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Hockey Championship Helps Pittsburgh's Image

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Jun 15, 2009 7:17 pm US/Eastern

Hockey Championship Helps Pittsburgh's Image

Reporting
Jon Delano
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Most of America doesn't care about hockey.

It's a popular sport in Canada and in many of our Midwestern and Northeastern cities where it gets cold in the winter.

Still, winning any national championship is a big deal and on top of the Super Bowl and other honors the city has been getting, you get the feeling that it's quite all right to call Pittsburgh the City of Champions.

People who come to Pittsburgh from elsewhere often become its biggest fans -- just ask Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma.

"I've only been to Pittsburgh about four and a half months, but it was only about two months in that I knew I was from Pittsburgh," Bylsma told the crowd at today's parade.

Winning converts for Pittsburgh -- could that be the biggest legacy of this hockey win?

"Bringing this trophy back to Pittsburgh, the City of Champions -- much better than Hockeytown," Bylsma added.

It's been 30 years since Pittsburgh could call itself that -- with two national sports championships.

"The exposure that Pittsburgh receives with the Stanley Cup victory like this one, the Super Bowl victory earlier, and then of course with the G-20 summit this September is wonderful," Mayor Luke Ravenstahl noted.

"It's something that money can't buy, and it's three opportunities that at the beginning at this year we didn't know we were going to have," he added.

When Nadia Lazo of Bellevue told her friends in her native Washington, DC, that she was moving to Pittsburgh, her new city didn't get a positive response.

"It kinda did have little bit of a negative image, generally the whole rust belt area, Detroit, Cleveland, kinda put them in that category."

But she's a convert now and says the Stanley Cup helps too.

"We get attention. We're a city of winners." Lazo adds.

"To be completely honest, I didn't have a whole lot of expectation. I'd never really heard much about it," says James Nava of Welland, Ontario.

Pittsburgh didn't have much of an image with a group of young Canadian visitors before they arrived this week.

"It's a beautiful city. There's so much personality. The bridges, all the different niches of towns, places to go, PNC Park is amazing. It's just been an awesome time. I love it here," adds Frank Knezic of Welland, Ontario.
And this Buffalo transplant thinks the Cup makes a difference.

"A lot of people will see the city in a new light. They will see the city featured in some national spotlights now, and I absolutely think that people will be more curious about Pittsburgh and come here to visit," says Michael Studd of Rosslyn Farms.

That, of course, is exactly what city boosters hope will happen.

And the truth is -- the more cumulative good news we can generate from this part of the country -- the more people will start to pay attention -- whether they like hockey or not.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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