Penguins Eulogy - SECOND EDITION

I really enjoyed by opportunity to eulogize the Penguins' on Puck Daddy.  I've enjoyed writing for the Dark Blue Jackets the past two seasons and have formed great friendships with Tom and Mike in the process.  While Tom is pseudo-quasi-semi-retired from blogging, I felt honored that he and Mike left the duty of Eulogizing the Penguins to me.

I knew immediately upon receiving the invite from Greg Wyshynski at Puck Daddy that writing a eulogy this season about the Penguins couldn't be done without identifying the team through the fans.  When the Penguins were eliminated from the playoffs this season, the fan base would devour itself and ultimately my eulogy.  That's what Pens fans do.  The narratives surrounding the pain points of the Penguins have been covered ad nauseam on blogs, twitter, and bathroom stalls enough that I felt I wasn't able to add unique perspective. 

Seriously, how do you mock a 50+ win team that had the the league MVP?  A team who had players who battled through serious health issues without sounding cliche or sociopath? Some say the eulogy should mirror "Why your team sucks?"  Crosby didn't score and Fleury is soft - there, a much shorter eulogy.   The Pens have two first lines and a bunch of dudes from the ECHL.  What else could I add to that?  That makes for a very bland eulogy if you ask me - and it was the topic of many a Pens eulogy the past three seasons, even when Crosby scored out of his mind. 

Reading through the comments of my Penguin's eulogy, most Pens fans seemed disappointed I didn't go after Crosby's concussion history, Letang's stroke, and Bylsma's battle with erectile dysfunction.  I'm pretty confident that if Puck Daddy wanted a blog piece that sounded like it was written by a single, bitter 25-year-old Reddit moderator with a chip on their shoulder, they would have held a contest on twitter to look for that person. If you take a couple minutes to read through this blog you'll soon understand that we don't sink to the lowest common denominator to sound cool or prove a point.  No superhero movie and video game references here.
 

Alas, here we are again as Dark Blue Jacket, explaining satire to a grieving Penguins fan base.  I really didn't care if my eulogy was "the best" or if it was considered "the worst."  I wrote a piece I was happy with.  In it, I made fun of how the Penguins fan would grieve.  It was impossible to illustrate that point without describing how visiting Pens fans are perceived and to do so a fictional composite of a stereotypical Pens fan was created.  Simply put, I didn't make fun of Penguins fans, I made fun of how Penguins fans would react to the perception of being antagonized after their team went out like a bunch of punks.  Mission Accomplished.  My one regret? that I deleted my "they should just hire Pierre McGuire" one-liner.

And in case you're still wondering...

SATIRE (noun) - the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues