On December 19th, 1995, my dad gave me an early Christmas present; tickets to my first Pens game! I was 10. He’d bought them from a guy at work who had season tickets, and if I remember correctly, they were the front row of E16, as he liked the birds-eye-view above the goalie. That night, Pittsburgh experienced six-plus inches of snow, and it was unclear that we’d even be able to make it to the game.

I vividly remember the relief when we made it out of our neighborhood and onto some properly maintained roads, and knew we’d be able to get there. At the time I figured all hockey games involved similar peril. I remember walking around the concourse and seeing all of the vendors with their pucks and shirts and sticks, and I (my dad) bought my friend a souvenir plastic stick, as he was super jealous and we wanted to give him something to commemorate this special occasion. I was always secretly super jealous of that stick... I remember when Mario scored the opening goal, and I was thrilled to see the very thing, in person, that I’d seen on TV so many times before.

It didn’t stop there, as the Pens routed the Flames 7-1. Coincidentally, current Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was on the ice for the Flames that night. I don’t remember much else, aside from recounting the score to everyone I knew the next day. Fast-forward to 2021, when I found THE stick that Mario used to score that goal available for purchase from Sign On Sports, and paid to have it signed by Mario himself. It was more than I’d ever spent on any memorabilia at the time, but there is simply no value for something so fundamental to my Penguins fandom, and so precious to my relationship with my dad. In some ways that’s what sports is all about. I couldn’t be more thrilled to have this in my collection.