Penguins defeat Flyers, 4-1
Tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1, to go up 3-0 in the series. In an interesting turn of events, both conference finals are currently 3-0. While it doesn’t make for the most entertaining conference finals, I love it. I was recently hired as a paid intern for a top PR firm in Chicago this summer and I’ll be living in downtown Chicago from June 2nd through August 10th. So the earlier the Finals start (should the Wings not have an utter collapse this series), the better for me because I don’t want to have to drive back and forth between Chicago and Joe Louis Arena too much in my first week on the job with gas costing as much as it does. But I’m getting ahead of myself since neither team has closed out their respective series yet. I just wanted to briefly explain why I’m hoping for quick conference finals this postseason.
The Wings will get a shot to close out the series in Dallas tomorrow evening. My thoughts? If Dallas plays like they did in the first period on Monday night for the entire 60 minutes, Turco has a great game, and the Wings have a poor game, this series will go to Game #5. But this Detroit team is so hot, I think that entire combination has to happen in order for the Wings to head back to Detroit without a sweep in hand.
Out of the four remaining teams, the Red Wings-Penguins match up in the finals would definitely be the best for the league. You have the most recognizable NHL star versus the most popular team in the NHL. On a random side note, Mellon Arena (Pittsburgh) and Joe Louis Arena (Detroit) have the two worst press boxes in the entire league as well, which makes things interesting with the number of media that attend the SCF.
Anyways, I’m personally rooting for a Wings-Penguins match up and it certainly looks like that’s what we’ll see this postseason. It’ll be the Penguins first trip to the Finals since they won back-to-back titles in ‘91 and ‘92. Detroit’s last trip was when they won the Cup in 2002. Believe it or not, Detroit has actually advanced to the finals 23 times while only winning 10 Stanley Cups. Another interesting note, Scotty Bowman coached the Penguins to the Stanley Cup victory in 1992. Ten years later, he coached the Wings to their third title in seven years.
Related Posts
3 Responses to “Penguins defeat Flyers, 4-1”
Leave a Reply
May 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I saw in the game notes that they’re using two of the suites this year for auxiliary press (I think it was suites 9 and 10). Where are those in relationship to the main press box?
When I worked the ‘97 Finals for ESPN International, they put Dave Strater and Mickey Redmond in an auxiliary space at the top of the first section on the end (I want to say it was 204B). I’m assuming that’s what they’ll do this year as well.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Yep, there has been an auxiliary press box since the start of the playoffs and it’s 204B and extends even further (I’m not sure how big that will become in the SCF). In the game notes, there are directions to get to the aux press box and you can take the elevator up to the suites level and the staircase to the aux box is across from suites 9 and 10. The press box is like halfway between floors 4 and 5.
There are two suites used (not 9 and 10), but they are not for reporters. Those are for the visiting team.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Yeah…I reread it, and I brainfarted. Sorry. One of these days, I’ll actually learn to comprehend what I read.
IIRC, in ‘97 it was five rows of seating in 204B and 204A. In an era of tight newspaper budgets, I’m sure there aren’t going to be many U.S. papers sending reporters (though at least it’s going to be a cheap travel, going between Detroit and Pittsburgh. Heck, it’s only a five-hour drive!