Look, if I had to spend my days talking about the weather in Pennsylvania's third-best town*, I might get kind of pissy too. But look at this guy:
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Before the Nashville Predators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-1 last night, guaranteeing one more Stanley Cup Final game in the best hockey town in America, old Jeff Verszyla here had to hop online and provide an example of the worst kind of hockey snobbery. It'd hardly be worth responding to, except we're in such a good mood — since the Nashville Predators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-1 last night, tying the series and guaranteeing one more Stanley Cup Final game in the best hockey town in America. Jeff is not even mad. He actually thinks this is all funny.
The Predators have been selling out more and more games each year for some time now. This season — before they were a Stanley Cup Playoff team, Jeff — every Predators home game was sold out. But here's how we know Jeff is a cliche hack. Challenged on his ticket sales line, he jumps to the annoying hockey snob's favorite argument or, in this case, a close relative of it. This is like Blackhawks or Red Wings fans — if you're new to hockey, those are two teams not playing in the Stanley Cup Final because the Predators are better than them — respond to, well, anything with "how many cups do you have?"
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Oh, Jeff. I'd love to be able to fight with you about which is a better hockey town, Nashville or Pittsburgh, but the thing is I'm never going to Pittsburgh. So, let's just leave at this: Just because you're only now hearing about things down here, that doesn't mean they just started. We've been throwing river fish on the ice for some time. Have we been filling the streets, rooftops and anything else we can find to watch the Stanley Cup Finals for decades? Well, no. But here's why you're the worst. If Preds fans went this kind of crazy for, say, a weekend game in March, people like you would be scoffing and lecturing us about how real hockey towns know the real hockey is played in June. Well, pal, it's June and we'll be playing hockey here again on Sunday.
First, though, we've gotta win one in Pittsburgh. Any idea what the weather's gonna be like?
*Official ranking of cities in Pennsylvania: 1. Philadelphia, 2. Scranton/Wilkes Barre, 3. Pittsburgh
Update 10:30 a.m.: From a Penguins fan in Pittsburgh on Facebook ...
In late 2015 or early 2016, there was a few inches of snow that fell somewhat unexpectedly on a Friday evening, which left the roads even messier than usual. Jeff the Joke was busy tweeting Pens hot takes. Other local weathermen were tweeting about the weather and road conditions, and retweeting people giving updates on road conditions in their local areas. Jeff Verszyla was on the 11 p.m. news that night & my fiancé tweeted him to ask why he was tweeting about the Pens instead of discussing the weather, like every other local meteorologist. My fiancé was then blocked by Jeff during the next commercial break on the newscast.
