Three Rivers and Millions of Followers

This post is why the blog is called "Our 2 Centalones". The following is the definition of my "2 Centalones". If there is one thing I believe in Pittsburgh sports it is the following. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and have seen firsthand the trends of the sports teams here in the Steel City for the past 10-15 years.

Every team is accused of having fair-weather or bandwagon fans. The Pittsburgh Penguins fan base, according to the general NHL public, is at least 98% bandwagon. I think the term bandwagon has a very confusing meaning. The accepted identification of a bandwagon fan is one who just became a fan of the team because they are good, but the actual definition is fuzzy. Is there really such thing as a bandwagon fan, or just an incoming fan? What I mean by that is that all fans have to start somewhere.

All aboard!

Back in 1936 when the Detroit Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup there had to have been fans; were they fair-weather fans? In theory, the answer has to be no because these fans were there from the beginning. But can you blame Detroit Red Wings fans that are 30 years old for not supporting the team from day one? It is not like some 90-year old dude is at the games yelling at younger people for not being there in the 1960s when the times were tough.

It is the same situation for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Before 1984, there was not much reason to be a fan of the Penguins. From its expansion in 1967 until 1991, Pittsburgh never even won a division championship. You cannot expect anybody to spend the majority of their lives devoted to a team that did not win a division for 24 years unless they really love the sport of hockey or have tremendous pride in the team. But if you are expecting an ordinary Joe to be entertained by a losing hockey team, it is just not going to happen.

No dude. NOT entertained.

For Pittsburgh, the glory years were in the early '90s, when they won two Stanley Cups in '91 and '92. The Penguins got upset in '93 although they had, arguably, a better team than the champion teams the years before. Pittsburgh was a good team throughout the '90s before Mario Lemieux retired (for the first time) in 1997 and Jaromir Jagr got traded in 2001. The recent "dark years" of the franchise were from 2002-2004 when the Penguins really sucked, the team was in bankruptcy, nobody went to the games, etc. There was still a core group of fans during those years, but the secondary fan population faded and most likely went on a Steelers' binge or started knitting.

I think before 2005, when Sidney Crosby was a rookie, I had been to a handful of hockey games in my life, and I can only recall one of them; a win vs. Philadelphia at the Civic Arena. I cannot even remember what year, but it still may have been called the Civic Arena, if that gives any idea. To be honest, I became interested in the Penguins in 2004. That was the year before the lockout when Ryan Malone was a superstar and Marc-Andre Fleury could not control a rebound. I would not call myself a fan at that point, but I was at least tickled by the idea of watching hockey.

The original reason I began to follow the Penguins after the lockout was because of Sidney Crosby, and maybe the fact that he was playing with Lemieux that season. I barely knew who guys like Ziggy Palffy, John LeClair and Sergei Gonchar were at the time and was still unsure about all of the rules. Since then I have immersed myself in Penguins hockey. They are my third favorite team in Pittsburgh behind the Pirates and Pitt basketball, and no matter how many Cups they win, that fact will not change.

I'm telling you...

Now, back to the bandwagon issue. Would you call me a bandwagon fan? Can you blame me for not being a fan of the Penguins in the late '90s when I was 7 years old? Not really. Are there people my age who were fans when they were six years old? Of course. One of my best friends is the best hockey fan I know and he knows more about hockey than Dr. Seuss knows about green eggs and Canadian bacon. Can you call him a bandwagon fan because he started liking the Penguins in the mid '90s when they were good? By definition you could, but in reality you would be out of your mind.

In Pittsburgh, when a team is winning, they are supported like crazy and when they are losing it is a different story. The Steelers are the only borderline exception; when the Steelers are losing the media picks them apart but Heinz Field will always be packed for games no matter what the Steelers' record. That's just the way it is, some things will never change.

The Pirates are the typical example of this Pittsburgh sports teams support seesaw. When the Pirates were good in the 70s, Three Rivers was packed with crazy fans and they loved every second of it. Nowadays there are the fans that support the team because they are the hometown choice and they love baseball, like me. By reading message boards, blogs and feedback, you can tell how passionate these Pirates fans are for a winning ballclub. They critique every move by Neal Huntington and put every prospect under a microscope like he is the next Barry Bonds. This is the core group of fans, the fans who are among the 15,000 at PNC Park capacity 38,000 for a September game vs. the Rockies.

More like 150. Joke.

When the Pirates are contenders in five years, there will be sellouts at PNC and these core fans will be meshed with the onslaught of fans who are there because they like Andrew McCutchen's dreadlocks and/or they think Rudy Owens is a cutie pie. This would be great for the Pirates and as one of these core fans it will be great to see the support for a team that is very close to my heart. In this (dream) scenario the Pirates will be the greatest thing in town, and it will feel good to say that I was there during the tough times and I can feel proud of myself for sticking with the team through thick and thin.

From the year 1989-2001, the Pitt basketball team won one NCAA Tournament game; many people probably did not even realize such a team existed in those years. I remember sitting in the Fitzgerald Field House with my dad when I was six years old when the Pittsburgh Panthers were such a fringe sports team in the town, let alone for the University. The capacity of the Field House was 6,000 and I would be surprised if half of that was filled on most nights. The student section was not filled and my dad and I could sit wherever we wanted in the entire upper section and not have to worry about anyone coming within 10 feet of us.

In the early '00s Pitt got Ben Howland as coach and began winning and the fans started rolling in. I am glad for Pitt's success because the demand for seats eventually led to the new Petersen Events Center, and for a few years I had the greatest times I have ever had as a sports fan. The popularity led to tickets on the waiting list, which eventually led to the University creating a bidding war for the tickets that let the richer people with money kick the majority of the true basketball fans out of the arena.

Yeah, I know...

Even though the PEC is labeled as one of the best home-court advantages in the country, it is 1/2 as intimidating as it was when it first opened. The atmosphere in the PEC was incredible at the beginning and it has since declined. My dad had been a season-ticket holder for 30+ years, and because of this bidding war the University created, after three years at the PEC, we had seats in the last row of the arena; some way to treat your loyal customers. We got tickets when we could, but they got too expensive to buy. It was tough at first, but that is the way it goes.

I am sure it is the same way with the Mellon Arena. Anybody can tell that the fans at the Igloo nowadays are not a very passionate bunch collectively. You can see archived tape of games in the '90s and the crowd goes wild all the time because the team was always winning and so successful. Now, there are times during a game where the crowd is completely silent. Of course when the Penguins score a goal or Fleury makes a great save, the crowd erupts, but I guess the audience's emotion reflects the views of the Pittsburgh sports fan in general: cheer when all is going well, disappear when things are not going your way.

But you ALWAYS cheer for Mr. Jimerson.

I get a weird feeling when my grandma tries to talk to me about the Penguins and how much they stink after they lose two games in a row even though she probably does not know who Pascal Dupuis is, and how my grandpa gives up on the Steelers when they go on a two-game losing streak. I sit back and just nod my head and give them the benefit of the doubt because I realize that the people who are new fans or fringe fans are not necessarily bandwagoners, but they are more or less just displaying their pride in the city of Pittsburgh and coming together for the common cause of cheering the team to victory.

This is how teams sustain winning tradition and how core fans are born and raised. In five years, the teenage girls who scream when Kris Letang scratches his jock strap will be talking about forechecking and powerplay strategies and arguing if Robert Lang was better than Martin Straka. If they need to fantasize about Sidney Crosby with his shirt off in order to get interested in hockey then so be it, but the true fans and the bandwagon fans will be hand-in-hand for the years ahead and that is great news for the Penguins, Pirates, Steelers, Panthers, all other teams and the sports in general.

It is pretty much good for the entire universe.