HandshakeLine
A real jerk thing
Yes. And no. A lot of older Pens fans (late 20s to late 30s) I think are hard core into the game, especially the ones who came up post-Lemieux/Jagr and during the Gen X years, simply because if you bothered to watch the game or follow the team, you were hardcore into the game, because the team itself wasn't winning ANYTHING.
Then again, some of those people formed unnecessarily tight emotional attachments to the players (and not just MAF, I'm talking people like Armstrong or Mango Salsa or Taters Malone) because they were around during the dark years and were comparative rays of sunshine during the darkest years of the franchise. I think that's where the MAF syndrome has its roots, and it's made worse by Madden and sports radio and the disappearance of better alternatives in the national and local media markets.I think a bigger "problem" over the Crosby era has been the typical yinzer sports crowd which only cares about championships-- be they Super Bowls or Stanley Cups and gets incredibly mad that we aren't winning them year after year. Kinda like the Rust Belt equivalent of Yankees fans, I guess.
It used to be those kind of fans got shunted to the Stillers because they were so dominant, but with the Stillers in decline and the Pens still contending, I think a bunch of them got diverted to the Pens by default.
