The Honeymoon's Over, Penguins

Well, there it is Penguins. Your first lost of the 2008 playoffs. Out the window is the chance to become the first team since the Oilers in 1985 (by memory, if that is wrong correct me) to win their first eight playoff games in a single playoff season. From the eyes of this uneducated fan, there wasn’t any lack of hustle or complacency, ya just lost the game. After all, the Rangers are a good team. Beating them twice on their home ice would be tough. Besides, what’s sweeter than a series-clinching victory on home ice in front of 20,000 raucous fans?

There is one thing I’d like to let you in on, though. The honeymoon is over. As they say, welcome to Pittsburgh, aka, the most pessimistic and critical sports town on earth, with one of the most uneducated fan bases this side of the Siberia golf league.

On the drive to work today, I could just hear it in the radio DJ’s voice. It was all they could do to not criticize the Pens for losing one game. One asked, "Sooo, how many points does Crosby have in this series?" His question was laced with judgment, but fortunately, the sports guy on the other end sat in silence until muttering, "Uhhh, I don’t have it in front of me, but quite a few."

The answer is four, and you would think a person getting paid to absorb the sports knowledge of the day would have an answer to how many points hockey’s biggest star would have in this series.

That’s the problem with bandwagon Pittsburgh hockey fans. Admittedly, I’m a bandwagon Penguins fan. No question about it. But, as I’ve said before, I only know two people who were fans while the team sucked. Bandwagon fans, regardless of the sport, should be prohibited from publicly or privately offering any sort of negative or critical opinion on the state of the team.

Pittsburgh is a town that feels connected to its teams. It all goes back to the 1970s and the steel bust and the blah blah blah story we’ve heard ten thousand times before. So with the Steelers it is expected. Steeler Nation is incredibly vocal in their support (or disdain) of their team. Despite 70% of the fans not knowing a damn thing about the game, they still feel entitled to scream their opinion from the nearest sports talk show.

With hockey it’s a completely different story. I’m figuring roughly 95% of current Penguins ‘fans’ know nothing more about hockey than goals, assists, offsides and icing. These are the same people that will diagnose the Penguins’ loss, or why they aren’t playing nearly as well as they should be. I don't believe for one second that anyone aside from Scott or Cory can tell me anything about hockey that can be considered educated.

So for now, Penguins, you remain the sootiest city’s darlings. But if this whole ‘losing games’ thing continues, expect to be lambasted, insulted, and generally discredited as athletes humans by people who have absolutely no right to do so.