For Eddie Olczyk, it’s a huge week. The Blackhawks start the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs versus the Minnesota Wild tonight; and the Kentucky Derby is Saturday.
It’s the one day a year that the masses pretend to care about horse racing, so it’s high time we talk about someone who actually does truly care about horse racing.
Chicago Blackhawks televison analyst Eddie Olczyk, is into equestrian sports almost as much as he’s into hockey.
Olczyk won the cup as a player with the New York Rangers in ’94 and coached the Pittsburgh Penguins from ’03-’05. He’s a reknown hockey broadcaster on both the national and local levels. He works for Comcast SportsNet Chicago, NBC Sports, and WGN. Obviously, Olczyk is known for his playing days with the Blackhawks too.
He’s also done well betting on horses too. Olczyzk won nearly a half a million dollars on a pick 6 bet.
From the New York Times:
It’s almost four years now. It was a Friday night, I was traveling home from the NHL awards, and it was at Hollywood Park. My flight was delayed three hours leaving Las Vegas, so I was supposed to land at 7 Chicago time, but I didn’t end up landing until 10 o’clock Chicago time that Friday night. I had been handicapping all afternoon and I made the call on the runway actually at O’Hare. It was pretty interesting.
I was lucky to land when I did and lucky Xpressbet was in existence, and there’s nothing like a DVR. So I have to give an assist to my youngest son for setting the DVR to be able to roll back the races and watch them. So yeah, that was quite the Pick 6. There were three winners that night because there was a massive carryout. So the payout was actually $497,000 something.
Quite the story for Olczyk.
It’s an interesting New York Times interview, how tech and new media helped him pocket a half a million dollars. In the paper of record, Olczyk goes on to also describe his first Kentucky Derby experience; set up by his friends at NBC, as well as his days owning horses.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an author and regular contributor to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, and Walter Football. Banks has appeared on Comcast SportsNet and the History Channel, as well as Clear Channel, ESPN and CBS radio all over the world.
President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@PaulMBanks)