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May 21, 2008 6:20 pm US/Eastern
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Lange Shares Memories From 1st Stanley Cup Win
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
The first time the Penguins brought the Stanley Cup home, the team celebrated by passing it around on their chartered flight back to Pittsburgh.
Penguins play-by-play radio announcer Mike Lange was on that plane and says he remembers that the Stanley Cup was not supposed to be in the seating section of the airplane.
"I think the thing that stands out to me is that they had packed the Stanley Cup after the awards in Minnesota, and the curator, he didn't travel with the team… but he had packed it underneath the plane, for safe-keeping to take it back to Pittsburgh," said Lange. "As soon as he left, the training staff went underneath and opened up the gate and got the Cup out, and brought it to the airplane. From that point on it was just, I can't say pandemonium, but it certainly was an incredible celebration for the Penguins and everybody involved on that trip."
Then, when the plane finally landed back in Pittsburgh, Lange says everyone was in disbelief about the amount of people who were waiting at the terminal.
"I don't think anybody in our hockey club, or anyone associated with that flight thought there would be that many people there. I think they assumed there would be a few, but the numbers were 25,000 to 30,000 people," added Lange.
"We found out on the plane that we weren't going to be able to get to our cars because there were so many people," he said. "We thought it was a joke, we really thought Craig Patrick was making up a story. But when we landed and saw the amount of people that were there and the response it was almost overwhelming."
The players were forced to leave their cars at the airport because of the unexpected size of the crowd. Instead, they boarded buses provided by the team to get back into the city and it took over an hour to get through the throng.
And Lange has a story just about that, too.
"There comes a point when you've had as much fun as you've had; you've got to make a stop. And one of the ladies on one of the buses, I won't say who it was, just asked the bus and said, 'You've got to stop this bus,' and we pulled on the side of the road," said Lange.
"She got off the bus and went to the woods. That's how far we were away from everything, with all the cars still behind us, and she proceeded to do what she had to do," he added. "As she came back to the bus, I would say, literally, 50 guys got off the bus and went and did the same exact thing."
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