Pittsburgh, The New Hockeytown
// June 13th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Pittsburgh, Sports
My friend and fraternity brother John published the following note on his Facebook page and I wanted to post it here because I thought it was great. Enjoy!
Shortly after the Pens hoisted the cup last night, someone (who shall remain nameless so as to avoid physical abuse) made the idiotic comment on Facebook that Pittsburgh was somehow not a hockey town. Hmmm…..let me count the ways that he is wrong (just off the top of my head):
1. A completely sold out arena for over 2 1/2 years (not sure where the guy who said we ranked 19th in attendance this year got his info, but a sell-out is a sell out).
2. A new, larger arena opening in 2010 will also be sold out thanks to a season ticket waiting list that is over 2,000 people strong. (Coincidentally, I’m #1 on the list and was just called late this past Thursday afternoon by the Pens to buy seats for next year.)
3. 10,000 fans sitting outside the arena, in the rain, to watch the game on a big screen just to experience the togetherness of being Pens fans.
4. Highest local ratings for hockey for any regional sports network (FSN Pittsburgh).
5. Just as many Pens shirts seen walking around town as Steelers shirts in early February.
Being a great hockey town doesn’t require that you be an “original six” team. It doesn’t require that all your other sports teams stink or mean that your town can’t provide phenomenal support to more than of its sports franchises. And it doesn’t require that you live in New York, Boston, or any of the other cities that ESPN routinely touts for no other reason than sheer size. If you live in a great hockey town, a great sports town, you don’t need any one to tell you that is the case. You know it because you feel it every day, in the way you live and die each night with your team, in the conversations held with perfect strangers over “last night’s game”, in the pride you feel when a phenomenal group of guys wearing sweaters that represent your city reach the pinnacle of their lives, and in knowing that somehow, someway, you are a part of it because, as a fan, you’ve been along with them for the ride the entire time.
Detroit can keep thinking they are Hockeytown, Dallas can keep thinking that they are America’s team, and Boston can keep claiming to be Titletown. I’ll take Pittsburgh, now and forever, and we are once again, at least for now, the City of Champions.
