Butler Toronadoes

2004 Penguins Cup AAA Finals PITTSBURGH – The greatest part of the hockey season is the playoffs, because people come out of the woodworks from the media, from the communities and who knows where to participate in the event of the Penguins Cup playoffs. The joyride of the regular season is a cold December night in Meadville with the ‘Nation of Meadville’ in the house of chills or maybe a trip over to the Mt Lebanon Recreation Center to take in a rivalry game of Bethel – Lebo or USC – Lebo. So for much of the season, while the pretenders and so-called contenders muttered about Western Pennsylvania playing for the right for extinction of playing Mt Lebanon and Meadville, the Blue Devils and Bulldogs soared through the regular season losing a combined three games. Mt Lebanon lost to Meadville in November and Meadville lost to Central Catholic on opening night, a game that they would avenged 4-3 in overtime in the Penguins Cup semi-finals. Only a Meadville loss to Bethel Park in late February would give these two teams a combined three losses during the regular season. That’s of course if we don’t count the 2-1 Mt Lebanon victory over Meadville one the last Saturday in February in a so-called exhibition before a packed house at the Mt Lebanon Rec Center. After contributing to the Post Gazette’s rankings for the past eight seasons, it is common knowledge who ranks the teams in the Monday edition of the PG and since they appear each Saturday morning, it always prompts debate amongst the coaches, players, fans and media as to how I could come up with ranking one team over another. During the season in February is when Mt Lebanon moved ahead of the defending State Champion Meadville in the PG rankings, which prompted some pretty interesting e-mails let me tell you and for my eyes only. But a chance meeting after the All-Star game was the final clue for me as to why Mt Lebanon held an edge over Meadville. Sitting at a table tipping a few cold ones with a couple of coaches prompted the question of Mark Madden, of ESPN Radio [a professional journalist if you will] and long-time HS hockey enthusiast. Who is the best team in AAA was the simple question ? And the answer from a prominent set of coaches was Mt Lebanon. ‘Mt Lebanon will NEVER win anything’ said Madden and coach Paul Taibi heard it …………and the look Taibi gave as he glared down the table through the collection of coaches said it all…the hunger of Mt Lebanon, a school who had not tasted the Penguins Cup since 1985 and the State Championship since 1976. Mark Madden meet Paul Taibi, head coach of the NEW Mt Lebanon Blue Devils. Meadville is the champions of Pennsylvania at Class AAA and has the State Championships under its belt and the experience of a 5-4 thriller over Malvern Prep at Ice Line last season. A 4-3 overtime victory over a very good Central Catholic team after being down 3-0 has the Dawgs pointing toward another one. And is if a plane had dropped myself next to Jim McVay , the Bethel Park head coach who beat Meadville and nearly twice beat Mt Lebanon, in a broadcast situation we were calmly watching and describing a great titantic battle between Meadville and Mt Lebanon, who through 2 1/2 periods played a tremendous hockey game before a crowd of well over 2000 people at the Mellon Arena. The shots were 25-25 and Danny O’Sharuk for Meadville and Matt Vaughn of Mt Lebanon were perfect between the pipes. The first goal would be the difference and it would be a great individual effort at 7:03 as Eric Sloan took the puck from his own end and struck like lightning on a 1 on 2 with great speed and unleashed a shot which trickled under O’Sharuk, who looked to have the angle for a huge 1-0 Mt Lebanon lead. Meadville would have its best chance of the evening as Phil Siverd show great patience holding the puck and moving around two fallen Blue Devils defenders and moving it to a wide open Anthony Scarpino at 3:40, who was just robbed by Matt Vaughn, who has quietly given up just one goals in over 180 minutes & 4 games of playoff action. The Bulldogs would get another chance on the power play at 3:25, but the Mt Lebanon defense was just brilliant in limiting Meadville’s chances. Enter Sloan again, who stripped the puck and raced 120 feet and beat O’Sharuk on the backhand for a secure 2-0 Blue Devils lead and just 1:27 remaining in regulation. It would all come to light for Mt Lebanon as Chad Uddstrom sealed the deal with an ENG with 30 seconds left and Mt Lebanon captured its first Penguins Cup since 1985 and earned a trip to face the Flyers Cup champions on April 10th to win their first State Championship since 1976, 28 years ago and we can all say ‘Why not Mt Lebanon ?’.