Mellon On My Mind– Memories From The Igloo-Part 1
The 2009-10 NHL schedule will be the last one played by the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Mellon Arena. Formerly The Civic Arena, the structure opened September 19, 1961 with an Ice Capades show and eventually hosted the Pittsburgh Hornets of the AHL and the Penguins of the NHL. It will give way to the new, state-of-the-art Consol Energy Center next fall. The following is the first offering in a series of my personal memories/experiences from times spend at the old barn…with a little bit of real life thrown in for good measure:
Pens, you take my breath away
I don’t recall the exact date and I’m not going to Google myself to death looking for it. It was sometime during the second or third Pittsburgh Penguins hockey season in their history, back in the late 60s or early 70s. It was my first live NHL game. The opponents were the big, bad Boston Bruins. Their players were well known–Cheevers, Hodge, Esposito, Bucyk, and some guy named Bobby Orr. Orr was a smooth skater and a brilliant puck handler. And he was a defenseman. Most defensemen back then only concentrated on keeping the puck out of their own net. They were generally discouraged from bringing it much further than their own blue line. Orr was an amazing talent. He flew through the other team with the greatest of ease. He revolutionized the game from the back line. Now, the Penguins alone have several defensemen who are offensively skilled. Blueliners like Gonchar, Letang and Goligoski are the norm, not the exception in today’s NHL. Especially with recent rule changes which have opened up more skating room for players of their ilk. My brother Jerry and his brother-in-law Gary supplied the tickets that night. I settled into my seat, checked out the players warming up and took everything in.
I had listened to some hockey games on radio. I was even able to pick up KMOX AM out of St. Louis on clear nights. The Blues play-by-play man was the late Dan Kelly. A legendary voice in the hockey world. I would curl up in my bed and listen to him call the action. Not many games were televised back then. Eventually some Pens games were broadcast on Channel 53 which was a VHF station it took two people holding the rabbit ears to watch. My mom, sister and myself had just moved to Emrose Drive in the Pittsburgh suburb of Penn Hills from Punxsutawney, PA a couple years back. It was culture shock to see 4 lanes of traffic, let alone this newfangled sport everyone was getting hip to. Not too long before that, the only live sporting event I was used to watching was a weather-predicting groundhog wriggling out of a hole in the ground. And that was only once a year.
A few years later, kids in my neighborhood were organizing street hockey games. Most street hockey and rollerblade hockey is now played in rinks that look exactly like ice hockey arenas, minus the frozen water. But playing real street hockey meant that when a car came, you had to move the goal so it could pass. That really stunk when you were on a breakaway and had to decide between picking a corner to shoot at and risk getting rear-ended by a Caddy, or veering off into a neighbor’s lawn to avoid being a statistic not associated with the game. One of the guys on my street, Bobby Posch was our ringleader. He was the oldest and we all looked up to him. He gave us all grief, teased and played pranks on everyone. There were times when I hated him for that. But if someone on our street got into a conflict with a kid from another neighborhood, he was our muscle. We also looked to him to provide direction and creativity to our play time. He was always inventing new games or putting spins on old ones. He built a 3-hole golf course in his yard and advised me how to do the same in mine. This included a lesson on how to lower the blade on the lawn mower to cut the grass extra close around the greens. It wasn’t a Jack Nicklaus design, but it was something. Every summer, we had the “Emrose Open.” It was a two-house, 6-hole amateur golf extravaganza. In 2009, most kids play golf on their Sony PlayStation or Nintendo Wii. Creative playtime died a slow and horrible death thanks to technology.
Even though Bobby wasn’t much of a hockey nut, he decided to help the cause by fashioning two hockey goals out of chicken wire, some lumber he ”requisitioned” from somewhere and a few nails, screws and paint. One time, while we were playing, a car was coming pretty fast and didn’t want to wait for us to move the net. One of us was trying to get it out of the way, but the car swerved purposely and clipped it, knocking it over and breaking one of the boards. That gives a whole new meaning to the term crashing the net! Bobby went nuts. The guy in the car was a notorious jerk who lived one street over. He slowed down to say something smart, so Bobby chased his car, running like the wind and jumped on the back of it. All of us watched in amazement. The guy got out but Bobby basically knocked him back into the driver’s seat and kicked his door repeatedly. The trouble-making motorist just got back in his vehicle and sped off, probably stunned that someone so much younger had just bested him. Today, Bobby would probably be charged with assault, his parents sued and thousands of people would be giving them grief on the Internet for being horrible parents. Back then, conflict was handled by two sets of fists and rules that were a bit more clear. The first rule being, don’t start no crap, won’t be no crap. And that moron in the sedan violated it. At that moment in time, I must say that I was glad Bobby Posch was my friend. I guarantee the other kids on our Emrose Drive street hockey team felt the same way.
The Civic Arena was alive with cheering, clapping and organ music. I don’t know whether the organist was live at that time or recorded and reproduced, but it was loud. The action was fast and furious and The Penguins were leading the game against the superior Boston squad. I had never been in such an atmosphere. I had been to baseball games at Forbes Field a couple times thanks to my sister, brother and the Port Authority buses. But never had I seen such controlled madness. We had pretty good seats. I believe they were in section B which are not too far from ice level. I had never witnessed a sport with so much speed, action and violence abound. Players zipped by, controlling the puck while trying to avoid the guy in the opposite jersey attempting to take his head off. I don’t know whether it was the commotion, being overwhelmed by the moment, or just nervous excitement, but I recall being almost breathless at times. The home team was up by a goal and it was late in the third period. A Penguin named Val Fonteyne had a hat trick. His personal stats showed that this was not something he did regularly. Near the end of the game, the Bruins had to pull their goalie in an effort to tie it up. Players were rushing onto the ice every which way. Chaos ensued and I had trouble figuring out who was going where. Then the puck found it’s way onto a Penguin player’s stick. The crowd rose to it’s feet in anticipation. The puck flew toward an empty Bruins net. The red goal light went on, a siren blew and about 14,000 people went bonkers. One of which was still trying to catch his breath. I didn’t know much about the game back then. What I did know after that night was that I was hooked on it.
Next up… From $8.00 seats to $8.00 beers and Go Home Flyers!!
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