Pittsburgh Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. For Matt, our pilgrimage led us to Pittsburgh and two sports shrines, Heinz field and Consol Energy Center, to see the Penguins and Steelers in action. The journey started months ago when we were lucky enough to score some hard to get face value Steelers tickets. We drove down on the Saturday and spent a few hours shopping at the outlets, then we headed into the city to enjoy a rare kid-free dinner at a restaurant without a kids menu! The next day, we opened our blinds to a sea of black and gold. Being from a town with a fickle fan base, it was incredible to see how crazy Pittsburgh is about the Steelers. Every...single...person in town was decked out in the team colours. We headed to the game early and checked out the tailgating. It looked like a lot of fun but it seemed that you definitely needed to "know" someone to get the full experience. The stadium was increbile and it was a beautiful, warm day - quite the surprise in December. The game started off with a blocked field goal and that set the stage for the day. Lots of touchdowns and by luck, all the action was in our end (with the exception of the sole Cinncinnati touchdown). It was fun to be part of the action. Following the game, we made a repeat trip to our favourite restaurant from our last visit. Monday was the Penguins game. We got into the pregame skate and got an upclose and personal view of all the players. It was really neat to see Sidney Crosby. The other players are mostly unrecognizable to me but Matt was like a kid in the candy store. The game that night was a little bit of a disappointment, not only did the Penguins lose, but Sidney Crosby got knocked out again, by his own player no less. I have no doubt that we'll be heading down to Pittsburgh again in the future, it is truly an amazing sports town.