Pens 1999 Draft Pick Robinson

Penguins 1999 draft pick Darcy Robinson collapsed during a game in the Italian Hockey League and later died at a hospital, Yahoo news is reporting:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=AuaiczrLqUC4ZRTAStZ9gJF7vLYF?slug=ap-italy-playerdies&prov=ap&type=lgns

He was 26 years old and cause of death is not immediately known.

Prayers and sympathies go out to his family.

Steelers Open 3-0

Congrats to the Pittsburgh Steelers for opening the season at 3 and 0. New head coach Mike Tomlin really seems to have his team believing in his system and his philosophies (granted, they are not that much different than Bill Cowher's). It's been 15 years since the Steelers started the season with 3 wins.

Home of the Penguins wishes the best of luck to the Steelers in the next 13 games and beyond into the playoffs!

Pens at West Point This Week

The Penguins are at West Point this week taking part in team building exercises from US Army Drill Instructors. This is the second consecutive year that Shero and the coaching staff have sent the players to this program.

The exercises drew good comments from the players and team management last year at this time. Here's to hoping that this will bring the team closed and get some of that good chemistry flowing early.

In other news...Sidney Crosby left practice early on Monday, complaining of "soreness of the groin". He is not expected to miss any further skating time...

...Petr Sykora is recovering from a broken nose which required surgery on Friday. He's expected back to practice in the next day or so...

...The team trimmed it's roster down to 30 this past weekend sending Tyler Kennedy, Nathan Smith, Connor James, Chris Minard, Jeff Taffe, Tim Wallace, Alex Goligoski, Ryan Lannon, Ben Lovejoy, and Ty Conklin to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and returned Angelo Esposito and Dustin Jeffery to their junior teams. Best of luck to all getting back to the big team!

Pens Drop Rematch vs. Red Wings 5-2

The Pens lost the second of two consecutive games against Detroit on Saturday with a very lopsided 5-2 score. Pens goals were scored by Eaton and Malkin - both power play goals.

The Pens power play has been horrible in the four exhibition games the past 2 weeks. They are converting at a 10% rate (3 of 30) and have looked nothing like the dangerous unit that they were for much of last season. This will need to change drastically if the team is to compete for the top spot in the East, as is expected.

Next up for the Pens is a Friday night tilt versus the Sabres at Mellon Arena.

Pens Lose in OT

The Penguins lost in Detriot last night on a Chelios overtime goal, 1-0.

Rematch tonight at the Igloo!

Training Camp

I managed to sneak out of work for a bit today to attend the second training camp session of the day. (see video and pictures below)

Most of the top line players were in the early session that I missed but Angelo Esposito was in the one I was at. All I can say is...he's fast!

Sabourin looked good during the shooting drills that the coaching staff put the team through. No pucks got past him!

The team looked motivated and ready to go.

Bring on the regular season! Only 14 more days until faceoff!

Training Camp Photos

Here's a few images from training camp today:

Pittsburgh Penguins Training Camp

Short video from Training Camp today

Home of the Penguins Feedback

Hello loyal readers (at least I think I have a few).

Two items:

First - I've been writing this Blog for about 6 months now and have really enjoyed doing so. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments that they think can help make these pages better? If so please feel free to email me at jimjar@gmail.com or leave a comment at the link provided below. I welcome any feedback that is received. On a side note to this - please sign the guestbook provided in the right side frame. I would eventually like to start an email newsletter about the Pens and this is a good place to get a collection of addresses started to make that a reality

Second - With the 2007 - 2008 season looming, I've decided that I would like to open up this forum for a few other individuals to post and opine. If anyone would like to do this please email me at the above address and let me know. I would very much like to write something about every game in the upcoming season but am not sure I will be able to undertake this task on my own. Anyone that would like to join in would be appreciated!

Thanks to everyone that does manage to stop by on a regular basis. I hope each of you are looking forward to the upcoming season as much as I am.

GO PENS!

Ice Bowl 2008 - Cold Reception Here in the 'Burgh

Many Pens fans are quite upset over the NHL's handling of the ticket sales for the Ice Bowl on 1/1/08. It has been widely reported that the game sold out in less than 30 minutes (I can attest to that after trying to purchase tickets online at 10:30 am yesterday) mostly due to the fact that there was a 50 ticket limit on each sale. Given that fact, since there were only approximately 43,000 tickets available for the game after Buffalo and Toronto fans were given their shares, that would only allow several thousand individuals access to the tickets. Tickets are in abundance on online auction sites suggesting most of them were purchased by the unscrupulous ticket brokers.

And while Buffalo's entire season ticket base was given the option to buy tickets, the Pens have stated that they only received about 1,000 to sell directly to their season ticket holders. In order for Penguins ticket holders to order the tickets they were sent a special code and password to enter on Ticketmaster. To add insult to injury, this code and password were leaked on the internet, allowing virtually anyone to purchase on of these tickets.

All in all I give this a BAD rating for the NHL. This could have been handled in a much different way that would satisfy fans of both teams as well as give many more people in the Pittsburgh area the opportunity to purchase tickets for this once in a lifetime event.

UPDATE - I've also heard talk and seen reported in print that Ticketmaster outlets in the Pittsburgh region were not even able to sell tickets for the Ice Bowl. ONLY outlets in the Buffalo, Erie region had them available. So the only way they could even be purchased here was online and by telephone!

Rematch...WIN!

Pittsburgh won their rematch with the Canadiens last night by the score of 5-2. Stone, Taffe, Sykora, Malkin and Kennedy all scored for the Pens. All were even strength goals except Malkins, which was short-handed. The win bring the Penguins to 1-1 for the pre-season. Next game is Friday night at Detroit.

On a side note I will be attending a portion of the training camp session tomorrow at Mellon Arena. Make sure to check back for opinion and pictures!

Ice Bowl 2008

Less than 30 minutes after tickets went on sale for the 1/1/2008 Pens vs. Sabres game went on sale, Ticketmaster has reported that the event is sold out. 43,000 tickets went on sale while the rest of the 73,000 seats were reserved for Sabres season ticket holders, Bills Club ticket holders and players of both teams.

I was unable to get tickets myself so I feel the pain out there. Hopefully many of the remaining tickets that were sold this morning did go to Penguins fans!!

Pens Drop Exhibition Opener

The Pittsburgh Penguins lost their first pre-season game last night to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2.

Crosby and Malone each notched their first tallies of the pre-season but a Kovalev goal with 30 seconds remaining in overtime gave the Canadiens their first exhibition win.

Pens Sign Assistant Coaches to Contracts

Looks like the entire coaching staff that enabled the Penguins to reach the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season will return for the next two years. Assistant coaches Andre Savard and Mike Yeo (YO!) signed an extension to keep their services behind the bench through the 2008-2009 season and Gilles Meloche signed a new 2 year contact that guarantees his services coaching between the pipes for the next 2 season. Michel Therrien signed a one year extension earlier this summer. Congrats to all 4 for a job well done! Keep up the great work!

Training Camp!

Finally the day has arrived!! The Pens are opening training camp today. Today's agenda includes meetings, physicals and testing. Tomorrow will be the first day on the ice. Camp opens at the Iceoplex at Southpointe and then will move to Mellon Arena on 9/19. All practices are open to the public.

I should be able to make my way to one of the Mellon Arena practices next week and will provide some in depth analysis of how everyone looks. Please check back for an update on that and any other training camp news.

Only 23 days until the opener against Carolina!

Some Strange Happenings Around Town part 2...

As heard on the DVE Morning Show on Friday 9/7/07:

"Yes, that's right, it's the Friday before the Steelers opening game against the Cleveland Browns and we are talking about the Penguins"

Once again the Pens have done a masterful job at keeping themselves in the news despite the fact that this weekend is the opening of the NFL season and most eyes in the 'Burgh would normally be looking that way.

Penguins management came up with the idea of randomly selecting 24 season ticket holders and having team players hand delivering season tickets to those ticket holders. What a terrific surprise that would be to open your door and see Sidney Crosby standing outside with your season tickets!

Pens Unveil New Jersey

The Penguins showed of their new Reebok uniforms last night at a local mall in front of about 1000 fans. This is what they look like:



I am not a fan of them. They are plain and generic looking.

I've added a poll below to see what everyone else thinks. Please vote!

New Arena Schetches

The Penguins have recently released some artist schetches of the new arena to the public. Here are two of them:

HOK Sport is designing the building and the official groundbreaking is scheduled for next spring.

As is evident from the second picture above the design is meant to showcase the city skyline, much like PNC Park.

The Penguins have also posted a fan survey to gather feedback and input concerning the construction of the new building. Please take some time and complete it here:

http://penguins.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=336361

I will continue posting any new information about the arena as it becomes available so keep checking back!