Reconnecting With An Old Friend

Over the past year, I have been reconnecting with an old friend, Hockey. It is much harder nowadays to catch a game of hockey than I previously thought, but they are getting more nationally televised contests. Getting back to my point, in getting back in touch with thw sport, I managed to find a Penguins game, doubly difficult since I live on the West Coast, and was flooded with memories of games past and a remembrance of why I loved the game way back when.

I first started watching hockey and the Penguins in particular, in the mid to late 80’s. At the time I was but a budding sports fan who concentrated mainly on the Steelers and Pirates. But during one lull between football and baseball season, I decided to check out hockey and see what it had to offer to me, the sports consumer. What I saw blew me away and I found I had picked the exact right time to investigate this sport. The Penguins at the time were building toward a back to back Stanley Cup run. Their young and talented team was lead by a growing superstar by the name of Mario Lemieux, who by that point had already earned the nickname Super Mario. I was enthralled by the speed, action, skill and strength it took to play professional hockey, and mesmerized by the grace and talent put on display by the players and by Lemieux in particular. I never really knew what it was like to watch early Gretzky, only seeing him in his mid to late years, but by watching Lemieux, I got to see a superstar come into his prime. I saw how he could take over games, how his presence on the ice would change how the opponents would play the game. I saw how Lemieux would create scoring opportunities for not only himself, but also his teammates out of seemingly nothing. Watching Lemieux was a thrill each and every game and it drew me into the game of hockey.

There is a beauty to the game that is unmatched by any other sport. Each player has to have such a diverse level of skills that the men who play could be tremendous athletes in any other sport. To play hockey, you must have the hand-eye coordination and wrist speed and strength of a baseball hitter. You must have the physical strength and willingness to sacrifice your body of a football player. You must have the stamina of a NASCAR driver. You must have the vision and court awareness of a basketball player. Plus, a few times, you need to have the skills of a boxer. And you must incorporate all of these skills together and perform them on a pair of skates on a sheet of ice, which requires the grace and agility of a figure skater. This combination of skill sets made hockey, at least for me, irresistible.

Now, beyond the sheer beauty of the game itself, I found I had much to love in my hometown team.

First, they rocked the same colors as the Pirates and Steelers, which made it easy to already be sporting the right threads. Pittsburgh is the only North American city where all the professional sports teams in the big four (football, basketball, baseball and hockey), wear the same color scheme. Thus, to stand out in such a way in the sports world, and yet stand together as brothers playing for the same fan base, was appealing to me. Sure, now the gold in the Penguins uniforms is a bit different than the other two teams, but that matters little. The Pirates have incorporated red into their uniforms, so no big deal. Hey, each team has to be a bit distinctive in their own way. And if you doubt their connection to the Burgh sports world, just check out the shade of gold on Fleury’s pads, and you tell me that does not make you think Steelers and Pirates.

The team and its star came of age at same time I did, with both myself peaking with high school graduation and moving on to college and into the world at large just as the team secured their second championship. It felt as though we were intertwined on our separate paths. Sure, that sounds a bit nutty, but hey, sports can do that to you.

The Penguins Stanley Cup victories were my first real experience with watching a hometown team secure and celebrate a championship. The Pirates and Steelers, my teams from before I could even remember, had not won a championship since 1979, and being only five at the time I barely recall them. The two Cups that the Penguins brought home to Pittsburgh, I watched the team capture them from start to finish. And it began even before the start of their run as I watched them in the seasons previous as they began building toward that memorable first cup run. It was an intoxicating experience, and unfortunately one I was only able to relive again when the Steelers captured their fifth championship in Super Bowl XL.

And of course, one can never overlook Jaromir Jagr, who had perhaps the best mullet in hockey, and maybe one of the all time best. That alone would be enough of a draw for even the most casual of fans.

But like any good episode of behind the music, after the initial run of success and joy comes the downfall and split, and the Penguins and I experienced both.

The downfall began in 1993, after their disastrous playoff collapse against the Islanders. The team that year was even more powerful than the previous two squads, and was the odds on favorite to capture the cup. However, Mario’s bout with lymphoma had produced a pall over the team, one that at times was difficult to shake. And in a span of seven games, the tenacious team from New York managed to upset the favored Penguins. The series loss crushed me and left a harsh aftertaste, and unfortunately the team was never the same afterward.

That was followed by the players strike in 1994. This was a tough pill to swallow, since baseball was also going through a strike that ultimately ended their season without a World Series, and also brought an end to the contending Pirate teams of the 90s and seemingly beyond. Hockey did manage to at least salvage their season, but after being so disenfranchised by both sports, it was hard to get into the swing of things again, and the rift widened. My personal rift with baseball has never healed, and will never, but that is a story for another day.

Then came Mario’s first retirement. It was not surprising, looking at it now, to see why. He had won two championships, established himself as one of the all time greats and had even survived a bout with Hodgkin’s lymphoma while still playing, at one point coming to a game after treatment and scoring a goal. Plus, the game had changed by the point of his retirement to favor defense, which stifled Mario’s creativity as a player and a scorer. This change also begat more punishing defenders and abuse on scorers, and Mario was target number one. He had already been in the league since 1984, and with the punishment increasing and rules being made that hurt the type of player he was, it was no real surprise that he decided to hang them up. But it was still a blow to fans of the player and franchise that was hard to overcome.

Without Mario, watching Jagr try unsuccessfully to lead the team did nothing to help keep the interest of fans in watching the Penguins. Jagr at the time was an exciting player in his prime, with the ability to score at will. But he was also prone to moody play and had a tendency to be streaky. It was much like watching Pippen take over the alpha dog position in leading the Bulls when Jordan retired for the first time, with the same level of success, unfortunately.

During this entire period, the team was being horribly managed by the ownership group at the time. They wrote ridiculous contracts, paying exorbitant salaries to players in a misguided attempt to keep together the aging cup teams. Their financial management was poor, at best, and they were terrible at marketing and bringing in additional revenue. On top of that, they ignored the fact that to bring in more revenue, the Penguins desperately needed a new home to replace the aging and dilapidated Mellon Arena, but did little to solve this problem. As the team sank deeper into financial trouble, thus began the great player fire sale of the late 90s.

In hopes of reversing some of the financial troubles, they dumped player’s salaries as quickly as possible. In the process, they also stripped the team of any elite talent they had on the ice. This caused a severe drop in the on ice product and an increase in the already waning interest of the fan base. As people watched the team fall apart, they started staying away in droves. It was not that their hopes for another cup were lost, no that had long ago gone. It was that their hopes for a competitive team were gone as well, lost in the shuffle of departing players and impending bankruptcy. And when hope is gone, there is not much left.

This downfall coincided with the Steelers rising again to prominence in the mid 90s. As I am a football fan first and foremost, the Steelers took precedence in my sporting world, leaving me to only start following hockey regularly around January or February, depending on how deep the Steelers went in the playoffs. I had not quite mastered the ability to focus on two sports at once while studying, working and living life. There was just a little too much going on at the time. I am still not sure I have been able to master that skill, but I have improved since I did see a few Penguins games this season before football was over. Of course, that could also be attributed to the Steelers’ lousy season.

If I may a tangent, my worst time as a sports fan came at the end of the decade, as all three of my teams were on a downward slope. The Pirates were still mired in their swoon, one they still have yet to emerge from successfully. Although, on a side note, there does look to be more than a spark of hope from this season’s squad. But only time will tell, as the saying goes. The Steelers were in the midst of a rare slide that saw them miss the playoffs several years in a row, a phenomenon I would prefer not be repeated ever. And the Penguins were rapidly falling apart before my eyes. During this time, let’s just say no home team really captured or held my interest or spawned a blind devotion, since they gave me no reason for said devotion with their play. Now, mind you I am no fair weather fan, I support my teams whether they win or lose and through the thinnest of times as well as the thickest. Nothing drives me nuts more than seeing some cat run around with the hat or a t-shirt of a recent champion, suddenly proclaiming themselves to be lifelong fans of said team. You have to go through the pain to enjoy the pleasure when it comes to sports. If you don’t, the victories are hollow and empty. I went through four AFC Championship losses and one Super Bowl loss with the Steelers and it made their Super Bowl win that much sweeter. I went through the dark 80s with the Pirates, and it made their successes in the early 90s that much sweeter and coincidently that much more painful when they lost the NL crowns. And I went through the step sibling type struggles with the Penguins as they worked to not only become competitive and successful, but also to be looked upon as more than an afterthought in a football/baseball town, and it made those Cup victories as sweet as honey. You will not see me jumping on a band wagon just because the good times are here. But with that being said, one fan can only take so much heartbreak and losing, and all three teams were more than happy to dish out both in droves during that time period, and I found myself needing to take a breather or two from time to time. I would step back and remember all the good times they brought, the championships they won, the players that captured our hearts and imaginations, and remind myself that things can and will change. I reminded myself that one day they will all be back on top and I will be right there with them. Then I would throw myself back into the fray, cope with the losses and continue to hope for a better tomorrow. But it was a tough time for a Pittsburgh sports fan. Luckily, things are looking brighter now. A few weeks ago, I noticed something that made me take pause. At that moment in time, the Pirates were 3-0, the Penguins were in the playoffs and the Steelers had, just a few months before, anointed a young, competitive head coach to lead the team after the retirement of a local legend. It suddenly felt like 1992 all over again. But enough of my reminiscing tangents let us get back to where we left off, the fallout.

The culmination came with the 2004 strike, which really hurt sport on a multitude of levels. Personally, I fell on the side of the players. I felt like they really work hard for their money, and it is a highly specialized and demanding sport. But no one was seeing eye to eye at the time. The players wanted more money, but missed the point that it really was not there. And stubbornness and an inability to see beyond the moment stifled both sides and led them to damage the sport. And even now they are struggling to regain the same level of relevance they once had, although they are making great strides in their new incarnation. The league in its return has changed rules to favor scoring and a more wide open style of play. A style that is far more exciting to watch than what it had become. They got smart and installed salary caps and floors, insuring teams spend money on players and keep themselves competitive. They changed the scheduling around to favor regional match ups and long time rivalries to invigorate the interest of fans. All of these changes have helped in creating a brighter tomorrow for the sport, one that is just on the horizon.

Now, throughout this seemingly endless downward spiral, I kept an eye on the Penguins. While my interest may have waned from time to time, or been captured by other things, my devotion to the team never did. And I watched them through their trials, always hoping for a better tomorrow. Occasionally, there would be sparks of hope, but most of the time they would be extinguished by the splash of failure or mismanagement. But I always followed them hoping for those moments when the team might rise again. And as I watched, miraculous things began to happen.

It began with Mario’s return. Now, while he is a great player, he could not carry a below average team by himself to a championship. But just his return did wonders for the team and the fan base. Hope began to trickle.

That was followed with the drafting of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury was considered one of the best prospective net minders in a long time, and had the potential to be a franchise player that could backstop a team to a title. When the Penguins acquired him, hope began to flow. As his progress has shown, he is well on his way now to becoming a top flight goalie.

After the strike, there was a real need for hope, since the Penguins needed something drastic to happen to save not only interest, but also their place in Pittsburgh. This came in the form of lucking into the top draft position and grabbing the phenomenon that is Sidney Crosby. Most hockey experts and talking heads kept saying that Crosby could be better than Lemieux and Gretzky, and now he is wearing black and gold. Hope began to rush.

But just as rushing hope began to swell, suddenly up came a log jam. With a mix of fear and hope, I watched over the past several years the ongoing drama of the Penguins attempting to build a new home unfold. When it reached the breaking point of possible relocation in early 2007, fear seized me and all other lost Penguin fans. When I asked myself, why do I care so much, that’s when I realized I had forgotten how much I loved hockey and the Penguins. With that revelation, hope began to come on in a torrent. And much like any good Behind the Music, after that came the redemption.

I began to follow them in the box scores and paper. I suddenly had a slew of Penguin and hockey websites I checked with regularity. I tuned into any Penguins games I could find, which were few before the playoffs began, but like a thirsty man in the desert, I took every drop I could find. This renaissance has reminded me of everything I loved about the game and how exciting, thrilling, fast paced and fun hockey can be.

Now as they embark on their first playoff foray in years that old thrill is back in full force. Watching the maturation of Crosby and this team of young future stars is exciting, and knowing that one day he could be better than his mentor harkens back thoughts of those heady days of watching a young Lemieux come into his own.

But as good as Crosby is, and will be, he will never achieve what Lemieux has for the Penguins. Lemieux has saved hockey in Pittsburgh multiple times, and this cannot be overstated in any way.

His first save came as a player when he brought two championships, respectability and viability to the team. Not an easy task to do, since at the time, and still now, the Penguins rank third in the city behind the Steelers and Pirates. Lemieux almost single-handedly shed the perception that the Penguins were a mere afterthought in the Pittsburgh sporting scene, and helped bring the team into the fold of beloved local franchises. I also believe that now with this youthful, exuberant team he has built they can overtake the Pirates in local popularity.

His next save came as the owner, when he purchased the team in order to save it from bankruptcy and keep it in Pittsburgh. As the team roiled in financial trouble, to the point where it could not afford to pay Lemieux himself, he stepped into the breach and took over the responsibility of leading the organization and kept the team away from potential ownership groups that would have relocated the franchise. He continued in a capacity of owner and player, and eventually just owner, helping to guide the team out of bankruptcy and onto stable financial ground.

Then as a personnel man and smart owner he saved the team yet again in several ways. One by shrewdly identifying and amassing a large collection of young talented players whose maturation will only make the team stronger, more competitive and place them at the top of the NHL mountain for years to come. By becoming a player again and leading by example, showing his young charges how to play the game and imparting upon them his years of amassed wisdom and experience, teaching them in ways that no playbook or scheme ever could. And finally and perhaps most importantly, he helped the team by knowing when to hang up his skates for the last time and to hand the team over to his young protégé and allow Crosby and the young Penguins to find success on their own.

He followed that up by saving hockey in general by playing a role in the creation of a new collective bargaining agreement following the 2004 strike. With this in place, and both sides happy about the outcome, the games finally began again. If it were not for this agreement, there would have been no one on the ice, and no game to save.

And finally, he saved the team as a steward of the team and an adopted son of Pittsburgh, by finding a way against incredible odds to get a new arena plan put in place and signing a long term deal to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh for a long time to come. This may be the best save of all. And even though he said he would then be selling the team, even this did not happen. The potential buyers fell out, and after this Lemieux announced he would remain as owner. He is a Penguin through and through, and now a Pittsburgher through and through as well.

The Penguins, in their first foray into the playoffs in nearly six years are not faring as well as many had hoped or predicted. But they are a young team and have such bright promise and potential yet in front of them that this first adventure into the post season will one day be looked upon as a mere prelude to what is to come. Heck, most of them look like they do not have the ability to even grow a playoff beard. But one day, and that day will come soon, they will be the toast of the NHL, and their young leader will ascend to the stratosphere of not only hockey greats, but sports greats, and carry his team and the league with him. Crosby does look to one day be able save the sport of hockey by generating a mass amount of interest in hockey by his sheer brilliance and play, and that will be good for everyone. But Lemieux has saved hockey in Pittsburgh more times than Superman has saved Lois Lane, and that is good for all of us Penguin fans, the devoted and those of us who had lost their way and now, finally, found our way home again.