NHL 08-09 Season

Frivolous reasons to hold out hope: the last team in any of the four major sports to win a Game 7 on the road was from Pittsburgh; the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. This is the team that coupled with the 1979 Steelers and made Pittsburgh the "City of Champions." The Penguins now have the chance to do the exact same thing, with the Steelers winning last year's Super Bowl.

The Steelers, of course, won a few years back, as well. In Detroit.

I'm just sayin'.

Oh, also: the Pirates are playing the Detroit Tigers tonight.

Well there you go, the Pens pulled it off. Congratulations to the Penguins in winning their third Stanley Cup!

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Love it. Saw the game with a group of friends. Those last couple of minutes were very, very tense. I really thought they were going to tie it.

I'm genuinely surprised we won. I didn't think we couldn't, but if I had to put money on it either way, I'd definitely have gone with Detroit (heading into this game...not before the series has started). But that's why they play the games. Steelers in February, Penguins in June...it's the City of Champions all over again!

Alas, people will keep saying the same sort of silly things about Crosby that they were saying before, but he gets the last laugh even in the midst of their rationalizations.

The next decade could be very interesting; Crosby's just 21, Malkin's 22, Fleury's 24, and Staal's just 20 (so any photos of him drinking champagne from the Cup are, technically, evidence). It's hard to imagine this team won't be in the Playoffs almost every year for the next 7 or 8 years, and a legitimate Cup contender as often as not.

Anyway, still basking in the Stanley Cup victory over here. I love putting on some music and just browsing through random photos of the celebration. The team shot is particularly good (still looking for a wider, higher-res one):






Have you ever seen a human being look happier than this?





"We meet again..."






One of my favorites: Mario handing a bottle of champagne to a Penguins fan over the glass: