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Hopefully every Penguin fan out there is still basking in the glow of their 6-0 stomping of the Flyers this afternoon (I know I am). The best description of the day comes from Seth Rohrbaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Empty-Netters blog (which is also where the embed above comes from):

-We went to roughly 15 games in the 2003-04 season with our friends and pretty much did the student rush thing every time. We could show up 10 minutes before a game and get a C level seat for $20. They didn't even ask for our student identification. They Penguins were just happy to get rid of the ticket and make some profit on it. Most nights, there were barely 12,000 souls in the stands that season. The team was awful. Dick Tarnstrom was the leading scorer. Most people in this town had never heard of Sidney Crosby. The future of the franchise was uncertain. Rumors of relocation were constant. It was a tough team to invest your emotions into.

-It's absolutely mind blowing to us to know that was only four years ago. We just saw this team get into the Stanley Cup final.

Just about everything he writes there is true and I know because I did the exact same thing as a freshman in college that year. Anyways, Pens' fans, take a couple minutes to enjoy the goals from Ryan Malone, Marian Hossa, Evgeni Malkin, Pascal Dupuis, and Jordan Staal, and some big saves from Marc-Andre Fleury, who played with a 6-0 lead just like he would've in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in overtime. This team's come a long way from the one that Seth described and there's no question they've earned the ticket to the finals that they punched this afternoon.