Pittsburgh is an interesting sports town to live in. First of all, when things are going well for a stretch or a player gets hot, it or he is the best in history. On the contrary, whenever there are slight bumps in the road, or we experience the regular peaks and valleys of a season, mass hysteria breaks out and folks run through the streets screaming about how the sky is falling...

I started dwelling on this subject last night after hearing the continuing love affair between Alex Goligoski and EVERYONE in town play out before my eyes during the Penguins/Anaheim game.

I realize that Go Go is off to a great start and is showing the Penguins that he is going to be a very good player...one that will allow some future decisions to sting a lot less than they would have a couple months ago. (Contracts with Gonchar and Letang take on a new light based on his performance.)

However, when you listen to folks talk about him or check out a game broadcast, you start to ask yourself if the Penguins just signed Brian Leetch, Bobby Orr or Raymond Bourque during their primes?

Sure, Go Go is amongst the leading defensive scorers, but he suddenly went from overpaid in some folks eyes this summer to a guy that "possesses an entire arsenal of shots" (don't most NHLers?)...that were "on display during the moning skate, where he marveled the traveling contingent of Pittsburgh media!" After his goal last night even I believed that he invented the slap shot!

His lateral movement is better than just about any defenseman in the league! His vision? Well, let's just say Cyclops from the X-men has got nothing on this kid.

Gonchar? Trade him... don't need him anymore. Go Go's 63 NHL games over the last three seasons are all some needed to see.

I am not saying that the kid isn't going to end up being a very good NHL player, in fact he is already well on his way. The wild mood swings just blow my mind to bits! If he hits a prolonged slump or hits a patch of mental errors everyone will be calling for his ouster from the top power play unit and beyond.

This full blown overreaction is common place round these parts and is one of the things about covering one of the three major sports teams in town that frustrates me like none other. Why allow yourselves to get so high or so low over a very incomplete picture?

There is an even bigger frustration than this blatent overreaction and it involves folks who lurk in an alternate dimension -- alternate dimension fan.

He is the guy who has the exact same reactions mentioned above, however he is experiencing them in the complete opposite way. To give you an example of what I am talking about, the Pittsburgh Pirates just traded for second baseman, Akinori Iwamura, who isn't an all-star by any means, but is a definite upgrade for the team.

While many of the fans I have spoken with today are praising the move and overestimating the value of a player coming off of an injury plagued season, "Alternate Dimension fan" can't even see it as the upgrade it is... ADF sees nothing but MORE PIRATE LIES! In fact, you might see ADF walking around outside your office with a sign touting losing season number 18, since you know...it will happen no matter what they do!

I realize that we all live and die through our heroes on the gridiron, frozen water or diamond, but take a moment to look realistically at the situation before screaming the results from the mountain tops. That incomplete picture tends to bite you in the backside...in good and bad ways.

As I mentioned above, this sort of overreaction has been going on for years here in the "Number One Sports Town In America" (thank you Sporting News), so I can't figure out why this is bothering me so much more this season than it normally does.

Is it burn out?

Have I finally hit my breaking point with Yinzer Nation...a once strong and proud group that always seems to evolve into something unbearable when teams are good and championships are being won?

Could my frustration lie with the "moth ball fans"? You know who they are...they are the fans who are prancing around in brand new looking early 90's era Ulf Samuelsson, Tom Barrasso or Ron Francis jerseys that have clearly been packed away in moth balls since "the last time the Penguins were good." (No offense to anyone reading this who actually owns one of the above...I am sure your jersey is still in swell condition as well...I know my old schools are, since I take good care of 'em!)

Maybe it is just the fact that Moth Ball fan also doubles as wagoneer fan.

Wagoneer fan tends to get on board the fanbase express once the winning starts, which if it sounds familiar, it should. He lives by the same mantra as MBF: I haven't watched a game since "the last time the Penguins were good."

It could be the fact that once MBF shifts into wagoneer fan mode, he suddenly enters another cocoon...oh, he doesn't exit as a beautiful butterfly, but the even more frustrating: KNOW IT ALL FAN.

Now KIAF can be even more harmful because he tends to be a mixture of everything that I mentioned thus far. He touts every hot streak as the coming of our Lord and Savior, however he will try to convince you that he saw it coming a mile away...back in the pre-season when no one was talking about said player.

When the team wins a Championship, he will of course have placed a bet during his trip to Vegas back in July when the team was a long shot 120-1 dog.

But worst of all, he will try to explain the rules, tout the players and openly complain about every move the GM makes, to you -- the fan that has been here all along.

I think that is what actually keeps me going each day and helps me to rise above "Moth Ball", "Wagoneer" and Know it all" fan... you! The fan who has been here all along...

You know, the one that was pissed off about Craig Patrick trading away Jaromir Jagr, even after he was dying alive, only to tout the merits of Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk, and Michal Sivek the very next day. You were also the one touting Joel Bouchard, Richard Lintner, Rico Fata and Mikael Samuelsson as cornerstones to a rebuild that you fully believed in...since that is what the fan who has been there all along does.

You stay true to your teams and though your hold them accountable and get angry from time to time, the love is there.

It is familial and doesn't go away when the winning does.

Can you imagine if you only cared about your mothers, sisters, brothers etc only when they were doing something for you...would you only support them during the holidays? When that new PS3 game was on the way? Of course not... so it shouldn't be different for your teams!

With that I will wrap up my rant... I appreciate you all taking a moment to humor me. If I offended anyone, that wasn't the intent. However, I will say that if you are reading this blog, you really don't fit any of the offensive catagories above to begin with.

I will be back with an actual Penguins blog shortly... but a couple of quick tidbits...

Obviously, Tyler Kennedy is back in the saddle and ready for action, as evidenced by his 13:18 TOI, +3 and 2 assists last night. The Little Tiger (BOY DO I HATE THAT NICKNAME) is leading the health train back into the line-up. Evgeni Malkin should be ready by late next week and Sergei Gonchar is on target for a pre-Turkey Day (USA's that is) return. We will also be getting Max Talbot back at some point in around late November/Early December.

Now, I don't want to overreact, but a 12-3 team getting that sort of fire power back in it's line-up has got to send shivers up the spines of the rest of the league... but I will temper my enthusiasm, so as not to come across as just another member of this wacky sports town we call Pittsburgh!

More later...
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