Nashua native Jamison Coyle will be front and center for the NHL Network as the pre and postgame host at the Winter Classic at Fenway Park, featuring the Bruins vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday. (Courtesy photo)

Jamison Coyle knows exactly where he was the last and only time the NHL’s annual Winter Classic was held at Fenway Park, New Year’s Day in 2010.

And it wasn’t anywhere near the event.

“I was watching it at Loon Mountain,” he said. “I was skiing with some friends. I was actually (at the time) doing a PR job in Boston between TV jobs.

“I hit a point in my career when I was missing out on watching the Bruins, I was out at night in Indiana covering everything that wasn’t Bruins, Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, the teams I grew up watching.”

The Nashua native and 2002 Nashua High School graduate’s time in the public relations job lasted all of three months. He realized he wasn’t the “9 to 5 cubicle” type, and that made him say “OK, I love TV, I’m going back to it, and I’m not turning back anymore.”

Coyle, 38, knows exactly where he’ll be for this year’s Winter Classic on Monday – where he felt he should’ve been 13 years ago, Fenway Park, as the pre and post game host for the NHL Network when the Bruins take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. He’s currently the host of the network’s NHL Tonight show, pretty much hockey’s version of the NFL’s Redzone.

“It’s going to be special,” he said. “I was lucky enought to be able to go to a bunch of Red Sox games, my parents had season tickets. It was down the third base line, so I know that corner of the park well. But to cover my favorite sport in my favorite baseball stadium is one of those dream come true moments. It will be very special.”

And for the first time, he’ll be taking his wife Leah – whom he met in Indiana, she played basketball at Indiana State – and his two boys, Jaxson, 8 and Mason, 5.They’re both hockey kids, you have to know that.

And he’s contributed to the coverage of the league’s major events,such as their outdoor games, the Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL Draft, All-Star Games, Trade Deadline shows, etc. as a host or otherwise. Monday he’ll be alongside Kevin Weekes, Mike Rupp, Jamie Hersch and E.J. Hradek.

Ironically, Coyle’s first assignment for the NHL Network was covering the Bruins in the Winter Classic that was held at Gillette Stadium vs. Montreal.

“That was pretty cool, to be able to go and see the Bruins, understanding that was their biggest rival,” he said, adding it was special to take his parents to the game. His father Kevin still lives in the area, but unfortunately his mother Kim passed away last year.

At Fenway, the host’s table will be on the third base side, and Coyle was also set to be at the practices leading up to the game.

It’s been a fun ride for Coyle. He was part of the NHL Network’s coverage of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final that the Bruins fell short in, losing to St. Louis. The latter part of the conference finals and the Cup Final had the current New Jersey resident on the road for 21 straight days.

“My wife was ready to kill me, we had a newborn at the time,” he said with a chuckle.

But it was still a career highlight.

“If you had told me before coming to the NHL Network that I would get the chancce to cover Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final at TD Garden, and the Bruins would lose,” he said, “and I would have to do a two-hour postgame (show) and be perfectly fine with it? I’d say, ‘What?’

“It was unbelievable on the day of Game 7, I was nervous and it was like, ‘You’re not even playing, c’mon on.’ But Game 7 for the Stanley Cup, that was the scenario.”

Coyle started at a small TV station in Dalton, Ga., and then off to Indiana after that. After his PR gig, he worked back in television in Wichita, Kan., then returned home to take a job as an anchor at NESN, where likely many around here remember him most.

“That was a dream job, right?” Coyle said, adding he originally tried for the pre and post game host job for Bruins telecasts on NESN. He lost out to veteran and popular Dale Arnold, but they still hired him to work on NESN Daily.

“One of the good things about NESN was I got their college hockey package, pre and post for all their college hockey games,” he said. “That was kind of my dream, to go to one of those schools and play hockey. The talent ran out, but the passion never did, so it was fun.”

Coyle played both hockey and baseball at Nashua, and was part of the last Nashua hockey state title team as a right winger (2002 over St. Thomas) and was a shortstop on the baseball title team in 2001 that beat Alvirne and on the one that lost to Winnacunnet in the 2002 final.

But now, Coyle is coming back home to see a Bruins team that is arguably the best in the NHL.

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” Coyle said. “The odds were certainly against them. The analysts were saying, ‘Just keep it afloat and maybe by December if they’re kind of .500 or in the hunt, they’d have a shot at a playoff spot.

“I don’t think we saw that they’d be the top team in the NHL, win 14 or 15 in a row on home ice, no one saw that coming. But we should have seen it coming just based on the core and the leadership group they had in place. I think (new coach) Jim Montgomery was perfect for what that team needed.

“Such a great story.”

Coyle is just having a blast. He knows the playoffs are a whole different story.

“There’s nothing like the difference between the regular season and the playoffs in the NHL,” Coyle said. “It’s almost like a completely different game. You can have all the skill,and score the lights out in the regular season. Then all of a sudden come playoff time, things tighten up. You have to grind it out,and be able to use your fourth and third lines. “Look at the Florida Panthers last year. They’d come back from a three-goal deficit during the regular season on a regular bases. Then in the playoffs, they’d get behind, that scoring would dry up. It usually does.”

So we’ll see what happens this year. But first, Coyle wants to experience the magic of the Winter Classic. Some may feel the NHL has too many outdoor games that waters those events down during the course of a season, but Coyle isn’t one of them.

“I think the addition of those games, that’s the public perception from the outside looking in,” he said. “Like ‘If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.’

“But until you go to one, when you’re there, it’s such a specatcle for that area, that town, that team and those fan bases – add more. Add more and more of them, it’s so great once you’re there in person.”

And Coyle noted, they are all different. Minnesota last year had record cold.

“That’s what makes them so unique,” he said. “You play at Notre Dame, at Fenway. It’s like the game takes a backseat to the buildup. It’s so special in those areas they bring it to.”

Coyle says he will stay with the NHL Network “for as long as they’ll have me. It’s the greatest gig for a kid who grew up playing hockey, and the talent kind of ran out after playing high school. I get paid to watch the games I’d be watching for free anyways.”

And that includes a special game on Monday at Fenway.