Pens and Family

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2009 Champs Round Two

My Blimpy BooHoo Fuck the Red, Its Dead sign

 My image of Capitals fans

Guerin in his office in front of the net

 I am ready to go in my goal light helmet-lasted one game

 My full Munchkin gear to agitate the great ape

 Outside Mellon Arena

 Outside Mellon Arena

Steel Man above with my Pensbitches jersey, and me below with Ovagkin taken by Dan Stein of DC Sports Bog

2009 Champs-Round One Memories

 prophetic words-unfinished business

 aaron asham as a Flyer-he did not like me much

 Me and my mini-me....he wanted to fight me over my Fartsmell jersey-until he read it

 waiting to mess with my man Fartsmell

the enemy in the tunnels pregame-always my favorite time to bother them all

 krista and I in our playoff gear ready to root for the Penguins

richards and carter ready to hit the ice for the first playoff game

 me in my playoff gear, and ready to make friends

Best Pens Team Ever? 1992-93

As noted, the expectations at my house and across Penguins nation in the 1992-93 season was for a threepeat, as the Cup winning team from 1991-92 was returning pretty much intact, and was loaded up front with the likes of Lemieux, Stevens, Tocchet, Jagr, Francis, Mullen, and a young Sean McEachern, who potted 28 goals during this campaign. On the blue line, they had Larry Murphy, who put in 22 goals and 85 points to lead the offensive charge there, and shutdown players such as Ulf and Kjell Samuelsson, Peter Taglianetti, and veteran Mike Ramsay.  They had role players like Troy Loney and Bob Errey, and of course great goaltending with Tom Barrasso.  I cannot think of a more talented team in franchise history.  On top of that, they came into the season sporting a new and modern logo.

I will cut to the chase with the highligts for the Penguins on this season.  The Penguins won the President's Trophy as the team with the most points in the league, with 56 wins and 119 points.  They set a league record winning 17 straight games.  This team had four players with 100 plus points including Lemieux who had 160 points despite missing a quarter of the season, Francis, Tocchet, and Stevens.  They also had Jagr with 94 points!  They had five players with 30 plus goals including Mario with 66, Stevens with 55, Tocchet with 48( and a team high 252 PIMs), Jagr with 34, and Mullen with 33 goals.  McEachern chipped in 28 goals and Larry Murphy added 22 more from the blue line!   Can you say firepower?

As noted, the other big story of this team was the season of Mario Lemieux.  He came out storming and was in a postion mid-year to challenge Wayne Gretzky's goal record of 92 goals and point total of 215.  Then came an announcement that stunned the hockey world.  On January 12, 1993 it was announced that Mario had been diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease and would have to undergo aggressive radiation therapy.  That therapy took two months time, drained Mario of his strength, and his team's play fell off a bit without him.  When Mario returned to the ice in March of 1993, he was 12 points behind league leader Pat LaFontaine, yet he flew to Philadelphia on the day of his last treatment to play of Pittsburgh.  Mario recieved a rare standing ovation from the Philadelphia crowd for his bravery.  In a feat I have never seen repeated, 66 went on a tear, leading his team on a 17 game winning streak, scoring at a feverish pace, and when the season ended, Mario had beaten LaFontaine for the scoring title by 12 points!!  All with a radiation ravaged body!

  The Penguins entered the playoffs with the intent of finishing a three peat, and seemed primed to do it.  They drew the New Jersey Devils in the Patrick Division semi-Finals and made quick work of them, beating them in 5 games.  Up next, was a lightly regarded Islanders team, who had lost Pierre Turgeon for the series due to an ugly hit by Capitals' Dale Hunter in their round one showdown.  The Penguins seemed primed to advance to their third straight conference Finals.  The Islander shocked the Penguins by taking the first game, before Pittsburgh rebounded to win the next two to take a series lead.  The teams went back and forth with the Islanders playing a physical game, especially future Penguins player Darius Kasparaitis who repeatedly went after Lemieux.  Ultimately, it came down to a Game 7 which occurred on May 14,1993.  The game took on an ominous tone when Richard Pilon collided with power forward Kevin Stevens, who landed face first on the ice, essentially destroying his face.  This injury required a total facial reconstruction, that included more than 4 hours of surgery, and well more than 100 stitches!

The two teams fought to a 3-3 tie in regulation, and I was sure that my team would overcome this adversity in OT to advance to the conference finals.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  David Volek ended our dreams of a three peat when an unobstructed blast from the left circle beat Tom Barrasso to give the Islanders the win.  I also lost a phone in the process!  As a drove to a company golf event the next day at Nemacolin, I listened to the audio tape on cassette of the prior runs to glory and bemoaned the fact that the best I ever cheered for was going home.  Montreal wound up winning the Cup that year, a year so glorious until May.  On another note, this went to show hard it is to get the holy grail of hockey, as it took the Pens sixteen long years to get their next one!

Prior Penguins Stanley Cup Champions-1991-92

The offseason for the 1990-91 Stanley Cup Champs had an ominous tone when beloved head coach Badger Bob Johnson was diagnosed with brain cancer. His battle was relatively short, and he passed away on 11/26/91, in one of the saddest days in Penguins history.  We were there for the ceremony honoring Badger's life, and there was not a dry eye in the house.

Scotty Bowman was named interim head coach to start the season in Badger's absence, and the Penguins started strong, but began to slump in the middle of the season.  The Pens went from a front runner to fighting with the Islanders and Flyers for the last playoff spot.  In a move many took to signal giving up on the season, the Penguins traded Paul Coffey to the Kings in return for Jeff Chycrun, Brian Benning and the 1992 first round pick in the draft. GM Patrick made a move that changed the identity of Pittsburgh moving Mark Recchi as the centerpiece of a deal, along with the aforementioned Brian Benning, and the 1992 first round pick from LA that brought one of my all time favorite guts and glory players, Rick Tocchet from Philadlelphia, along with big defenseman Kjell Samuelsson, and back up netminder Ken Wregget.   Moving young scoring star Mark Recchi was a risky move, but the added grit allowed the Penguins to go on a 12-5-1 tear to close the season, and make the playoffs for the second straight year.  Tocchet brought a snarl and deft scoring touch to a talented group of forwards and "the other Samuelsson" added another shutdown dimension to the blue line.  Despite missing 16 games, Mario led the league with 131 points while scoring 44 goals and winning the Art Ross.  Kevin Stevens was second in the league with 123 points, and led the team with 54 goals, while Joey Mullen tacked on 42 more goals and 87 points.  In his first full season as a Penguin, Larry Murphy led all Pens blue liners with 77 points, and Jagr added 69 more points in 70 games.  The Penguins finished 3rd in the Patrick Division, and 4th in the Wales Conference, earning the right to face the Washington Capitals who finished 11 points higher in the standings in the Patrick Division semi-Finals.  The Caps played great taking a 2-0, then 3-1 series lead, and looked ready to run the Penguins out of the playoffs.  The Pens deployed the left wing lock, and wound up beating the Caps in three straight games to win their first round match up and add to a length post season dominance of the Capitals that is still in place today.

After taking care of Washington, the Penguins got to face Patrick Division Champions, the New York Rangers in the Patrick Divsion Finals.  The Penguins lost Mario to a broken bone in his left hand due to a wicked slash by Adam Graves in Game Two.  The fear was that Mario was gone for the playoffs and that a Lemieux-less Pens team would lose to the Rangers in round two.  The play seemed to galvanize Pittsburgh, and they never lost again to New York, winning the series in five games!

Up next was Boston again, a team the Penguins had beaten in six games the year before.  This year, it was a sweep, and Mario made Hall of Famer Ray Bourque look foolish on a great goal in the series.  The series ended with a 5-1 Pittsburgh win.  Pittsburgh's reward was to play red hot Chicago in the Stanley Cup Finals.  In game one in the Mellon Arena, the Blackhawks quieted the crowd by taking a commanding 4-1 lead in the game.  However, this only set the stage for one of the best memories of my life at the Mellon Arena.  The Pens diligently fought back, and before you know it, it was 4-3 Chicago, until this!

This tremendous goal tied the game at 4-4, and suddenly, a game that looked lost was all tied up late.  That only set the stage for one of the greatest hockey moments ever for a Pens fan when in the last 12  seconds, Mario Lemieux buried a Larry Murphy rebound to cap a great Penguins come from behind win!!

 This come from behind win fuelled what would become another Penguins sweep as the Penguins won their second straight Stanley Cup!  I remember driving home from a friend's house in the southside, with jammed streets and crazed Pens fans!  The feeling of two Cups in a row is hard to describe, but I truly felt that a dynasty had been born!