Game #102- Pittsburgh Steelers

Pittsburgh Steelers vs New England Patriots

Heinz Field

December 16^th, 2018

On the second day in Pittsburgh, I wanted to explore the city a little bit before heading to Heinz Field for one of the biggest games of the 2018 season.  Last night I went to the Pens game, today I searched out the old Forbes Field outfield wall as well as the home plate.  Then I made my way over to Bicycle Heaven where they had thousands of amazing new and vintage bikes (some from the 1890’s, 1930’s cruisers, the words fastest bike in the 80s and one of Pee Wee Herman’s bikes).  It was great to check out some spots in the Burgh before walking to the Stadium.  

Outside Heinz I got some cool pictures of the large inflatable Steelers player, the huge Christmas tree, The Tribute to Children monument and the Manchester Bridge Sculpture.  But the really exciting exhibits are in the stadium.  Pittsburgh is one of the only sporting venues that truly celebrates their team and players.  The Hall of Fame walk in the concourse area, there is a ton to see including the Hall of Honor, old locker set ups with former Steeler memorabilia, past Super Bowl championship trophies, all the Terrible Towels since the 1970’s, the first game ball used at Heinz Field, the history of the Steelers logo, old uniforms, essentially everything you can imagine about this historic team.  They did a great job of spacing out the items so spectators have the opportunity to see it all and not be surrounded by hundreds of people. 

Making my way from the concourse I decide to traverse around the inside of the stadium to get pictures from all sorts of angles.  I like this venue because it truly is set up for the home team.  Bright yellow seats, Steeler logos everywhere, and to top it off the building is right on the Allegheny River where it splits with the Monongahela River, thus the reason why it is called “Three Rivers”.  The views from the nose bleeds are spectacular.  I took a bunch of selfies as well as panoramic shots before the fans started to trickle in for game time.  

The Patriots are 9-5, the Steelers are 8-4-1.  But over the past 5 or so years the Patriots have had the Steelers number.  Somehow, some way Brady always seems to pull off a comeback and break the Pittsburgh fans hearts.  It also doesn’t help that the Steeler have already lost 3 in a row.  The always strong and steady Steelers “curtain” defense has been shaky the past few weeks and they really needed to step it up to have a chance, and that is exactly what they did.  Brady was kept to 279 yards of passing and only one TD while Roethlisberger went 235 with 2 TDs, but more importantly Pittsburgh shot down the NE receivers.  Gronkowski only had 5 receptions for a measly 2 yards, Edelman had the yards but nothing to show for it in terms of points, while Jaylen Samuels had a spectacular day of rushing for the Steelers with 142 hard fought yards and Antonio Brown was impressive with one of the two passing TD’s. 

The game really came down to inches.  Chris Boswell missed a field goal early in the game (which he has been doing a lot lately) which was critical to the outcome.  It was actually kind of sad when he came out the fans all started to boo, almost wishing for him to miss…which he did.  But he was able to hit a 48 yarder toward the end of the game to put the Steelers up by 7 with a little more than 2 minutes left in the game.  Normally that would be sufficient for a team to pull out a win, but again these are the Patriots led by Tom Brady.  You could feel the tension in the 38 degree air every time he would step back to make a throw.  Slowly but surely the offense was making it down the field and with seconds left on the clock, the Pats had one final chance to tie (or win if Belichick wanted to go for 2…which he would), but the Steelers defense stepped up and the place exploded.  I have not seen a crowd that happy with a win in a long time.  It was made even better seeing off of the “Massholes” completely decked out in Patriots gear, heads down in shame.  You just knew what they would have been like if New England pulled off a win. 

The one memory of the game that I can’t get out of my head is the nutty Steelers fan behind me.  For the final 10 minutes of the game he kept screaming “Let’s GO!  Let’s GOOO!  LET’S GOOOOO!!!!”  all while banging on my seat.  His wife tried to calm him down because he was making everyone around him go deaf, but he was having none of it.  I get it, I am really excited about my team and their wins as well, but this was a regular season show down.  He was acting like it was the super bowl.  Maybe for him it was.  Also, Terrell Edmunds looks just like Steve Urkel with long hair...just saying.

It was a great weekend, I knocked out the last two games in the Pittsburgh area.  I think the next time I come east at this time I will need to see if I can check off the Buffalo Bills and Sabres.  I’ll need to check the Kings schedule for 2019-2020.

Game #101- Pittsburgh Penguins

Pittsburgh Penguins vs Los Angeles Kings

PPG Paints Arena

December 15^th, 2018

Another work trip to Indianapolis has allowed me to check off two more teams on my list.  I planned this trip about 2 months in advance.  As you can imagine, it is a complete crap shoot in terms of weather on the east coast this time of year.  It may be odd for me to say that I was excited to see rain in the forecast, but the alternative could be many inches or feet of snow, so I will take it.  Landing at the international airport around 4:30pm I had about 2.5 hours to get to my hotel which is east of downtown, drop my stuff off, and head back to the city for the game at the PPG Paints Arena. 

Outside of the stadium there is a really cool statue of Mario Lemieux, easily the most famous player in Penguins history.  It is an interesting display of Mario depicting him in three different skating styles.  I wanted to get a bunch of shots and angels including a picture of the description but it wasn’t lit very well and with the rain I just wanted to get inside the building. 

Like a lot of the newer, east coast arenas, there is a sort of foyer that allows the attendees to get out of the elements instead of waiting outside to scan their tickets.  In here you can enjoy the large team store, a cool mosaic picture of Lemieux again but this time using thousands of pictures of those who have donated to his non-profit organization, and this is where the local team announcer and play by play man have their pregame show. 

Entering the main part of the arena I went in search for player memorabilia.  Knowing that they had the statues and art downstairs, I was sure I would find something around the arena with old jerseys of Jagr, Coffey, or pictures of the Stanley Cup wins…but no, there wasn’t anything!  The only fun fan sections included a large goalie mask you could take a picture inside of, a long wall of high school hockey jerseys, and a small room for kids to play floor hockey.  Just another confusing team arena with a rich winning tradition, some of the best players ever in the NHL, and nothing to show for it. 

I got to the game about an hour early, and therefore I had the ability to get down low for the warm ups.  Luckily my seat was on the Kings end so I got a bunch of really good pictures of the players.  But even cooler, Daryl Evans (famous for the final goal in the Miracle on Manchester comeback game vs the Oilers) and Patrick O’Neil were doing the pre game commentary right next to me.  When they had a little break I was able to get a quick selfie with both of them. 

The first period was a bit of a nightmare for the Kings.  Poor defense, lots of bad passes, and missed opportunities didn’t help them at all.  On the other side, the Penguins had solid goaltending by Matt Murray while Matt Cullen scored a short hander early in the period and Bryan Rust got a second to give the home team a 2-0 lead.  Let’s just say the Penguins fans made it known they were happy the Kings were losing, purposely trying to give me high fives for their goals (turns out the asshole next to me shouldn’t have been there and in fact LA fans moved into the seats midway through the second).

The second period was much better for current and former Kings.  First Jake Muzzin got an early tally putting in a one timer from Kopitar to cut the lead to 2-1.  Unfortunately former King Tanner Pearson quickly got the Pens 3^rd of the game with a tricky break from the D, held onto the puck until Quick went to the ice, and took the shot high on the right side.  Midway through the third Matt Luff got his 7^th of the season for the away team on a snap shot ending the period 3-2 for the Pens.  

In the third period I had a feeling the Kings might take the win.  They were playing strong on the boards, had a number of quality shots on goal, and Doughty along with the other defenders were not allowing anything to go through to Quick.  At 12:30 Alex Iafalo got his 6^th of the year to tie up the game, and after a hard fought last 5 minutes of the game the score was still 3-3 after 60 minutes.

In OT, being 3 on

3, the Kings have had a great record over the past several years. I think a combo of Doughty and Muzzin on D, with Kopitar, Carter, Iafalo and Brown on offense, they seem to have a wide variety of quality option to put on the ice.  That all worked out perfectly when Tyler Taffoli got an open break away but Murray denied his shot and only a few minutes later Evgeni Malkin made a perfect pass to Phil Kessel for the 4-3 OT win.  It was a disappointing end to the game, but at least the Kings came away with a point.

Some take aways from the game.  I love how Pittsburgh fans sing the national anthem.  You see this in Canada all the time but rarely in the US. That was really refreshing to see and hear everyone around me.  Second, trying to get an Uber or Lyft around the arena after the game sucks!  I went and got food from TGIF, was ready to leave about 1.5 hours after the game ended, and still had a hard time getting someone.  In fact, Lyft cancelled three times on me even when the driver was literally across the street.  Not a ton of fun standing in the rain.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like if it was freezing and snowing.