Today Is The Greatest Day I Have Ever Known

BOOYAH, FRIENDS, IT'S MY LAST DAY AT THIS CRAPPY JOB!!!!!!! Um, so I might be slightly enthusiastic today... Just a warning. ;)

Hahaha, my inbox BLEW UP with tips about these photos posted on PittsburghLive by FSN Pittsburgh correspondent Dan Potash. (I wish I could list you all, but I hope you'll forgive me for just throwing out a blanket Thanks for the link! to all of you instead.) Here are five of my favorites. The best about them is that Potash uploaded the original images, so click these babies for HUGE wallpaper quality shots - because really, who among you doesn't want this next shot on your desktop?

Sleepy Siddo and Flower - those masks are dead sexy! :P

The Boys practice in Sweden.

The Saint takes a tour of the Vasa Museum.

Another shot of the Boys touring the Vasa Museum

Sid, Mad Max, and Pascal Dupuis enjoy a candlelit dinner. (WOW - I barely recognized the now relatively hairless Mad Max!)

Good Friends of The Show Lauren H. and Stagerat (who now is affiliated with my good friend, Loser Chris, as a contributor to The Flower Shop) sent in the link to an article detailing how much Siddo is enjoying anonymity in Sweden.

Friend Maria T. sent in this piece about training camp continuing in Sweden:

Because of the extent of this undertaking -- the NHL Premiere also includes weekend games between Tampa Bay and the New York Rangers in Prague, Czech Republic -- the NHL and sponsors are helping to defray some of the player expenses and assisting with things such as arranging transportation.

Some of the Penguins' European players have requested tickets because people from home can get to Sweden more easily than they can get to Pittsburgh.

Russian defenseman Sergei Gonchar had asked for about 50 tickets here and in Helsinki, mostly for friends making the relatively short trip from St. Petersburg, where Gonchar and center Evgeni Malkin work out in the summer. Gonchar had to give those seats back after a dislocated left shoulder forced him to miss the trip.

Malkin still has a group coming, including his girlfriend, Oksana, a friend who doubles as his Russian agent and workout pals from St. Petersburg. [snoop: Aww!!! :)]

WAIT A MINUTE - I have to read that again: "Because of the extent of this undertaking ... the NHL and sponsors are helping to defray some of the player expenses." SERIOUSLY?! I'm no accountant, but I'm pretty sure even the rookies are making more than enough cash to foot the bill. I wouldn't care except that the NHL will likely pass along the costs to us in the form of even higher ticket prices.

Friend of The Show RACHEL S. FOR THE WIN!!!!!!! We get to head back to Pittsburgh for our latest installment of our Roaming Penguins saga, where Rachel captured the first picture of Sidney Penguin in the stands watching Sidney Crosby on the ice:

YES!!!!!

(Here's a zoomed view of S.C.)

Here are Rachel's own words to tell us about their day together:

Roaming Sidney and the family traveled to Pittsburgh for my brother’s wedding. Friday morning, Sept 19, we took the kids and Sid to the open practice. It was really cool – people were walking up in jerseys, which was fun to see.


Heading in to the arena, which will always be the Civic Arena to me, none other than Ray Shero drove in front of us into the lot. The practice itself was really quiet and it was strange to be in the semi-empty, quiet arena.

Sidney P. watches the Zamboni drive by.

My son, Henry, who is 4 ½ was so excited and shouted “my first hockey game!!” I told him, “you have no idea, honey.” It was also funny to see people eating hot sausage sandwiches and nachos at 9:30 in the morning.

What an awesome day!

I highly recommend getting in to see a practice for anyone who can, because it was really cool. So, I got a few good shots of Sidney inside and one at the new arena construction site.

This is also S.P.'s first trip to the new arena site! :)

(I also got some good Pens gear at the shop in the arena!)

Thanks, Rachel!

All that's left today is TSCS's Quote of The Day:

"This letter is a declaration of my resignation, as I have accepted a position as an IT Team Member at another company. I am looking forward to my new position and the challenges that await me. My last day of work will be September 30, 2008."

~ snoopyjode, in a resignation letter which was signed, sealed, and delivered two weeks ago today. :D

Endless thanks to everyone (including Lauren, Stagerat, Maria, and Rachel) for helping with today's post! :)

Training Camp Is Now Underway

And you know what that means... LESS THAN ONE MONTH UNTIL THE PUCK OFFICIALLY DROPS!!! It's ironic that this has been the shortest off-season for the Pens in over a decade because it certainly has felt like the longest summer break we've ever had! I don't know if it's because I'm so pumped for the season to start again because I run this blog now which it makes it that much more fun, or if it's because I want this season to be a sequel called Stanley Cup 2009: The Penguins' Revenge. :P It's most likely an even mix of both reasons. :)

FINALLY! Do it.

First things first: Friend of The Show Jan M. found this Q & A with Ray Shero. The most surprising thing in the article to me was how nonchalant Shero seemed about the idea of losing Jordan Staal to another team! Perhaps he was just playing it cool in front of the media... LATE EDIT: Please disregard the last part of this paragraph. I totally misread Shero's response to a question about resigning Jordan Staal. (See the comments section for all the details.)


So now that training camp has started, I think it's a good time to get you excited for the season opener against the Senators in Sweden. Good Friend of The Show Dave H. sent in some crazy facts about the Stockholm Globe Arena in which the games will take place (from Deputy-Dog.com):

To be found in Stockholm, Sweden, this enormous building holds 2 records, one far more interesting than the other - to me at least.


The less interesting but still impressive record? It’s the largest hemispherical building in the world with a diameter of 361ft and volume of 21′188′800 cubic ft.

The Globe is shown lit up for a hockey game in February 2007. That is truly stunning. (Click to enlarge, image from Wikipedia)

The best of its records? The building represents the sun in what is the world’s largest scale model of the solar system (1:20,000,000). That’s to say, all other planets of the solar system are represented by other precisely sized and distanced objects throughout Sweden. As an example of the distances between these models, the dwarf planet of Pluto can be found 300km from the Stockholm Globe Arena and has a diameter of 12cm.

Clockwise from top left (click for sources): Venus, Jupiter, Earth, and Mercury (Click to enlarge)

This is a map of Sweden with the Globe as the sun and all the "planets" plotted out. (Click to enlarge)

Here's another interior view of the Globe. (Click to enlarge, image from Wikipedia)

Prior to Dave's email, I didn't realize the arena represented the sun in a scale model of the solar system. That is absolutely amazing!

Yesterday when I got home from work, I had two special visitors waiting for me at my house in Tyrone, PA:

Haha, we've finally reached our limit! Google Maps won't let me plot out Sidney Penguin's travels from Nashville to all the towns he has already visited to my town. I haven't figured out how I'm going to handle that in the future, so for now I'm just going to show you his journey from Colorado Springs to Tyrone.

It marks the first appearance for one very special Roaming Penguin:

Sidney Penguin and Mario Penguin (← finally!) found their way to my town!!!

My visitors wanted to meet my dogs. My Golden Retriever, Baylee, is a good boy and obeys my every command, so I trusted him enough to let them get close to him:

Aren't the three of them adorable together? My Greyhounds (Link, Connor, and Logan) really are good boys, too, but for the first 4+ years of their lives, they chased a mechanical lure around a track, and as a result they're conditioned to catch (and potentially destroy) small things so I didn't want to take any chances...

I'm planning to take S.P. and M.P. on a tour of State College some time soon... I've got more Roaming Penguins pictures from several Friends of The Show to share with you later this week. :)

But for now, it's time for TSCS's Quote of The Day:

"Probably the biggest thing that surprises people is that I am obsessed with hockey. I grew up in the Boston area so I am obsessed with hockey since I was a little kid."

~ musician and horror film director Rob Zombie

Well, it certainly surprised me enough to include it as the Quote of The Day! A hundred thousand thank yous are due to Dave for all the awesome information about the Globe Arena and to Jan for sending in the Shero interview link. :)

Six Days Until Training Camp Begins

Training camp starts in less than a week!!! You can get all the details as well as the practice and preseason game schedules here. (Tip of the hat to Friend of The Show Jan M. for sending the link to me, which made me realize that I had forgotten to include it in today's post even though I used it for the title. I think I'm losing my mind, LOL!)

I am so excited! I got an email from a new Friend of The Show yesterday, Björn A., who just happens to live in Sweden:

I'm just sending a little hello from Herrljunga, Sweden! Got my ticket for the game on October 5^th, so psyched about finally getting to see the Penguins live, got up in the middle of the night to see them for over 40 regular season games + all of the playoff games last season.

Included in the email was a photo:


Now you KNOW I just had to ask Björn this question:

Congrats on getting a ticket for the October 5^th game! That will be an AMAZING game!! I would absolutely LOVE to be there... Do you think I could impose and request a few photos of the game? Getting some photos from the inside from someone who is actually going to be there would be fantastic!

To which Björn replied:

I will send in some pictures from the game, sure, actually I was already planning on sending in some photos :P

I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait to get them and have a WONDERFUL time at the game, Björn!!!

So I saw this on CNN yesterday and I thought it was a typo: Slovakia's women's ice hockey pummels Bulgaria 82-0. Turns out, it was correct. YIKES! That's an average of 1.367 goals per minute! That's quite a beating - more like something I'd expect if the Pens played a high school team! :P

From the "Who the hell would watch this?" department: poor Friend of The Show Stephanie S., who now has to endure having IFHSA™ on her beloved Stars team, found this piece on Boxoffice.com that New Line Cinema - yes, this is the same company that brought us the unmatched awesomeness of The Lord of The Rings trilogy - is planning to make a movie about the life and times of Sean Avery, Vogue intern. I have but one thing to say about that. W-T-F?!?! It gets even worse - it's going to be a romantic comedy. Unreal.

It makes me wanna gag, too, Sean.

Kim S. can be added to the list of Friends of The Show who have "Pensified" [← *nods at Jaime for coming up with that word*] their dormrooms:


A Friend of The Show was bored on the commute home from work and discovered that an anagram of SIDNEY PATRICK CROSBY is "SCORED BY A TRICKY SPIN." It's fitting, don't you think? :) If you come up with any other good ones, let me know.

After taking a short break, Sidney Penguin is on the move again. He left Welland and made his way south to Austin, Texas...


...where good Friend of The Show AustinLovesCrosby him to her favorite restaurant, Home Slice Pizza in downtown Austin:


Her own caption explains the second photo:

"I took my Sidney Penguin to the big D for some field hockey; at 105 ̊ we were the Girls of Summer!!!"

It's time again for TSCS's Quote of The Day. Today's quote is a reminder why IFHSA™ is a more than appropriate acronym for him:

"I think it was typical of most French guys in our league with a visor on, running around and playing tough and not back anything up."

~ Sean Avery commenting on an incident in 2005 in which forward Jeremy Roenick suffered one of his many concussions after he took a hard, clean hit from defenseman Denis Gauthier in a preseason game

What a tool.

Thank yous go out to Jan, Björn, Stephanie, Kim, the anagram Friend, and AustinLovesCrosby for their contributions to today's post. :)

Sid's Home From Boot Camp

The Penguins returned home yesterday from their boot camp trip to West Point (← make sure to check out the video on the Pens website):

The routine was altered a little from last year’s trip. This time, the Penguins had to embark on a campus-wide scavenger hunt and make a hike up a hill.

[...]

First Sergeant J.B. Spisso, a former Army Ranger and current member of the New York National Guard, oversaw the Penguins’ training. The Greensburg native kept the team moving.

“If we weren’t practicing, we were in our shorts and running shoes out running, climbing hills and carrying heavy stuff,” [Erik] Christensen said. “Every day we had virtually no down time to relax or rest. You were either eating, playing or working on something else. We were pretty busy for about two and a half days.”

The team also played a wicked game of paintball. There were no rules and shots could be taken at close range. As Maxime Talbot said, “some guys had some pretty big welts and bruises. It’s very good for team building because you have to cover each other and try to get plans to attack the other team.”

Last year's trip to West Point is widely believed to have played a big part in last season's remarkable turnaround. (The other part, of course, being Coach Therrien!)

Think they tried to recruit him?

For local Penguins fans (any of you that get FSN Pittsburgh), all next week FSN will be showing Penguins programs to get you pumped up for the start of the season. You can catch Sidney's "In My Own Words" program on Tuesday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Wednesday, Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. If you haven't caught it yet, it's a must-see for any Sid fan.

Now, hopefully, the new banner at the top is a little better than the one I made yesterday. I am much happier with this one. :) The final change I've made is visible on the right side of the main page, underneath the Sidney Crosby Monitor. I found this widget to keep you abreast of the latest scores. It displays the score of the last game played, and the time of the next game to be played. I think TSCS is finally ready for the new season - with little more than a week to go. I can't wait until it is finally time to DROP THE PUCK!!!

Crosby Leaves Practice Early

Here's a bit of breaking news for you that comes to us by way of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Penguins captain Sidney Crosby left practice early today because of soreness in his groin. His status is day-to-day.

Crosby said he is hopeful he can still take part in the team-building exercises and maneuvers between today and Wednesday. He said the soreness is not as severe as his groin injury last season.

I'll bring you more on this story, if it even becomes an issue. He may have left for precautionary reasons (let's hope!).

HOLY CRAP!!! The Pens are playing with guns.

As you'll recall, the Penguins are in West Point this week for an intense training session at the military academy of the same name as the town. Last year's activities included "three grueling days of trudging through swamps, pushing cars up hills [ ← snoop: WHAT?!], and various other field exercises." A West Point Preview video can be found on the Penguins website (at the top of the article). Crosby had the following to say about their West Point "trainer" (pictured above):

Once again, First Sergeant J.B. Spisso, a former Army Ranger and current member of the New York National Guard, will oversee the Penguins’ training. He is a native of Greensburg.

“He’s the ultimate leader. He could be on our team and not even play and just be in the dressing room between periods. He’s the kind of guy who can motivate anyone to do anything,” Crosby said. “He really left a good impression from everyone. He showed a lot of care in what we did and followed us through the year. I think he was an inspiration to us to keep going and hopefully he’ll have the same effect this year.”

It's one thing for Sgt. Spisso to take the time to train these players for a couple of days; after all, he's more than likely being compensated handsomely for doing so. But for him to keep track of the team all year says a lot about how much he must have genuinely liked these young men. Anyone who watches the season ticket delivery videos can see that all of these guys - not just Sid - have great personalities. It truly seems like they all really care about the fans, and in my opinion, that's just one more reason Pittsburgh has such a great team.

Just a reminder to vote for Sid in AskMen.com's Top 49 poll. I told you about it last month, but I figured I should remind you again since voting ends soon. Expect results in October. Just click the banner below:

It's (Finally) A New Season

Today is the second day of training camp for the Penguins. Today also marked the beginning of individual ticket sales for Pens games. I was up at 9:30 am waiting for Ticketmaster to release the tickets promptly at 10:00 am. I wanted to buy tickets for 2 games: the home opener and home closer. I had a slight problem with my purchase - I tried to order tickets for each game simultaneously using 2 tabs in my web browser, which apparently the Ticketmaster website doesn't like very much - and in the 5 minutes it took for me to figure out that it wasn't working, the home opener was sold out. Well, at least as far as getting 2 seats together. After all, I can't go without my husband! Or can I??? (Just kidding!)

So I while I was unable to get tickets to the October 6 game against the defending Stanley Cup champions, I was able to score tickets to the April 2 game against our cross-state rivals! And with my husband's access to his company's Mellon Arena luxury box and the owner of my company offering me the chance to purchase some of the tickets to the games he can't go to from his half season plan, I will most likely be going to more than one game this season. And I promise you I will take some sweet pictures (and probably have some funny stories) for you! :)

Back to the Penguins' training camp. Just before it started, Sidney told the Associated Press that he's fully aware of and comfortable with the high expectations that follow an incredible season like the last one:

Crosby understands a lot more is expected of these Penguins, even if it might not be until the playoffs.

"There's expectations, whether it's individually or as a team," he said. "But if you look back to last year, our focus was getting off to a good start and proving ourselves as a young team. It's only a year's difference and we have to keep doing that."

Another fact from that same article: Saint Sid still hasn't decided whether or not he will be using a Reebok stick this season or staying with his trusty Sher-Wood.

Now, I've got an update on Crosby's foot injury:

Sidney Crosby: Fully Recovered From Foot Fracture - 9/14/2007 12:58:54 PM

Update:
Crosby has completely recovered from a foot fracture suffered near the end of the regular season last year, according to GM Ray Shero, Fox Sports Radio 970 in Pittsburgh reports.

Recommendation:
Shero said that it was a matter of timing with Crosby, meaning that he had to rest the foot over the summer, which he did. While it's a bit hard to see Crosby scoring many more than the 61 power-play points he put up in 2006-07, there's no reason why he can't increase his numbers at even strength. Last year the organization struggled to find complementary linemates for the superstar. This season Petr Sykora and perhaps Gary Roberts, among others, will get a crack alongside Crosby.

WHEW!!! I feel a lot better now.

And finally, at the opening scrimmage, Crosby scored twice. One of those goals was a penalty shot facing netminder John Curry, a 23-year-old undrafted rookie from Boston University. Curry spoke of the experience to The Citizens Voice:

Minutes after he entered an intrasquad scrimmage, the 23-year-old undrafted rookie from Boston University had to face a penalty shot.

The shooter was Sidney Crosby.

The defending NHL MVP stickhandled in on goal and deposited a shot over Curry's right pad and under his blocker.

"It's a fun experience, I guess, until he buries it," Curry said. "I've got to get used to situations like that if I ever want to play in the NHL. I don't have to stop Sidney Crosby every time, but I've gotta be ready to make those types of saves.

"I'm not satisfied to get scored on so I can tell my friends I got scored on by Sidney Crosby. That's not what I'm here for."

Uh, welcome to the big leagues, Johnny!!! (Full details of the opening scrimmage game can be found here.)