The Pittsburgh Penguins have been pretty successful over the past few decades, with generational talent Mario Lemieux smoothly handing off the keys to the franchise to fellow generational talent Sidney Crosby. Add in the extremely talented Evgeni Malkin, and you’re bound to win some games… and some Cups.
And the more wins you prove capable of, the more fans you’ll have in the seats. That is, until there are no more seats left.
For the last 14 years, there hasn’t been an unfulfilled ticket at a Penguins home game – that mean the entire duration of PPG Paints Arena (used by the Pens since 2010) has been sellout crowds.
On Monday, the streak officially came to an end. After 633 games, the Pens finally didn’t sell out a home game.
While it's obviously disappointing to see a streak like this end, Pens CEO David Morehouse decided to focus on the positives. Following the game, this is what he had to say.
The following is an excerpt from DK Pittsburgh Sports:
"What it tells me is, is how deep the level of support for sports in Pittsburgh is in general, to have a streak of 14 years of sellouts," Morehouse said, reflecting on the streak. "Not only was it just the sellouts, we're leading the league in TV ratings we're leading the league in and social media hits, almost every category. It's reflective of how strong our fan base is."
With less eyeballs trained on the ice, the Pens only managed to put up one goal on the Dallas Stars in a 2-1 shootout loss. Hey, if you aren’t going to sell out a game, may as well make it a low-scoring loss, right?
