An incredible journey for Pens

By Joe Starkey, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/
Sunday, June 14, 2009

DETROIT — Who knows where to rank the Penguins' Stanley Cup championship among Pittsburgh's 14 major pro sports titles, in terms of prestige or degree of difficulty?

Just know this: No Pittsburgh team took a longer or more circuitous route to a title than the 2008-09 Penguins.

How long was their season?

DETROIT - JUNE 12: Sidney Crosby(notes) #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates with the Stanley Cup after defeating the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 2-1 to win Game Seven and the 2009 NHL Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on June 12, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Well, we had to commission a team of archaeologists just to pinpoint the precise day training camp opened. They determined, through Carbon-14 dating, that on Sept. 9 — the same day the Pirates dropped to 60-84 last season and two days after the Steelers opened last season with a victory over the Houston Texans — a bunch of Penguins hopefuls showed up in Kitchener, Ontario, for "prospects camp."

A minor-league coach named Dan Bylsma ran the camp.

The real Penguins would begin training eight days later, after a short summer precipitated by a Cup Final loss to the dreaded Red Wings.

To compound matters, the Penguins were operating under more curses than one might find in a Voodoo handbook.

There was the Hossa Curse, of course. Star winger Marian Hossa had defected to Detroit about five minutes after the Final, saying the Wings gave him a "better chance" to win the Cup.

There was the Overseas Curse. The Penguins were to open the season with two games in Stockholm against the Senators. Of the previous eight teams to begin a season overseas, only one (the 2000 Penguins) had won a playoff series.

Worst of all, there was the Cup Runner-Up Curse. No team since the 1984 Edmonton Oilers had lost in the Final one year and returned to play for the Cup the next, and the previous 11 runners-up had combined to win one measly playoff series.

"Not much I can say," general manager Ray Shero said as camp opened. "I'm hoping those statistics are meaningless."

Those statistics looked downright ominous three days later, when star defenseman Sergei Gonchar injured his shoulder in the exhibition opener. Another key defenseman, Ryan Whitney, already was out.

Gonchar would miss 56 games.

The Penguins would nearly miss the playoffs.

History will show that Shero's deft sense of timing turned the season. He stayed with coach Michel Therrien until Valentine's Day, after a heartless, 6-2 loss in Toronto.

DETROIT - JUNE 12: Marc-Andre Fleury(notes) #29 of the Pittsburgh Penguins shakes hands with Marian Hossa(notes) #81 of the Detroit Red Wings after Game Seven of the 2009 NHL Stanley Cup Finals at Joe Louis Arena on June 12, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Bylsma was promoted from Wilkes-Barre, but this wasn't prospects camp. This was a dire situation in which an alleged championship team was mired in 10th place with 25 games left.

"People were questioning our character," defenseman Brooks Orpik said.

Bylsma, who hailed from the "Badger" Bob Johnson school of positive thinking, changed his team's mindset and installed a more aggressive system. Shero brought in three wingers in Bill Guerin, Chris Kunitz and Craig Adams, and the team jelled on a five-game trip that began Feb. 27 in Chicago.

Then came a rousing playoff run, filled with enough Kodak moments to fill 10 albums.

Here's one: Injured captain Sidney Crosby returning to the bench in the third period of the Cup-clincher, in order to lend support to his teammates.

"I don't recommend anyone watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final from the bench," Crosby said. "It was so painful."

No pro sports team in 30 years had won Game 7 of a championship series on the road. The most recent one, fittingly, had been the 1979 "We-Are-Fam-a-lee" Pirates, who won the same year the Steelers captured their fourth Super Bowl title.

The leader of those Pirates, Willie Stargell, delivered a memorable quote that year, saying, "Now when they walk down the street, the people of Pittsburgh say we come from a city that has nothing but champions."

The list of champions has since grown to 14, including the amazing 2008-09 Penguins, who won a Stanley Cup and an ultra-marathon in the same nine months.