I'll preface my first encounter with, we were a baseball and football dominant house, being born in 68, watching baseball with my grandfather at the age of two and going to games, and watching the Steelers.
Somewhere around 1977, give or take a year, I was stumbling through the channels (by hand, no such thing as remotes then) bored nothing was on, I stumbled on a Penguin game, and after going through the channels one more time I decided to give it a go. Of course I had not one clue as to the rules or anything about the game, Names and such didn't really seem important at the time, I just watched. The one thing I can remember that first game I watched was the blue jerseys. Don't remember anything beyond that.
So, moving along, I'd do the same for a couple years before it got a bit more popular, like playing in the back alley, making nets out of plastic pipes by my cousins. But that ended for me playing in the back alley when I took a stick to the eye, but at that point I liked watching it and grew stronger every year from there.
Obviously, Baseball and football were still the dominant sport for my family and me, and when Gretzky and Mario came around pretty much locked me in.
I had to wait for years to go to my first game, being a kid and not really having a lot of money. I'd help at a local gas station even to have money to go get a milkshake, candy and such if I wanted it. That for sure I know I was 10 years old. In the 80's was my teen years and I worked two jobs to save money for school. 87/89, (couldn't watch then)and I don't really even remember my first game, but after I got back from school I was into that work/party faze. So that game was more than likely right around the cup years. I remember doing bus trips to games from a bar, a trip to Buffalo in the old Auditorium, then hit up Niagara falls and up to Toronto. These times are more adrift for me. Did the 5/15 game plans for a few years. Dependant on money availability.
I was fully engaged in the 90's as I was 22 when they won their first cup. The second cup I worked the second shift (4 to 12) and had to listen to the radio while I worked.
All my stuff from back then is tucked away in a box. Ticket stubs/collectibles.