The Week That Was

by Jan Snyder

This past week was certainly a notable one for fans of Pittsburgh sports teams. The week began with the Steelers losing to Green Bay in the Super Bowl, as Green Bay turned the tables and beat the Steelers at their own game. They had three takeaways resulting in points and the Steelers just never caught up.

at least the cake looks good!

As the week moved along, we found out that Geno Malkin would have season ending surgery on his MCL and ACL, not good news for an already suffering fan base! We won’t see Geno again until training camp in September. A tiny ray of sunshine came through when Sidney Crosby returned to Pittsburgh and said he’s making progress with his concussion symptoms, but still needed time before he could even start working out on the ice. Although he said he hopes to play again this season, time will tell.

The Pens pulled out a nice OT win against the Kings when Staal scored with just seconds left in the OT period. So on to Long Island for a Friday night game with the Islanders. Keep in mind only nine days before Rick DiPietro started (and admitted to starting) a fight with Pens back- up goalie, Brent Johnson. Johnson took him out with one punch, but no one knew then that Ricky had broken bones in his face and that he’d hurt his knee. As the Pens laughed on the bench, mostly at the fact that Johnson was such an efficient fighter, the Isles took exception.

Art imitating Life in Slap Shot

So as I sat down to watch what I didn’t think would be a very good game last night, I was soon mesmerized and thought I had accidentally turned on “Slap Shot”. The Isles got ahead and way ahead so you knew something bad was going to happen, but no one could have predicted the scene that unfolded. I truly think some of the Islanders lost their minds! Really, what did Johnson do but accept an invitation to fight? All that caused all that???

By the end of the game, each team had only a couple of players left on the bench. As it was, the Pens were basically playing with a good chunk of the Wilkes-Barre team. We’re missing so many starters it’s not even funny and now we will be missing way more when the suspensions start being announced.

It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t hockey. Maybe the refs should be suspended and fined for completely losing control of the game.

So this week will end on another downer for Pittsburgh fans as we hear who’s out and for how long. Maybe this will be character building? We’ll see.