other stations have done lately. It's called voice tracking & the jocks The Loop has now pre-tape their segments ahead of time.

"Fly Like an Eagle" is going to replace "Chelsea Dagger" post goals tonight.

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@audioidkid

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CSFMB: Home of the small minded

Pay someone to do five hours of work in 45 minutes and pay them accordingly! Eeeexcellent!

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Oh, by the way, I was out and about during the game and thought I'd put the game on to hear it in sparkling FM audio. It sounded like they were just playing a low-fidelity internet stream over the air. Par for the course with a Randy Michaels station, I suppose. Then again, maybe sporting events, with all the white noise of a crowd, just don't lend themselves to the crisper fidelity of FM?

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If you're looking for the Blackhawks on your radio tonight & Saturday, the first 2 games of the Western Conference Semifinals vs. the Red Wings, guess what?

Because of (you guessed it!) Cubs' baseball vs. the Rockies tonight & the Mets Saturday on 720 WGN Radio, along with scheduling that 560 WIND can't get out of, 97.9 The LOOP does the heavy lifting again. The LOOP will temporarily stop being "Chicago's Classic Rock Station" as they call themselves these days to broadcast the first 2 games of the Blackhawks/Red Wings' Stanley Cup Playoff series from United Center.

The hometown call described by John Wiedeman, Troy Murray and pre/intermission/postgame host Jim Memolo will be heard on The LOOP tonight for Game 1 starting at 6:50P with a 7:05P puck drop & at 11:50A Saturday prior to a Noon puck drop for Game 2 of the series. It's unclear if The LOOP will be airing any more games due to Cubs' conflicts on WGN, but stay tuned. It'll be audiostreamed on WGNRadio.com no matter where you are.

I wonder what 560 is carrying that they can't bump. Probably just some brokered crap no one listens to. And no, I cannot be arsed to go to their website and consult their program guide. I don't want to start getting Google ads for anti-abortion rallies because I went to 560's website.

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It's beyond my control. I was under the impression that because the Cubs always come first on 720 WGN, the Blackhawks usually relocate to 560 WIND. That's not the case this week. I don't listen to WIND, so I can't "Answer" why 560 AM couldn't do the heavy lifting, let alone other AM outlets with better signals than 560 AM.

Yeah, 560 is pretty damn weak for a low AM signal. Usually the lower you go, the more you can do with less. ESPN Milwaukee moved from 20,000 watts at 1510, which barely made it to Kenosha County from a stick in Waukesha, to 400 watts at 540, where they're booming well into northern Illinois. WIND must be at like 1 watt or something, geez.

FUN FACT: when my family owned 1550 in Lake Geneva (things went so sideways after we sold it that it's not even licensed to LG anymore), an 11-year-old Curious Hair was occasionally allowed to "broadcast" after sunset at our FCC-regulated 1 watt. Check out this blowtorch, baby:



And that's generous. I don't think we made it out of the parking lot. It's okay. All I did was play "You Can Call Me Al" off an old cart and then play production music as if they were actual songs.

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M-F From 9a-1P On The Score with DJ Danny Mac.

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Especially on Fridays with 8 Tracks going into that break at :55 past the hour...