Guest Spot: Lemonade Here!!!

Don't turn that blog readers, this is a guest spot Hartman has given myself, Bradburn, to do in order to try and get back into that mood for blogging. I decided to retire my old blog and start a new one over the summer. Unfortunately I stopped writing because of the same reason I stopped my first one, life was too repetitive to blog about. So I am hoping with a couple of different column ideas it will really help me get back into the flow of things. This is one of those column ideas that I have called, Lemonade Here!!!

Lemonade Here!!! is my thoughts on mainly Pittsburgh sports, but can be on the sports world outside of Pittsburgh. This originally was an idea for a new blog, but with school I would not have the time to consistently update it as much as I would like to for a sports blog. The name of this column comes from the legendary vendor at the Pirates, Panthers, Penguins, and Steelers games, the Lemonade guy, who is often known as the Cotton Candy guy and as recently as the Pitt-Iowa game the Ice Tea guy. Let the fun begin, Lemonade Here!!!

Pens open season in Sweden

The Penguins opened the 2008-2009 NHL season in Sweden in the NHL's attempt for European expansion. And really what better way to do it then to send the NHL cover boy, Sidney Crosby, over to Sweden. While the Pens may have split the series with the Senators 1-1, it is hard not to think of these games as preseason games still.

The reason I say this is because both games were neutral ice, both games fell in awkward times due to timezone differences, and in reality it was just a team building excerise much like when the Pens have made visits to West Point in the past couple of years.

Sure the Power Play looked terrible, but really is that not to be expected when you lose two of the Pens top PP performers in Gonchar and Whitney, and they are forced to plug in Letang and the unproven Goligoski? I do have to admit though, it was pretty amazing to see five offensemen on the ice during the 5-3 in Game 1 with Crosby and Geno playing thing point. Given time I honestly believe this PP will click and give the Pens more depth when it comes time for playoffs.

Lets face it the Pens always seem to start slow, and I do realize that it is only two games into the season, but this team in much better to start the season this year then the team that started the team last year.

Pitt stuns USF to re-enter Top 25.

Last Thursday, the Pittsburgh Pangthers stunned the South Florida Bulls in what seems to be a weekly tradition in ESPN's Thursday Night Football with the unranked team defeating the ranked team.

It is nice to see Pitt back into the Top 25, but should they have ever left in the first place? In a way the loss to Bowling Green still stings when we could be highly ranked, but in a way, that loss could have been what helped the Panthers win this game and all their other games this year. You have to remember the Panthers are still relatively young, and are finally playing to Wannstache's style of a ground and pound, physical, eat the clock, NFL style of football.

In a wide open Big East this team can truly do some damage and now has the momentum to keep making a run. You figure they start 2-0 now in conference play, with one of the main challenges done with USF. We can only hope Panther fans, that this year will be different then other years under the Stache that our Panthers return to a game in late December/early January and go bowling. And with a weakened Big East, it looks very possible.

Wouldn't it be nice?

I was talking to Hartman the other day after the Pitt victory and the two of us talked about this hypothetical situation, in which will probably not come to fruition. The situation being Pitt goes onto win the Big East, and Penn State goes onto win the Big Ten, with 1 loss. When it comes time for BCS bowl selection, we see a rebirth of an old rivalry that died years ago in Pitt-Penn State.

I say wouldn't it be nice, not because I don't have faith in Pitt winning the Big East, or how Penn State is playing; winning the Big Ten, but let's face folks, the BCS Bowl Selection Commitee would rather go with their usual Big Ten-Pac Ten battle in the Rose Bowl tradition. But in this case what is wrong with renewing an old tradition in the Pitt-Penn State tradition. Think of the hype that could go into this game, the two teams haven't played 2000 and a lot has changed since then. Personally, I would love to see Joe Pa's face when he learns he has to play Pitt and how the grumpy S.O.B would complain, and there would be nothing he could do about it. But that is neither here nor there.

The chances of us seeing the game are pretty slim, but oh wouldn't it be nice? Keep your fingers crossed Penn State and Pitt fans, and maybe, just maybe we can see a return of the Pennsylvania Classic in a BCS bowl game.

I would like to thank Matt, for giving me the oppurtunity to write this column in his blog and I hope you all enjoyed a preview of the Lemonade Here!!! column. If you liked what you read here or would like to see where I am going from here, visit my blog at http://crusher524.wordpress.com/

Thanks,

Bradburn