PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s one of the better traditions of the 2000s for any sports team and the Pens did it again Tuesday, two days before its first practice, six before its first preseason game.
Since 2007 the Penguins have an annual tradition of having players go out in the community and personally deliver season tickets. It actually used to be a bundle of printed tickets, but now the team, and world, uses electronic tickets. So it’s not as much as ticket delivery as an opportunity for Pens players to personally meet its fan base.
Pens staffers do not tell the fans which player is coming, but a courtesy heads-up to make sure someone is home. For the Duryea family, they had an idea someone of note was coming as a couple of handfuls of media gradually started appearing outside their house.
“Is it Sid? Is it Geno? Maybe Letang,” wondered father of three Neal Duryea. “I was really excited. Then it was Sid and I was like ahhhh.”
“I got a rush of excitement,” said his young daughter Lucy. “I got really excited and I couldn’t stop. I wanted to scream.”
“Every time you do it you recognize the pride they have,” Crosby said at the Ohio Township home. “You always feel the support, it’s a real cool event we’ve done for a long time. You get a better idea of how they got into hockey and how long they’ve been following it.”
“A lot of times it’s something that brings their family together. Pittsburgh is a sports town and you can see the pride everyone has in the team, but getting more of the details behind that is fun.”
It is that for the Duryea’s, Neal’s father had season tickets before him. Crosby talked with the family for 15 minutes or so answering every question and signing a few items including an Iceburgh doll.
“I don’t know how other teams do it because ever since I’ve been born, it’s been Lemieux, Jagr, Sid,” Neal Duryea said. “I don’t know how to deal with them not being there. I consider myself lucky. We are so lucky, look at all of these other teams. Look at the Flyers, they haven’t won a Cup since 1975.”
As if that wasn’t a mic drop, there was one other thing for Sidney Crosby to do before he left. Lucy Duryea hand-wrote an excuse for her and her sister to get out of school to be there to meet Crosby. She was missing a math test Tuesday afternoon.
93.7 The Fan
Crosby signed it.
93.7 The Fan
“People will be asking why I was out of school for a time,” Lucy Duryea said. “Well, I got to see Sid at my house.”
