The following is my lyric addendum to the popular song called “Russians” by Sting, you know that dude on mic/bass from The Police – “Believe me, when i say to you that Russians love their Penguins too!”
The beginning of this post really goes back to a little more than a month ago. October 7th – Penguins season opener at the new arena, Consol Energy Center. It was an exciting day for me despite the loss to Flyers. I recall walking out of the Marriott City Center hotel, MouthFullOfTang by my side. We are heading down to CEC about 2 hours before the game for the red-carpet event. While approaching the “American Eagle” entrance, where the event was taken place, from a distance we noticed someone waving a familiar Penguins flag. A type of flag i have seen before during the off season. This flag, from when Bylsma visited Malkin and the Russian Penguins Support Crew in Moscow:
“The Russians are here!”, immediately i thought. I was right! They were here in USA, in Pittsburgh and then in NY and NJ, for the first 3 games of the season, all 8 of them. I went up to meet them and they were all awesome guys. I got a pic with two of them who were waving the flag.
They told me they were here for the first 3 games of the season and they were going back to NY, my neck of the woods, for the 3rd NJ Devils game. I was really excited because i was going to all 3 games as well, so i knew our paths would cross again. They were nice enough to offer me one of their legendary t-shirts, which they also gave one to Mike Lange at the Devils game!
I also met them at the NJ game, there were only 7 of them as one of them had to drop off after the first game.
We briefly talked about them and their forum located at http://letsgopens.ru. I told them how psamp added their Mario Lemieux’s 5 goals 5 different ways t-shirt to his list of Unlicensed Pittsburgh Sports Merch collection. I told them i was going to make this post about things they did while visiting and share it with them on their forum.
During their visit it looks like they had their schedule pretty full while they were in Pittsburgh. Besides going to the first two games of the season in Pittsburgh …
… and practice …
… they met with Ray Shero.
They gave interview to Jason Seidling, official writer for Pittsburgh Penguins news. They also gave interview to Gera “George” Birman and NHL In Russian show.
In fact George and the NHL In Russian was nice enough to share some of the pictures and videos i found on their new NHL In Russian facebook page. There is also a copy of their interview that was aired during their show on the November 3rd. I am not going to translate the whole interview word for word but a few parts that tells their story.
During their interview they thanked George for the opportunity to tell their story on the NHL In Russian show and his assistance to get tickets to the games. This was Penguins Support Crew 3rd and one of the biggest visits of all times. There were total of 8 people that visited this time to see opening of the new arena. They mentioned that a bigger group of about 10 people visited Pens vs Sens Stockholm games which took place on October 4 and 5th of the 2008-09 season. First question George asked about how their crew/group came to be and why Pittsburgh Penguins and not some other team. They said that story is probably different yet very similar for all of the members of the group. Basically, during 1990′s when fall of Soviet Union happened, more and more news about NHL and its teams made its way to the Russian media. Russian hockey fans were forced with a question, which NHL team to cheer for? Since Penguins won two Stanley Cups during early 90s and the beauty of play by such Penguins forwards as Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr captured the imaginations of their Russian group members. On top of that you add a beautiful skating Penguin logo uniform of the club to seal the deal. They mentioned that a lot of Russian hockey fans started to cheer for Detroit Red Wings because of the all Russian line. They mentioned that they remained fans through tough times when Pens weren’t doing that well and their gatherings consisted only 2-3 guys sitting at a bar at night and watching the games. However, their forums (letsgopens.ru) were always filled with debates and talks about the team from members that spread out across many ex-Republics of Soviet Union. They also mentioned that they were really impressed with the new area and how Pens made it more interactive and fan friendly.
Some more pics from their trip …
Ken Sawyer with Stanley Cup ring …
The dude who posted this picture said he spend the entire night getting revenge for Penguins loss to Flyers, i wonder what he meant.
They also gave interview to Rob Rossi. Interestingly enough they didn’t have anything nice to say about him and his article. On their forums they called him, to put it softy and for the lack of better words, a complete idiot. They said what he wrote in his article and i quote was “complete bullshit”. They said it would have been fine if they initiated the interview but they didn’t. They said after they gave interview to the official Penguins reporter, Rossi came up to them and asked them all the questions about their trip and promised to write about what they said in the interview and not do a freestyle report on the topic of their visit. The good thing about all of this is that you can draw your own conclusions because they have recorded the entire interview which you can see/hear here on YouTube or below and then you can read Rossi’s article here.
Some more awesome pics of their visit and of Pittsburgh in general is here.
The entire picture set from one of the members is here and slide show is embedded below.
One of their members is also making a movie about their adventures abroad. Here is a little preview, i’ll keep you updated when the full version comes out in a few months.
Thats all i have to report on this topic. For the motherland!
Lets Go Pens!
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