With a new hockey season on the horizon comes the Penguins\u2019 annual tradition of players hand-delivering special packages to season ticket holders as a way to show gratitude and appreciation for their support to the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is always a magical day for families anticipating visits. For the\u00a0Cranden family, who have been season ticket holders for decades, getting the call was a dream come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was working from home, and I got a call from our season ticket rep that I was randomly selected,\u201d Tracy Cranden said. \u201cI about near freaked out, ran up here to tell my mom, because I always see these videos and I thought that this was never going to happen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
After finding out just a few days ago, the Crandens\u2019 household was filled with anticipation about which of their favorite Penguins players might arrive at their doorstep.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve been freaking out about it all weekend,\u201d Tracy said.<\/p>\n
But no one was more excited than her nephew, Tyler, a 13-year-old die-hard Penguins fan. While Tyler loves the Big Three of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang, he wanted to choose someone different as his favorite player, and landed on Bryan Rust.<\/p>\n
But as Tyler fell more in love with the team, he saved up enough money to buy his own Penguins jersey, and ended up going with Rickard Rakell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just really like him and he\u2019s such a great player,\u201d Tyler said as they waited for a player to stop by. \u201cIt\u2019s not because of the 6-7 meme, but it worked out well for that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given how rare the opportunity was, Tyler was allowed to stay home from school so he wouldn\u2019t miss the chance to meet a Pittsburgh Penguin. Knowing that the player would arrive around 12:30 PM, Tracy, Tracy\u2019s mother, Marlene, and Tyler kept looking out the window for a car to pull into the driveway and guessing who it could be.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Tracy received a phone call from her season ticket representative saying that they would arrive in a few minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re about to be here,\u201d Tracy announced to the room.<\/p>\n
While Tracy and Marlene passed the time sharing stories from games they\u2019d attended over the years, Tyler kept a close eye on the door, and the minutes of anticipation felt like hours. At 12:40 PM, they finally heard the eagerly anticipated knock at the front door. Tyler was greeted by none other than Rakell himself.<\/p>\n
After getting his own Rakell jersey signed, Tyler got some 1-on-1 time with the forward, taking advantage of the chance to ask some questions about how he\u2019s enjoyed his summer, what his other favorite sports are, and what it was like going back home to Sweden last year when the Penguins participated in the Global Series.<\/p>\n
Tyler loves to make signs for the team whenever he and his family attend games, and he shared with Rakell the sign he made him one time, saying, \u201c6-7 may be a meme, but you\u2019re a star in Pittsburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a laugh, Rakell told Tyler, \u201cI better see the sign on the glass this year!\u201d<\/p>\n
Speechless, stunned, and filled with excitement, Tyler had a story for the ages to share with his friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to miss school today for this, but I have marching band practice later today, and I can\u2019t wait to tell them!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For Tyler and his family, meeting Rakell and having a genuine conversation with one of their favorite players meant the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a down-to-earth person and can talk about anything,\u201d Marlene said. \u201cIt was truly amazing for him to take the time to do that for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
It always amazes the players to see the pride Penguins fans have, and how hockey brings their families together. For the Cranden family, the Penguins have always played a huge role in their lives, as Tracy\u2019s father held season tickets for over thirty years before passing them down to his daughters.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always did a draft on who would go to which game with him,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cBut once Tyler was born, he was like, \u2018I\u2019ll take Tyler to every game!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
While he was too young to remember the team winning Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, Tyler was especially excited to go to the playoff games last season against the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him that we weren\u2019t going to go to every playoff game, just the first and the last one,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cBut then he kept saying, \u2018Are we going to this one?\u2019 and it was so hard to say no because of how excited he was, so we ended up going to all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyler makes sure to watch all the games on TV when the team is on the road and tries to watch some of the games later at night when they are on the road. He makes it his goal to know all of the players on the team and keeps his aunt informed on what is going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time last year, and he was talking my ear off about everybody\u2019s statistics and who to watch for on the other team,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cThe people in front of us turned around and loved all of the information that Tyler was giving them. He\u2019s very knowledgeable not just about the Penguins, but sports as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today is a core memory Tyler will carry forever, and the Crandens are grateful for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love that the organization can make it happen, and it\u2019s not always the same people,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s personable, because it can very well be just one picture, hi, and bye. They take the time to make it a personable interaction, and it makes you feel a part of the team in a way. It was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a new hockey season on the horizon comes the Penguins\u2019 annual tradition of players hand-delivering special packages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-290407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}