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Pete Weber hits broadcast No. 2,000 with Nashville Predators. Here's how he got there

A preposterously padded, fancy beige office chair sat unoccupied at the far end of Section 311 at Bridgestone Arena.

The Sunday evening lineup sheet partially blanketed a thick packet of facts that rested between two computer monitors less than 30 minutes before Nashville Predators announcer Pete Weber called his 1,999th game for the franchise.

The 72-year-old from Galesburg, Illinois, was across the hallway in the media lounge. His right eye was glued to the Buffalo Bills-Philadelphia Eagles game on TV. His left eye on a round number — 2,000.

His concentration was uninterrupted in both directions.

That's Pete Weber.

"Now we have to go to fourth down," he said moments before his beloved Bills allowed the Eagles to tie the score 34-all, moments before his beloved Predators would begin their 3-2 victory against the Winnipeg Jets. "We can have a bad snap here, can't we?"

The Eagles didn't. Jake Elliott made the field goal with 20 seconds remaining. Made another in overtime against the team for which Weber called four straight losing Super Bowls in the early 1990s.

By that game's end, he was back to work, calling the Predators' nail-gnawing win against the Jets. The team's fifth win in a row.

"I cussed on the air once," he said without skipping a beat. "My first job at WGIL in Galesburg, Illinois."

His shift was 4 to 5 in the afternoon, with a dinner break till 6, before he picked up again.

His co-worker had forgotten to queue up a news recording.

Weber's mic was hot.

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"I go, 'God (darn it), Lon,' " Weber said, referring to his friend to this day, Lon Helton.

"I was embarrassed."

On Tuesday night, when the Predators face the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team that defeated them in their only Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2017, he will call his 2,000th for Nashville.

Weber here, Weber there, Webers everywhere

Pete Weber the Hall of Fame sports broadcaster almost met Pete Weber the Hall of Fame bowler, who reportedly has rolled 115 perfect games.

The two were slated to face off in a pro-am — the broadcaster very much the amateur in the equation. The near meeting years ago in Louisville came at the behest of former Nashville Sounds owner Larry Schmittou, who had begun dabbing his toe in the bowling alley business.

"Thank God we had an exhibition game the same night," the Predators' Weber said. "I'm an absolutely horrible bowler."

Weber then moved on to another Weber for whom he has great respect.

Toledo Mud Hens announcer Jim Weber, who in April 2022 reached 6,000 games called for the minor-league baseball franchise.

"He's the Cal Ripken of Triple-A baseball broadcasts," he said. "He calls me 'Cuz.' "

Pete Weber has a story for every occasion.

And, it seems, a Weber.

Like Shea Weber, a former Predators captain.

Although Weber the announcer doesn't profess to ever have called the perfect game or found the perfect player, a few are close to his heart.

He was the first name Weber mentioned when asked for his Mount Rushmore of Predators.

"My non-son Shea has to be among them," he said before following with Paul Kariya, Kimmo Timonen and Thomas Vokoun.

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Pete Weber could have been a legend in North Carolina.

Three years before the Predators began play as an NHL expansion franchise in Nashville, Weber applied to be a broadcaster with another expansion team — the NFL's Carolina Panthers. He'd had a connection with Bill Polian from his days in Buffalo.

"I always wanted to be there for the birth of a team," he said.

That didn't happen in North Carolina. Nashville, a few years later, did.

"I feel like I've been a pretty fair midwife here," Weber said.

Weber and his wife of 34 years, Claudia, don't have any children. The two met in Buffalo, were married in 1989, during the earthquake World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants.

Her family was from Knoxville. He was from a railroad town in Knox County — Illinois — where poet Carl Sandburg and former Major League Baseball player Jim Sundberg were born. Where Baseball Hall of Famers Grover Cleveland Alexander and Sam Rice once played.

Where Weber began at 10 years old weaving a web of broadcasting dreams listening on a transistor radio to Harry Caray and Jack Buck call St. Louis Cardinals games on KMOX.

She was the reason they decided Nashville might be a good idea.

Pete Weber and Terry Crisp: A friendship made in Nashville

Stanley Cup-winning coach and player Terry Crisp never figured he and Weber would become the best of friends.

A few calls from former Predators senior vice president Gerry Helper changed that.

"I said, 'I'll do one game,' " Crisp said of how his broadcasting career began the same time as the Predators' franchise did.

He sat down beside Weber, shook hands, called his first game, said, "Thank you very much," and left.

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He boarded a plane home to Tampa thinking Weber was "congenial." And that he wouldn't be back.

The phone rang. It was Helper again.

"By then I was bored," Crisp said of the second phone call.

It led to Weber and Crisp calling countless games together. To them teaching a non-traditional hockey town the basics, together.

The team offered him the ability to commute to and from Tampa. Crisp didn't need it.

Nashville has been his home since. The two used to dress up every Halloween as the Hanson brothers.

"It didn't take me long to realize when you're working with Pete Weber, you're working with one of the best minds in the business," Crisp said. "He's done it all. We can read each other's minds.

"I sound like a genius working next to Pete Weber. He knew everybody in every city — every writer, every sports announcer, every radio guy, every TV guy. There wasn't a sport he hadn't touched."

Or a listener.

Pete Weber channels Rocky: 'Yo, Adrian'

Pete Weber and former Predators general manager David Poile ended up in hospitals on the same day in Minnesota.

Poile had been hit in the eye by a puck that blinded him and Weber had had a heart procedure.

Both are still alive to tell the story.

Fitting, considering Weber is a master at that. He recalled with precision and reverence the first time he met Predators locker room attendant Craig "Partner" Baugh.

His call from the first time the Predators won a playoff series, in 2011 against the Anaheim Ducks: "Yo, Adrian. We did it."

His words when the Predators clinched their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final, again against Anaheim: "I just said, 'Sit down if you need, but the Nashville Predators are going to the Stanley Cup Final.' "

He has no plans to retire anytime soon. Even though he had brain surgery last season.

"I have not thought about it, other than when I thought about how (former Philadelphia Phillies announcer) Harry Kalas was carried dead out of the broadcast booth in Washington," Weber said. "I thought, 'Well, that's an interesting way to go.

"I don't necessarily know that I want to do it like that. But it could happen. I'm not going to say no."

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Pete Weber ended up calling 2,000 games with Nashville Predators