Flyers

Penguins Broadcasters Thought Jaromir Jagr Cheated in Game 2

By Kyle Scott

Published: Apr 17th, 2012 · 2:19 PM EDT

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via (@Plateneck)

As you know, Yinzers live in a bubble. It’s a bridge and river and steel and tar-filled bubble… but still a bubble. And when it comes to their hockey team, people from Pittsburgh – thanks to the NHL and NBC stroking Sidney Crosby and his teammates for seven years – believe that the Penguins are superior to all others. They can do no wrong. There must always be an explanation – an excuse, really – for their failures.

Their broadcast crew is firmly entrenched in the bubble.

Two years ago, one Penguins TV producer purposely didn’t send a replay feed to the league because it showed that then-Flyer Simon Gagne had, in fact, scored a goal against the hometown team. The play had been under review, and, since the league didn’t have evidence to overturn the official ruling (no-goal), Gagne and the Flyers were never credited with the score… though they went on to win, 7-4. That’s an old story, but worth bringing up today as we present to you this bit of tid from the Penguins Game 2 broadcast on Friday night: 

Lost in the shuffle of the Flyers destroying their unfortunate foes this weekend was an (albeit minor) controversy that arose when ex-Penguin Jaromir Jagr scored the Flyers’ game-winning goal on Friday night. The controversy existed solely in the minds of ROOT Sports broadcasters Paul Steigerwald and Bob Errey, who thought that Jagr had an illegal stick. Behold:

That’s quite a bit of prattling based on purely circumstantial evidence. What’s more, though, is that the ROOT Sports folks – who opined that Jagr may have switched back to a legal stick after scoring the goal – failed to notice that Jags had actually broken his stick on the play, forcing him to – get this – pick up a new one: 

See, broken (it's not completely obvious, but the stick broke in two on the shot).

Though this part wasn’t the focus of their argument, Jagr got a new stick was out of necessity, not because he was trying to hide anything.

Excuses, excuses.

Of course, when the Flyers stamp their 4-0 series sweep tomorrow night, it will be difficult for even the most hardened, steel mill dust-covered Yinzer to find an excuse that spreads its wings over four full games.

H/T to reader Rob for the heads up… and for putting up with that awful broadcast