I caught up with Eddie Olczyk for a post on the Chicago Tribune’s site. For a change, he wasn’t en route to a hockey game.

From the post:

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Eddie Olczyk will be busy covering his other favorite sport this weekend for NBC.

The Blackhawks and NBC’s lead NHL analyst will be part of the network’s crew working the Breeder’s Cup Friday and Saturday at Santa Anita in California. It is a dream assignment for Olczyk, a passionate horse player.

“I’m really excited,” Olczyk said. “I’d be doing it (analyzing the races) at my house or at Hawthorne. This is the Super Bowl of horse racing. To be there for NBC really is going to be special.”

Olczyk said his start in broadcasting actually occurred in horse racing, not hockey. While playing for the New York Rangers in 1994, Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey invited him to analyze the races during a NHL work stoppage. He had been hooked on the sport ever since a friend’s father took him to Arlington Park at the age of 13.

“They knew I was a big horse player,” Olczyk said. “They said, ‘Why not come down and do some race analysis?’ I was going to be there anyway.”