Ideas To Pass The Off Season

After our Boys of Winter finally raise that Cup in June (← 'cause you KNOW it's gonna happen!), we'll need some things to pass the time until October. Ahhh, such is the life of a hockey fan, right? Well, I'm looking for ideas for projects we can do this summer.

I've already had one idea of my own... So as you know, I've been going through my inbox as I hand over all the Roaming Penguins stuff to Roamer Mama Stephanie. I've gone through about 160 emails, 25 of which were Roamer emails. But I also found just as many Fan Photos emails - and I've still got about 220 more to sort! I always do my best to post every photo that any and all Friends take the time to send me, so I was originally considering doing a Fan Photos post over the weekend, but then it occurred to me - how much better would it be to wait until after the playoffs are over to post them so we could relive these games while we're waiting for the puck to drop on the '09-'10 season?!

Speaking of photos, here's the best one you'll see all night. Can you believe we've got them BOTH?! :) Click to enlarge for supersized superstars.

So if you have some photos that you'd like to share over the summer break, send them to me at snoopyjode@gmail.com. Type "Fan Photos" in the subject line. (Actually, if you click that link, it will automatically open a new email in your default client with my address and the subject line already filled out.) Make sure when you send the pictures you remember to tell me at which game you snapped them and, if you want, write a recap of your experience. :)

If you have any other ideas of ways we can speed up our summer, email it to me or tell us about it in a comment in The Friends' Zone. Tomorrow the Pens host the Flames. Let's shake off that terrible Flyers game and kick some Calgary butt.

GO PENS!!!!!!!!!!!

Special Delivery 2

The Penguins delivered some of the season ticket holders' tickets again this year. Can you imagine opening your door and seeing this? UNREAL.

I'd have to take down my "Beware of Dog" sign. Watch this clip from last year's deliveries (near the end) to find out why.

The Saint, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jordan Staal, Sergei Gonchar, Brooks Orpik, Maxime Talbot, Tyler Kennedy, Pascal Dupuis, Jeff Taffe and head coach Michel Therrien all helped deliver tickets to 35 lucky, randomly chosen STHs. From the Pens' website:

It marked the second year in a row that Penguins players had delivered season tickets. The ticket-holders were selected randomly from the Penguins’ season ticket base.

“We think it’s a great thing that our players and coaches reach out to our season ticket holders in this way,” said David Morehouse, the team president. “The success that we’ve had in recent years has been built on the foundation of our season ticket holders, and this is a tremendous opportunity to say thank you.”

If you check out some of the other pics on the Pens' website, you'll see that someone made Jordan Staal a birthday cake! Here are a few more shots of Siddo. Check out the new haircut:





Hmmm... I wonder if any of the STHs told Sid that his team wouldn't get the Cup this year... :P Many thanks to Friend of The Show Lauren H. for the heads up about this. :)

Sid and Mario Go to the US Open

Holy frick, if you believe in omens and signs, have I got a good one for you right now...


I'm short on time, but when I saw this, I knew I had to post it ASAP. Friend of The Show Lauren H. sent in this article that tells us that Sid and Mario decided to take in a tennis game:

The NHL was well represented on the red carpet. Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux showed up with current hockey sensation Sidney Crosby. New York Ranger Marcus Naslund gave his match prediction and seemed quite confident that Roger Federer would prevail. Naslund said, “Murry’s played really well but I’m a huge Federer fan so I think he’ll pull it off.”

So after reading the article, I saved the picture of Mario (who is looking fit and fantastic, BTW) and then went to save the picture of the Saint (also looking fab and ready for training camp) when I noticed something - Sid's picture file was named "Stanley-Crosby"!!!

I think it's a sign! :)

Sneak peek: I'll have some Roaming Penguin pics, a quote, and more for you tomorrow! :) Big thanks to Lauren for the link!

Silly Sid Stuff

Have I got a few good pictures for you today! Yesterday, good Friend of The Show Jan M. sent me this first one. Way back in the day, it seems that Sid experimented with hair dyes. My guess is that he was attempting to go blonde but didn't realize how much bleach it would actually take to make his naturally very dark hair turn into a buttery shade of gold. Instead, what he got was a hue very similar to the color of my car (Dodge calls it Sunburst Orange Pearl):

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps he really was trying to match his hair to his jersey on purpose.

So I found this next gem several months ago after an anonymous tipster pointed me towards a forum on which someone had posted it. Some of you actually may have already seen it. I debated whether or not I should post it since there are two other people in the photo - mostly because I didn't receive the photo from either one of them. Ultimately, I decided that if I blurred out their faces, the picture would be okay to use on The Show. (They both look perfectly lovely - I just didn't want to post their images without their permission.) Anyhoo, when I first saw the photo, I imagined a scenario in my head. To relay my vision to you, I've given the girls fake names - "Jennifer" and "Jessica". This pic was taken at a party, so in my mind, it became a graduation party...

Jennifer: Oh, Jessica! We're about to graduate and go off to college. I'm going to miss you soooo much!!!

Jessica: I'm going to miss you, too, Jennifer! You know, we need to take a really nice picture that we can put in a frame and hang in our dorm rooms. That way we'll always remember to keep in touch!

Jennifer: GREAT IDEA, JESS! Hey, do you think you could you take our picture?

Photographer: Yeah, sure. Hold my drink for a second, would ya, Sid?

Jennifer: Thanks so much. Okay, ready?

Jessica: Ready!

Photographer: All right, girls, say cheese...

[*CLICK*]

And here is what the girls saw when they got their camera back:

If I was "Jennifer" or "Jessica", I'd be more offended by that sweater.

Recently, Friend of The Show Jill E. sent in a picture for us. Recall that we mentioned earlier this month that everything around us reminds us of the hockey we're not yet enjoying. Well, this week Jill was reminded of Evgeni Malkin:

My hockey team was sent to run around Baltimore, Maryland today to participate in our own "Amazing Race". This consisted of many random events and A LOT of running. We ended up finishing over by the Orioles Stadium and the Ravens Stadium where I spotted a Sports Bar named GINO's. I couldn't resist and managed getting a picture as my team ran by.

Sidney Penguin is still making his way around North America. (Hahaha, according to Google Maps, he's traveled more than 9,800 miles!) He came back to the East Coast to visit Friend of The Show Carlie D. in North Tonawanda, NY:

Holy gas guzzling, Batman! Check out that cross-country back-track! Sidney Penguin must drive a hybrid.

Here's a zoomed view of Buffalo and North Tonawanda:


Here's Carlie with our own Roaming Sidney Penguin:

I have that Sidney pennant, too. It's hanging up in our guest room. :)

Finally today, I unfortunately don't know the name of the person who coined TSCS's Quote of The Day, but I figured since today's post was so light-hearted, we'd need a funny quote to close it out:

"Hockey players wear numbers because you can’t always identify the body with dental records."

~ Anonymous

That's gonna hurt tomorrow!

Many thanks go out to Jan, Jill, and Carlie for their contributions to today's post! :)

I'm the Chairman of the Bored

Thank you so much to all of you for your well wishes on my interview this weekend. :D It went really well, but they're going to interview a few more candidates this week. They're looking for a Jack (or in my case, Jill) of all trades, and the company is willing to send the new hire to school to learn the necessary skills to do the job. So as long as no one they interview has more checks in the "I already know how to do that" column on the required skills list, I think I may have a pretty good shot. :)

Today's obligatory shot of the Saint.

There was one NHL news story this morning that I thought you might find interesting. Over 100 NHLers are using this summer to test out Thermablade's heated skate blades. This is how the $300 skates work:

Thermablade heated blades are designed to maintain a consistent temperature of approximately 5 degrees Celcius using a small battery and a microprocessor stored within each skate blade holder. The warm blade acts to increase the thickness of the water layer, at the molecular level, between the blade and the ice surface, dramatically reducing gliding friction and starting resistance for skaters. The advanced mechanical design of the product also contributes to a 50% reduction in skating vibration, resulting in improved edge-feel.

The inner workings of a Thermablade skate

On-ice performance benefits include improved acceleration, smoother glide, tighter turns, increased speed out of turns and more precise stops, plus significant physiological advantages such as a reduction in heart rate, increased stamina and less fatigue over the course of a hockey game.

(Click here for an in depth explanation if you've never heard of Thermablade skates before.) I already knew how the skates functioned, but I was curious why the new blades actually work, so I looked for and found a quick explanation of The Science Behind Ice Skating by Kohl Linsberg:

Ice is not inherently slippery, it is several scientific facts that cause it to be slippery and allow people to skate upon it.

When skating, one is not actually skating on the solid form of water, ice, but water in its liquid form. The reason for this is that ice will melt when pressure is applied to it, because according to experimental values, is that the greater the pressure on a substance, the lower its freezing point will be.

Oh man, I miss hockey...

...A person's weight is not enough to melt sufficient ice under their own shoes, thus the ice skate was invented. The ice skate puts the weight of the skater on a very small area, thus the sharp skate blade, which causes the ice under the blade to melt because the persons weight is sufficient to melt the ice in that area. This allows the skater to glide on a layer of water between the blade and the ice. Thus, a skater's blade does not cut through ice, but melts through ice to allow a skater to skate.

Interesting stuff, eh? News in Hockey land is slower than Britney's recovery, so here's some more stuff I've been saving. (We may have a problem soon, though... My supply is dwindling - FAST.)

Friend of The Show Lauren H. sent in this article about what Jordan Staal and his NHL brothers have been doing to pass the summer months.

(L to R) Jordan, Jared, and Mark are turning baseball into Staalball.

Earlier this month, Friend of The Show Apple L. shared this photo with us. Good Friend Vanessa D. and her daughter spotted this truck on Easter on the highway in West Virginia:


And now it's time once again for TSCS's Quote of The Day:

"This is the only thing that has seen more parties than us."
~ Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, about the Stanley Cup

(Thanks to Lauren and Vanessa for the help with today's post.)

This Is What Happens When There's No Hockey

With their last two posts, the guys over at ThePensblog.com have been trying so hard to fight the boredom that they've been looking for Pens references in old rap videos. I'll catch you up on what they've found so far first, then I'll add one that comes from a brand new rap song that Friend of The Show Cia G. sent me to a few days ago that I've been holding for a slow, boring day (like today, haha).

First up, tPB found A Tribe Called Quest's "Keep It Rollin'". In the song, rapper Phife Dawg makes a nod to Le Magnifique's loyalty to our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins. Here are the lyrics:

...But if you feel you can swing it, then money please bring it
(sup) Large Professor in the house (sup)
(sup) You know how we do (sup)
(sup) I stay on your crew (sup)
(whassup) like Mario Lemieux (whassup)
(Whassup?) Peace to Ike Love
(Sup? Hah hah) and the rest of the crew (Whassup?)
(Whassup?) I meet you guys in front the cleaners
Bring the blunts and the brew so...

Check out the song for yourself:



Then they pointed out that rapper Snoop Dogg rocked a Penguins jersey in his "Gin and Juice" video. It's customized with the number 94 (the year the song was released) and the nameplate "Gin and Juice." (That picture is on tPB courtesy of Mike Costa.) You'll see it in the video below:



Now here's the new one that Cia found. It's from the upcoming Busta Rhymes album expected to be called "Blessed." The song is called "Throw It Up" and happens to include a reference to our title man. Here are the lyrics:

So I will be drivin' like Ricky Bobby
It's my [prerogative] like Whitney's Bobby
I'm skatin' on blades like Sidney Crosby (That's hot)
Sharper than a ginsu shawty
You not Beyonce, but I can get you body

Check out the song below, BUT BE WARNED - it contains some strong language. Since this song hasn't yet been released, I couldn't locate the radio edit, so all the F-bombs, N-words, and other swears are uncensored in the version below. The part about the Saint comes at about the 1:15 mark:

LATE EDIT: Most likely due to the fact that the song has not yet been released, it was pulled from the source I was using to stream it. Just wait a month or two - the album "Blessed" is due out some time next month.

And finally today, I'll leave you with a photo sent in by Friend of The Show Apple L. Here's a quick explanation, followed by the picture:

I took the picture (attached) on highway 87 near Jersey City in the early evening of July 4th. See "Sidney", "Crosby" and 279 (highway in Pittsburgh) on the truck!

WHOA! (Click to enlarge for a supersized image.)

Many thanks to both Cia and Apple for the help with today's post! :)

Remember: PROJECT PICTURES ARE DUE THIS SATURDAY!!! If you're new to The Show, you can get all the details about the project here. You should know that the original plan was for you to take a picture of yourself in your Pens gear with your country/state/provincial flag, but it has since evolved quite a bit. You can choose to be in the photo or not. All that is required is that you have some Pens gear or posters with your local flag or a local landmark. The point of the project is to thank the Penguins (past and present) for all they've given us over the years AND to show the rest of the NHL teams that
PENS FANS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE WORLD!!! ;)

A Hockey Grab Bag

I've got a plethora of stuff from several Friends of The Show, but first I wanted to let you know that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has some status updates for us: Brooks Orpik is hoping to work out a longterm deal with the Pens. :)


But that article has some unpleasant news, too:

The Canucks also plan to chase left wing Ryan Malone, who said last week he will exercise his unrestricted option.

Vancouver likely cannot offer Hossa $8 million annually over five years - the deal he is believed to be seeking - but would bid high for Malone, possibly more than $5 million annually on a long-term contract.

What I don't understand is, if it's supposedly not about the money, why is a $40 million, 5 year deal better than a $50 million, 7 year deal? Well, here's a possible explanation for that:

...Hossa told Pittsburgh reporters two days after the Stanley Cup final that he would "take less to play on a good team."

"I only read where Marian said that," Ray Shero said. "He never said that to me."

Hossa - WTF?!

Looks like Shero's going to have to go wing shopping for Sidney...

My former co-conspirator from Taking One For The Team, good Friend Loser Chris, has started a new project called The Flower Shop. It's a blog dedicated entirely to our young netminder. Chris recently posted an in depth analysis that compares Marc-Andre Fleury's performance to date to what the top goalies in the NHL had accomplished by age 23. It's a must-read!

Frank D. over at Pensburgh.com is having a contest to win a prize:

Jack Falla's most recent work, Saved, is a fictional story of John-Pierre Savard, a veteran goaltender for the Boston Bruins. Through his years of hockey, JP Savard has experienced love, loss, grievance and rebirth. It's the story of two grown men pursuing their boyhood dreams of hoisting Lord Stanley high above their heads. As the two continue to tally up the seasons, put wear and tear on their bodies and fight through the late stages of their career, the dream starts to become a reality that pits the two "brothers" in a friendly yet competitive civil war.

Jack Falla was kind enough to donate not only his time, but also a signed copy of his book as a gift to the readers of Pensburgh, SBNation and hockey blogs in general.

Head on over to Pensburgh.com to enter.

The guys over at The 2 Man Advantage have a new video clip. I won't ruin it for you. All I'll say is that there's a few NY Islanders players, Hungry, Hungry Hippos, and Jenga in the first 30 seconds.

Lexie101 happened upon Kris Letang at the airport:

Okay now i have to say that i am pretty lucky! I was picking someone up from the airport and we were just walking around and i saw letang! I had him sign my shirt (penguins shirt)! The ONE time I do not have my camera with me I see a penguin!AHHHH! He was having trouble with finding his bags so while his little helper was looking for his bags we said he could come talk to us and he did! And he told me right to my face that geno is not going anywhere! He is going to a golf thingy [the Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational] on wed. with Sidney and Max but we did not stay long enough to see those two which is depressing :(

Here's the autograph she got:


I know we settled the Geno v Gino thing, but Laurel K. sent in this picture of a new T-shirt from Reebok and I wanted to share it with you:

Yet one more piece of evidence in favor of the E.

Brandon started an online petition aimed at trying to persuade Marian Hossa to resign with Pittsburgh. Click here to sign it.

Christine sent in an article she found that details why the Pens were glad they didn't win the Cup...

Michelle D. designed this wallpaper for us:

Click to enlarge.

Just a reminder - keep sending in your pictures for our TSCS Summer Project. I've gotten quite a few, and all I have to say is you guys are so creative! Keep 'em coming!!! (Special note to our international Friends: You guys need to catch up! So far the majority of the photos I've received contain the red, white, and blue...)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the Friends who contributed to today's post!!! :)

Sid Vids - Uncut

Friend of The Show Alex M. sent me these links to videos of Sidney being interviewed by a KDKA TV reporter Bob Pompeani (who asks some of the dumbest questions, by the way). Notice the BRIGHT YELLOW CROCS Saint Sid is rocking at the beginning of this one! (I'd make fun of him, but I have a mint green pair that I wear almost daily, so it would be like the pot calling the kettle. Come on! I know they're hideous, but they're sooooo comfy! LOL)

Here's the first one. Topics range from missing out on "the college experience" to Malkin's English to how much Sidney eats to who has the best pick up line on the team. (← If you've watched the Pens for even just one season, you'll already know who that is.) The smack talk between Fleury and Crosby make this one a must see. Make sure you disable your screensaver: This video is almost 13 minutes long.

Here's the second one. It looks like it might be the original report that ran on the news from the footage obtained during the interview from the first video. (It's less than four minutes long.)

Here's the one where he talks about showing up at the Penguins' youth hockey school last month. He also addresses his broken foot - he hasn't skated on it very much. Hopefully, it will not be a problem this season...

Thanks for hooking us up with these videos, Alex!

At least he's not wearing pleated pants this time.

And finally, Friends Cassie C. and Alex (again) sent me links to this article on the Pens' website.

They participated in the 20th Annual Summer sticks Golf Classic at Longue Vue Club in Verona. Penguins General Manager Ray Shero and head coach Michel Therrien joined the Penguins and other participants on the golf course for the popular event. One Penguins celebrity golfer (player or coach) joined each threesome for the four-man scramble.

Check out the photo gallery and then (try to) check out the video. I couldn't get the video from that link to work, but I thought I should post it anyways. (It started really irritating me, so I quit trying.)

Special thanks for the assists, ladies! :)

I'm Buying a Full Season Next Year

Several Friends of The Show have pointed out that I seriously dropped the ball by not telling you all about this next story:


WOW. Yeah, I may not live close enough to actually be able to attend a full season's worth of games, and it's true that I may not even be able to afford to be a Penguins full season ticket holder, but if Sidney's going to play mailman and bring them to my house, you can bet that I'll be buying them!! ;)

Here's the story from the Penguins website:

Instead of passing pucks, a few Penguins spent Thursday passing out season tickets.

As a show of their appreciation for tremendous fan support, Pittsburgh Penguins players hand-delivered season tickets to 24 season ticket-holders throughout the Pittsburgh area.

Sid calls the luckiest kid in the world

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ryan Whitney, Colby Armstrong and Maxime Talbot made the deliveries to the fans, who were selected at random.

“It was nice. It was nice to see the reaction on people’s faces,” Crosby said. “Everyone appreciated it; it was fun for me and for the rest of the guys to go and interact with people who support us so much. Some of the people have been season ticket-holders for 30 years. So, this was nice for us to do and to say thanks personally.”

There are two videos posted of Sidney making these deliveries:

Video One (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette version)
Video One (Penguins website version)

(I hope you watched them both; they're slightly different.) The first set of videos are of Saint Sid delivering tickets to Alice Kilgore, a woman (of whom I am infinitely jealous for so many reasons) who has been a Penguins season ticket holder for thirty years. Okay. Sid not only should hand deliver her tickets from now on, but he should maybe mow her lawn or run a vacuum at her house! It's folks like Alice that got the Pens through the lean years. Although I take issue with Alice telling Sid that the Pens aren't getting a Stanley Cup until NEXT year!!! I mean, she's probably right, but to say that to his face?! WOW. She definitely has some Chutzpah!

Oh, and apparently Sid is afraid of dogs, which does not bode well for me, as I have 4 big dogs (a golden retriever, a chocolate lab, and two greyhounds).


Video Two

The second one is of Sid stopping by Joan Kozlowski's home. Sid was even nice enough to phone her son, Matthew, to wish him a happy birthday. Joan - I am jealous of you, too.

I must admit that my home is similar to Joan's home in that I've got Penguins posters, jerseys, game souvenirs, flags, glasses, etc. literally all over my house, but my pride and joy is a shadow box with a jersey signed by Le Magnifique hanging in my hallway. But I can honestly say that I would give my LEFT ARM to have that framed piece of net hanging in her hallway!!! :)



Many thanks to Friends Eighty-Two, Alex, and Lisa-Marie W. for sending these links my way!!!

Back to (Hockey) School

The Penguins held their annual summer hockey school sessions at the Robert Morris Island Sports Complex on Monday, August 20, 2007. The coaching staff of the Penguins offered professional hockey training to more than 150 kids (some who traveled all the way from Montreal!). Those kids got the surprise of their young lives I'm sure when an unexpected visitor showed up:

Penguins star Sidney Crosby made an unannounced visit that shocked some of the players to the extent that some actually fell over trying to get a look at him as he stepped onto the ice. During the two-hour session, Crosby worked with several groups ranging in age from 5 to 16 and posed for on-ice group photos.

"It was just nice for me to have the opportunity to go out there," Crosby said. "I remember when I went to hockey schools and how fun it was for me when I'd see guys I looked up to or followed."

Crosby wasn't the only member of the Penguins' organization on hand. Owner Mario Lemieux, general manager Ray Shero, assistant general manager Cliff Fletcher and coach Michel Therrien all had children participate on the first day of the weeklong camp, but it was Crosby who stole the show by just being there.

Lemieux and Shero had their own children attending the event, but even they didn't know that a guest instructor was coming to help with the training! Some photos of the event follow:

Saint Sid Signing Autographs

Sid helps Mites goaltender Nico Pidro (Pens' Assistant Coach Mike Yeo is in the background)

Sid works with Mites goaltender Alan McIvor

Pens' Assistant Coach Mike Yeo (left) and Sid instruct the kids

The article also makes note that Crosby hasn't really had an opportunity to test his foot on the ice. (You'll recall that it was revealed that his foot was broken just before the start of the playoffs.) With only 23 days until training camp begins, "he is not concerned that his injury or conditioning will be an issue." He is expected to spend this week in Nova Scotia preparing for next week's return to Pittsburgh, and his plans are to ease himself back into skating during training camp.

---

You may have noticed the changes to the blogroll on TSCS. If you did, you also noticed that 12 of the NHL teams do not have any links. If your team doesn't have a link and you know a good blog worthy of mentioning, feel free to submit it to us!

Special thanks to the staff at ThePensblog.com for giving me permission to steal their idea for organizing the blogs into the NHL divisions!!! :)

A Grab Bag of Saint Sid Stuff

Without readers like Rachel, Cassie C., and Lisa-Marie W., offseason on this blog would be as exciting as watching the construction of the new arena on a live webcam. That's right - the Penguins website now has an "arena progress" page that is connected to a webcam that updates the photo every minute. At first, being able to watch them build the Penguins' new playground in (almost) real time sounds cool - until you stop and realize how much time it's going to take to build an entire arena. It ends up being a bit like watching paint dry. Honestly, checking back on it once a day will give you a sufficient view of the progress being made at the site. At any rate, for your convenience, I put a link to it at the right in the Pittsburgh Penguins Links section (underneath the Essential Sid Links section). Now on to the reader submissions:

First up is a cartoon that I got from Cassie C. She received it from a friend, but didn't know what it said. Enter: Lisa-Marie. She very kindly provided us with the translation. And while I know it would have been more appropriately used for the announcement of Sid's new contract, it's a funny cartoon and I thought I would share it with you nonetheless. Enjoy:

Lemieux: C'mon little guy, let's go play!
Crosby: So tell me...when's payday?

Our next item comes from Rachel. She left this in the comments section under the Penguins Off-season Golf Tourney post. It was such a great find that I didn't want anyone to miss it. Read on:

rachel said...
Thanks to a friend that showed me, there's a video of the Pens golfing and being interviewed here. Just search Sidney Crosby and it's the top video, Mirage pour Crosby et Therrien. The catch is they're all speaking French ;)

That website is a veritable French goldmine of El Sid videos. I thought it was awesome to see them all golfing, even though I only recognized words like "I" and "it is" and only a handful of other mostly insignificant words. There is video on there from the Au Bout de Souffle, too. Take a few minutes to check it out even if you don't speak French. Besides, what else are you going to do in this horrible August heatwave?

Another Penguins Off-Season Golf Tourney

This is about a month late, but I completely forgot about it until I read Jes's post yesterday. (My apologies!)

Every summer for the past ten years, the Mario Lemieux Foundation (MLF) has a private celebrity golf tournament to raise money for the cancer and neonatal research projects of the MLF. Attendance is by invitation only. My husband was lucky enough to score a pass for the 2002 Mellon Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational from the company where he works. He got to watch the celebrities golf and was able to get autographs from Mario himself, Eddie Olczyk (just months before he was named the Pens head coach), and hall of fame goaltender Grant Fuhr, as well as many others. But like I said before, you've got to be invited to go. They don't sell these passes.

This year's tournament took place at the Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pa. over two days beginning June 27 and ending the next day. The MLF website details the action:

The Mario Lemieux Foundation was proud to have Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield take over the presenting sponsorship of the Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational in 2007. For the second straight year, the golf event was held at the exclusive Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, PA and was closed to the public.

The star power was as strong as ever, as Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Ben Roethlisberger, Steve Spurrier, Dan Marino, Lou Holtz, Lynn Swann and a field of 35 celebrities played with Pro-Am groups on Wednesday, June 27. Presenting sponsor Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield enjoyed six Pro-Am groups, including pairings with Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull, and Marcus Allen. The team of Heinz and Grant Fuhr edged out Dan Marino’s team from Accenture to win the first-place team trophy.

This is the biggest picture of Sidney golfing I could find.

The Thursday pairings included Dan Marino, Steve Spurrier, and Jamie Dixon with Highmark, Lynn Swann with Mellon Financial Corporation, and Jim McMahon with Great-West Health Care. Pierre Larouche and his team from Duquesne Light took home the first-place Pro-Am prize.

The final day of the MLCI was the second annual celebrity-only event that pitted Team Lemieux against defending champion Team Larouche in a Ryder Cup style face-off. After winning nine of the possible 15 points in the individual morning matches, Team Lemieux held on [to] beat Team Larouche by a final score of 12½ to 10½ to etch their name on the Lemieux Celebrity Challenge trophy for the first time.

A view of the 18th green and clubhouse at Laurel Valley Golf Club.

It's so nice to see all these celebrities come together for a good cause every year. If you look at the roster on the website, you'll see LOTS of celebrity athletes and actors, many of whom make regular appearances on the MLCI. Congrats to Team Lemieux, but let's hope it doesn't take Sidney 10 years to have his name etched on Lord Stanley's Cup!!!

Penguins Off-Season Golf Tourney

It appears that Sidney has having himself quite a fun off-season, and now coach Michel Therrien is joining in on the fact.

Thanks to a loyal blog reader (who wishes to remain anonymous), we have the inside scoop on what Sidney and Therrien were up to this weekend.

Michel Therrien understands the importance of the team spirit, this is why he has organized, on Thursday August 2nd, a mini golf tournament at the golf course Le Mirage (owned by Céline Dion and husband and manager René Angelil, in Terrebonne about 20 min. from Montreal...).

Present there was their new captain Sidney Crosby, Alain Nasreddine and Mario Boyer (manager of the bar the Tops in Laval), who won the competition with 69 points.

Also present were André savard, Jean-Pierre Jutras, Marc-Andre Fleury, Bob Mailloux, Gilles Meloche, Maxime Talbot, Ryan Whitney, Christopher Letang, Dany Sabourin, Angelo Esposito, Ryan Malone and Rod Scuderi.

Well, Sidney can't win EVERYTHING :/