When the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII we proclaimed that the Steel Curtain had Risen again!
Now with the Pens Stanley Cup victory we can offically say:
Pittsburgh is once again the City of Champions!
A vivid memory of my childhood is seeing the Sports Illustrated cover photo of Terry Bradshaw and Willie Stargell. That was the year both the Steelers won Super Bowl XIII and the Pirates won the World Series.
Talk about being spoiled at a young age. I’d thought that these double championships would be a normal facet of life. (And I didn’t even live in Pittsburgh.) While the Steelers would go on to win Super Bowl XIV the next year, Pittsburgh’s next championship would be the Penguins 1991 Stanley Cup title, and of course Super Bowl XL was much farther off.
Although I consider myself a Penguins fan, I don’t pretend to follow hockey (as you might expect, they don’t show much ice hockey down here in Buenos Aires.)
But I also trust that no one will object if Steel Curtain Rising simply salutes the Pittsburgh Penguins on their 2-1 game 7 Stanley Cup clinching victory over the Detroit Red Wings.
Winning any sports championship is a tremendous accomplishment, but a Stanley Cup victory coming four months in the shadow of the Steelers victory in Super Bowl XLIIII is truly special.