You, Me, and Lord Stanley

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The Pittsburgh Penguins were awful earlier this season. I mean just terrible. So slow and so unorganized. I was last in Pittsburgh in October and I watched those Penguins play a game against, I wanna say Dallas live at Consol Energy Center. Whomever it was, they kicked the Pens asses and the Penguins by mid December were out of the playoffs, 12th in the Eastern Conference. I tried explaining to my girlfriend, who was witnessing her first Pens game that normally they are a competitive team because Crosby and Malkin and Fleury. She wasn’t having it and for the rest of the season she asked me why I was even watching this team play? Also, she is from Miami and they aren’t the most loyal of fans, but she is learning and learning quickly because we got the cup!

I am not going to get into all the magical details that resulted in the Pittsburgh Penguins winning the hardest trophy to win in all of sports. There are too many unreal facts to count. Where would you even begin? The firing of Mike Johnston and switch over to Mike Sullivan? The exact same thing happened in 2009 when the Pens last won the cup. They fired the old coach and brought up the minor league guy with the fire and communication skills and boom! We got the cup! Creepy! Or what about Mark Andre Fleury going down only to be replaced by a rookie named Matt Murray? Or how about Russian sensation Denny Malcolm’s (Geno Malkin) injury plagued season? Or clueless (old) general manager Jim Rutherford having not a clue how to fix Ray Shero’s mess? All of your (and my) assumptions were wrong. The Pen were fine without MAF and Geno, and Jim Rutherford is smarter than all of us and we should all be kissing his wrinkly old ass. We were wrong but at least we got the cup!

Today I am sitting here not knowing how this thing got turned around so dramatically. Today I sit here in a daze of confusion and sheer joy. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t going to happen. Somehow though, it happened. I’m sorry the locals in southern Louisiana aren’t feeling like I do today. LSU Baseball was on a similar trajectory to that of the Pens. It didn’t happen for them. But like the good people of Louisiana, us Pittsburghers are a giving people, so I invite anyone in Acadiana reading this to join me in screaming at the top of your lungs and to the rafters! We got the cup!