Pittsburgh Penguins

There is one hockey team that has had the benefit of having some of the most elite players the NHL has ever seen. The Pittsburgh Penguins are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are members of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the first expansion teams during the league's original expansion from six to twelve teams. The Penguins played in the Civic Arena, also known as The Igloo, from the time of their inception through the end of the 2009-10 season, when they moved to the PPG Paints Arena. The 1992-93 Penguins won the franchise's first-ever Presidents' Trophy for being the team with the most points at the end of the regular season.

In addition to their eight division titles, they have qualified for six Stanley Cup Finals, winning the Stanley Cup five times - in 1991, 1992, 2009, 2016, and 2017. Along with the Edmonton Oilers, the Penguins are tied for the most Cup championships among non-Original Six teams and sixth overall. With their Stanley Cup wins in 2016 and 2017, the Penguins became the first back-to-back champions in 19 years (since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings) and the first team to do so since the introduction of the NHL salary cap.

Pittsburgh is a city in western Pennsylvania at the junction of 3 rivers. Its Gilded Age sites, including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, speak to its history as an early-20th-century industrial capital. In the North Shore neighborhood are the modern Andy Warhol Museum, Heinz Field football stadium and PNC Park baseball stadium. Located at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers, Pittsburgh is known both as "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses and as the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclined railways, a pre-revolutionary fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. The city developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains made the area coveted by the French and British empires, Virginians, Whiskey Rebels, and Civil War raiders.

Before the Penguins, Pittsburgh had been the home of the NHL's Pirates from 1925 to 1930 and of the American Hockey League Hornets franchise from 1936 to 1967 (with a short break from 1956 to 1961). In the spring of 1965, Jack McGregor, a state senator from Kittanning, began lobbying campaign contributors and community leaders to bring an NHL franchise back to Pittsburgh. The group focused on leveraging the NHL as an urban renewal tool for Pittsburgh. The senator formed a group of local investors that included H. J. Heinz Company heir H. J. Heinz III, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney, and the Mellon family's Richard Mellon Scaife.

The projected league expansion depended on securing votes from the then-current NHL owners; to ensure that Pittsburgh would be selected as one of the expansion cities, McGregor enlisted Rooney to petition votes from James D. Norris, owner of the Chicago Black Hawks, and his brother Bruce Norris, owner of the Detroit Red Wings. The effort was successful, and on February 8, 1966, the National Hockey League awarded an expansion team to Pittsburgh for the 1967-68 season. The Penguins paid $2.5 million ($19.1 million today) for their entry and $750,000 ($5.5 million today) more for start-up costs. The Civic Arena's capacity was then boosted from 10,732 to 12,500 to meet the NHL requirements for expansion. The Pens also paid an indemnification bill to settle with the Detroit Red Wings, which owned the Pittsburgh Hornets franchise. The investor group named McGregor president and chief executive officer, and he represented Pittsburgh on the NHL's Board of Governors.

A contest was held where 700 of 26,000 entries picked "Penguins" as the nickname for the team. Mark Peters had the winning entry (which was inspired by the fact that the team was to play in the "Igloo", the nickname of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena), and a logo was chosen that had a penguin in front of a triangle, which symbolized the "Golden Triangle" of downtown Pittsburgh."

Mario Lemieux, one of the most highly touted NHL draft picks in history, was due to be drafted in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft. Heading towards the end of the season ahead of the New Jersey Devils, who were placed last, the Penguins made a number of questionable moves that appeared to weaken the team in the short-term. The Penguins posted three six-game winless streaks in the last 21 games of the season and earned the right to draft Lemieux amidst protests from Devils management. Pittsburgh coach Lou Angotti later admitted that a conscious decision was made to finish the season as the team with the worst record, stating in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that a mid-season lunch prompted the plan, in light of the fact that there was a high chance of the franchise folding if Lemieux was not drafted.

The 2005 NHL Entry Draft selection order or the draft lottery, which was held behind closed doors in a "secure location", resulted in the Penguins being awarded the first overall pick for the second time in three years.The entry draft that year was being touted as having the greatest rookie class since Lemieux, himself, had been drafted. Quebec Major Junior Hockey League superstar Sidney Crosby (who had been training with Lemieux over the summer) was the consensus No. 1 overall pick, with many referring to the draft lottery process as "The Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes". The Penguins selected Crosby on July 30, 2005 with the top pick, instantly rekindling interest in hockey in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have been blessed with some of the most talented players to ever play on the ice. Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jaromir Jagr highlight a rich history of Penguins' skaters representing the best of their generations. As fortunate as Pittsburgh has been on the ice, they have been even more blessed to have a long line of fantastic individuals choosing to take up residence in western Pennsylvania.

How does the 2018-19 season look for the Penguins? The bottom line is that player movement can be very fast in the NHL, and the Penguins' core players who have been around for a while still should be on the team for the next few seasons. Naturally, of course, everything comes to an end at some point. Pittsburgh has had a truly golden era in the Crosby/Malkin days, and that should continue through 2024 and beyond, but maybe not too much further. So, as always, enjoy the good times and top-level talent now while it lasts. As always, you can expect a great upcoming season from the Pittsburgh Penguins.