In what has been a dreadful season for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Jaromir Jagr’s reunion with the region has been the one undeniable bright spot.
Fittingly, the Penguins’ zany world has made its mark on the Jagr lovefest.
The Penguins announced that a crate full of Jagr bobblehead dolls, to be given away to all fans attending Thursday’s game between the Penguins and the San Jose Sharks, has been stolen in California.
Advertisement
Team sources said the Penguins are working with federal and California law enforcement to track down the bobbleheads. If they don’t recover them, a new batch of bobbleheads will be produced and, presumably, securely delivered to Pittsburgh. Fans attending Thursday’s game will be given vouchers with a barcode so they can retrieve their bobbleheads when they arrive in Pittsburgh.
It’s a wild story for an organization that is familiar with, shall we say, unorthodox happenings. Paul Steigerwald had a monitor fall on him during a game. Mike Lange was once assaulted before a game. And these are just broadcasters that we’re talking about.
When analyzing the Penguins’ history, it’s easy to become blinded by the immense star power the organization has employed. They’ve essentially been the Los Angeles Lakers of the NHL during the past 40 years, showcasing talents such as Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Paul Coffey, Ron Francis and many other legendary hockey names, including Jagr.
However, there is another side — a zany side — of Penguins history. Here’s a sampling.
Penguin Pete
The Penguins thought it would be a cute idea to have an actual Penguin on the ice during their inaugural season. So, Penguin Pete made a half-dozen appearances during the 1967-68 season. Trouble was, the conditions in the building weren’t exactly healthy for Penguin Pete. Those who were running the Penguins — and the Pittsburgh Zoo at the time — didn’t think this one out very thoroughly.
Penguin Pete, the team’s first mascot, died of pneumonia on Nov. 23, 1968.
IRS padlocks Penguins offices
This actually happened at Civic Arena in 1975. Former Penguins owner Edward DeBartolo Sr. once said, “As an investment, a hockey team stinks.”
Throughout Penguins history, that’s been true at various times.
Advertisement
Premature celebration
Speaking of 1975, the Penguins of that year are a cautionary tale.
They had taken a 3-0 lead on the New York Islanders in the 1975 playoffs.
As the story goes, the Penguins won Game 3 thanks to a couple of goals from “Battleship” Bob Kelly in a 6-4 final.
Then came two days off in between Games 3 and Games 4. The weather turned nasty, too. There was nothing else going on, so the celebratory Penguins drank for the next two days. And drank and drank.
They got so drunk, in fact, that they scored three goals in their next four games, becoming only the second team in NHL history at that time to have blown a 3-0 series lead. The Penguins went into disarray for the next handful of seasons while the Islanders became one of the great teams in hockey history.
The Wrong Guy
Before the 1978-79 season, Penguins GM Baz Bastien traded for Rod Schutt from the Montreal Canadiens.
The problem: Bastien was under the impression the Canadiens were sending Steve Shutt — no relation and different spelling — to the Penguins.
Steve Shutt scored more than 400 goals in his NHL career. Rod Schutt was a journeyman.
The 1983-84 Penguins
Oh, the 1983-84 Penguins were pathetic, one of the worst teams in NHL history. But there’s so much more to them. Before the season, the Penguins decided they’d have their training camp in Johnstown, Pa., at the War Memorial. Fair enough.
But there was no ice in the building at the time, and the building’s ability to make ice was not functional. So camp was delayed for a few days.
‘Sudden Death’
One of the worst movies ever was filmed in connection with the Civic Arena and the Penguins.
It’s got a cult following, to be sure. Tom Barrasso was the only member of the Penguins who refused to let his name be used on a jersey during the making of the film.
Bar fight
A number of Penguins, including Barrasso and Peter Taglianetti, were involved in a bar fight at Froggy’s.
Advertisement
Barrasso, so miffed that Pittsburgh reporters chose to write about the incident, rarely has spoken with the local media since.
Hitting the Hall of Famer
One day in Toronto during the late ’90s, Lange, the Penguins’ legendary broadcaster, was assaulted when a man randomly sucker-punched him while he was eating pizza.
Lange chased down the man who punched him and pinned him down until police arrived. He then went to the dentist in Toronto to have some work done.
Lange had never missed a game, and, despite some damage to his jaw and teeth, he called the game that evening.
More financial problems
The Penguins filed for bankruptcy in 1999, only to be saved by Lemieux.
For a franchise that routinely spends to the top of the salary cap these days, the Penguins haven’t exactly been financially well off during most of their history.
‘They’re soft’
Coach Michel Therrien, after a loss to the Edmonton Oilers during Crosby’s rookie year, went absolutely berserk in a postgame news conference. He called the Penguins soft, among a bunch of other things.
‘New arena’
The crowd chanted “new arena” on March 20, 2006, when the power went out not once but twice at Mellon Arena during a 1-0 loss to the Maple Leafs.
Geno’s voyage
Evgeni Malkin always wanted to play for the Penguins, but things got a little dicey on his way to Pittsburgh.
He escaped from his Russian team’s headquarters in Finland in 2006, taking a flight to Los Angeles and later making it to Pittsburgh.
Zamboni malfunction
On Feb. 25, 2008, a matinee between the Penguins and Sharks was substantially delayed because the Zamboni cleaning the ice started leaking fluids all over the ice.
#JagrWatch
On July 1, 2011, Jagr signed with the hated Flyers after the people of Pittsburgh were under the impression for days that he was coming back to the Penguins. Fans waited at the airport to greet him. There were turtles on runways delaying flights in New York. Petr Svoboda was talking with bloggers in Pittsburgh who had identified themselves as newspaper reporters. It was a wild time.
Advertisement
‘Sid is a Ferrari’
During Crosby’s trials and tribulations with a concussion that kept him out of the lineup for the better part of two seasons, the Penguins held a news conference with Crosby and Dr. Ted Carrick, a rather controversial chiropractic neurologist who practiced in Florida.
In retrospect, Crosby’s work with Dr. Carrick was beneficial. What lives in Penguins’ lore, however, is what Carrick said at the news conference.
“Sid is a Ferrari,” he said. “His vestibular system is better than anyone else’s. That’s why he is the most elite hockey player in the world. That system is where Sid excels at. That system is why Sid is who he is.”
Mumps outbreak
In 2014, many of the Penguins, notably Crosby, had to miss time because of a mumps outbreak that drove through the locker room.
Those Penguins were already ravaged by injuries.
So long, GMJR
Jim Rutherford, a Hall of Fame general manager, abruptly left the organization in January 2021, only a few games into the COVID-shortened regular season.
He’s given a handful of explanations as to why he left, but much of it remains a mystery.
Folk hero becomes goat in a week
Louis Domingue was forced into action of the Game 1, triple-overtime classic between the Penguins and the Rangers in 2022 because of injuries to both Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith. He won the game thanks to Malkin’s goal.
Afterward, he admitted that he had been eating spicy pork and broccoli before entering the game. This endeared them to everyone.
His performances in Games 5 and 6 of the series, however, did not.
(Photo of Jean Claude Van Damme in “Sudden Death”: Universal / Getty Images)