Pittsburgh Penguins fans share two things with their favorite team: storied histories and winning traditions. West Virginia natives Matt Rafa and Marc Zyla have both.
Their story began when they met at West Virginia University in 2003. Their career and life paths took them away from Morgantown, but they always found time to catch up over at least one home Pittsburgh Penguins game every year since 2006, usually over Thanksgiving weekend. Marc moved farther from Pittsburgh for his job, so in 2016, the decision was made to turn the tradition of the annual Pens game to an away trip each year.
In 2016, they traveled to Columbus to see their Pens play in November, and the tradition continued to grow. In February 2017, along with their college friend Sean McKillop, the Penscation Crew traveled to Denver for an Avalanche game. The trip was incredible, and the decision was instantly made to continue the tradition no matter how busy life gets. This was an opportunity to let work and life slow down a little and just enjoy the one common bond shared.
The decision was made to go bigger than the 2016 season with Back-to-back championships to celebrate, and this season Marc and Matt are traveling over 11,000 miles to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver on the Pens west coast schedule as well as to make it back to Pittsburgh for the rivalry matchup against Columbus Blue Jackets on December 27th. They plan to share their experience this year by following #Penscation2017 on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).
“We are really excited to travel to three away games in five days, especially with the first being in Las Vegas for their inaugural season with former goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. We look forward to meeting other Pens fans and sharing our tradition with others,” said Zyla. (He never REALLY said that….)
To get people’s attention about their tradition, both Marc and Matt will be traveling with a life-size cutout of fan favorite Phil Kessel while dressing up themselves as a couple of hot dogs (Smiths Hot Dogs, of course)
. “We wanted to do something ridiculous that would make our vacation even more memorable, and we felt that our costumes would bring an added level of fun to the experience for us and fans we meet along the way. Our occupations require a lot of dedication and seriousness, so this is one way that we can go crazy and have some fun on our trip,” explained Rafa. (Yeh.. again, bullshit quote.)
Rafa and Zyla are also planning to visit one Steelers bar and one hot dog restaurant in each city to celebrate their fandom and pay tribute to one of their favorite players, Phil Kessel. If you are traveling with the Penguins on this Western Conference trip, look for Marc and Matt and come celebrate their #Penscation journey and help continue this winning tradition of following a winning tradition.
Penscation 2017 