A PENultimate season.....Congrats Red Wings

(this post best read while listening to this song)

Hardest blog ever...

"Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on." -Blow

In the end the Red Wings made it happen. They did what they had to do to win and they're champions. They earned it and they deserve it. As we like to say, the great thing about the NHL playoffs is the better team doesn't often lose a seven game series. The Pens were badly outmatched in Games 1 and 2 but threw up a hell of an effort in the last four. They won two and didn't get the bounces to win the second two, but God knows they tried.

So that's it.

Thank you Sid, Gino, Bugsy (aka Taters), Flower, Sarge, Orp, Hoss, Max, Syki, USS Hal Gill, Conkblock, Staalsy, Mr. Kennedy, Dupper, Scuds, Whitter, Ruuts, Big Georges, Sydor, Hallsy, and the 'tang. Here's to the guys that helped us along the way: Army, Crusher, Rex, Taffe, Eaton, Dany Sabs, Minard, Smith, Naz, James, Golly, Filewich, Stone, Brent...and yes, Lord yes, Gary Roberts......Thanks for everything, boys. For a team that won just 22 games two seasons ago we've made a hell of a lot of progress. Salary cap be damned, if it were possible to bring you all back in October and do it again, everybody knows you wouldn't fall two games short of being on the happy side of this season...

Just as much kudos goes to the head coach Michel Therrien and his assistants Mike Yeo, Andre Savard, Giles Meloche, all the trainers, the scouts, and general manager Ray Shero....Not to mention Craig Patrick and his staff that laid the groundwork for this whole thing.

Defeating for the first time a team from Canada in the playoffs or finally knocking off Philadelphia in the post-season (ask a Pens' fan who remembers the '70s or '80s how huge that is).....It was tremendous. It'd be one thing if they didn't lay their hearts and souls on the line every night and every shift. They did all they could, just came up a little short to a better team, and as much as it hurts, there's no shame in that.

What a ride. All these guys won't be back next year and it won't quite be the same. But there's something to say for what they've accomplished, before we think to look what lies ahead. At this hour it's small consolation, but in the big picture a hell of an impressive body of work this year. Losing sucks but we've never been more proud in our lives to see these particular men wear the black and gold.

As for this blog, we have to say thank you to all the readers. It's been a tremendous ride and we've enjoyed every moment of this remarkable journey. It started small, just about 20 hits a day in October (minus the Darcy Robinson coverage) and in November. But it took off and we've enjoyed the interaction and the emails. The Sweater Ted is just a 24 year old kid looking for an outlet to give our opinions and analysis. We don't break news or pretend to know inside secrets, but in less than a year we've found an audience and we write to you and for you. Thank you all, especially everyone that's had more exposure took the time to link us a lot (starting with Adam and Derek at The Pensblog, Seth at Empty Netters, aol's nhl fan haus, Greg Wyshynski, Japers Rink, The Peerless, James Mirtle, plus apologies anyone we missed)...You guys really are the very best and we're honored that this humble blog is even on your radar.

We have a bunch of ideas for this off-season, so don't think this is the end at all. And if you'd ever want to drop a line, please do so at hooksorpik at gmail dot com. So don't be a stranger, a lot of good stuff is on deck.

It's been a memorable ride, thanks for everything boys....

Note to our intrepid readers: the title of this post was the PENultimate season, not meaning Pen-ultimate but rather, this penultimate....Not that you didn't know it. Just making sure you don't think we think anything was ultimate about this year...