Wednesday night was a rough one for Pittsburgh Penguins fans, who whipped themselves into a frenzy over the possibility of former Pens hero Jaromir Jagr re-signing with the team after a decade since he last suited up as a Penguin.
At 39, Jagr is unlikely to be the impact player he was as a mullet-headed youngster, but that hasn't stopped the Penguins from cranking the hype meter to 11. For example, there's this video:
There were pictures of Jagr at the airport, on his way to the states. There was a shot on the Pirates' broadcast of the team's game in Toronto of a fan with a sign that read, "I'm on JagrWatch." "JagrWatch," meanwhile, was a hot topic on Twitter all day, as Pens fans composed thousands of tweets (many of which could be described as borderline-stalking), about which flights Jagr was taking to New York, and whether his travels would eventually take him to Pittsburgh. There was buzz about the possibility of turtles on the JFK tarmac delaying Jagr's arrival. There was chatter about a Russian newspaper reporting that Jagr and the Penguins had already reached an agreement. (Petr Svoboda, Jagr's agent, denied that they had.) And it was all supposed to lead to an announcement that Jagr would be returning to the Penguins, perhaps by around 5:00 PM Eastern.
After all that, nothing has happened yet, and Penguins fans are going to bed disappointed. And all over a solid, but aging, winger who can help on the power play! Don't let anyone tell you that Pittsburgh fans aren't serious about the Pens, or their history.