AN IDEA THAT DIDN’T FLY
Penguin Pete’s tragic tale
They have a penguin who can’t skate and a defence that has neither depth nor an outstanding performer.
Let me tell you all the story of Penguin Pete,
Knock-kneed and bowlegged, with skates on his feet
On the rink he waddled as game time would draw near,
Pittsburgh’s crowds were small but those fans sure did cheer.
Yet poor Pete was from the tropics, rather than the South Pole,
And one day, wouldn’t you know it? He came down with quite the cold.
They took him to the zoo, where they put him to straight to bed, and a few days later, little Pete the mascot was quite surely dead. Penguin Pete was an Ecuadorean penguin, commonly known as a Humboldt penguin, who stood about two feet tall — a bit taller on skates.
This is the story of how Pete became the inaugural mascot of the Pittsburgh Penguins — the team now challenging (and for the moment losing to) the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference final of the NHL playoffs.
Peter, a resident of the Pittsburgh Zoo, was loaned to the team more than halfway through the club’s opening season — back in 1967-68 — and waddled out in front of about 9,000 cheering fans before a February match against cross-state rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers.
Pete appeared at one more home game that season, while during the off-season custommade, double-runner skates were ordered from CCM in Canada. It was hoped by club owner Jack McGregor that Pete could learn to skate in time to lead the team from the locker-room and onto the ice at its home opener the following season against the Montreal Canadiens.
“Penguins have leg deformities that require careful construction, almost counter-intuitive, of a hockey shoe,” he explained at the time. “They’re pigeon-toed, bowlegged, weak-ankled and knock-kneed.”
Pete was the brainchild of McGregor’s, and, ceremonially at least, a birthday present for his son, Doug, who had just turned nine. The club, it’s perhaps worth noting, was given the name “Penguins” by McGregor’s first wife and Doug’s mother, Carol, inspired by the nickname given to the Civic Arena where the team played — The Igloo (never mind that igloos and penguins don’t mix; you could argue that nothing about this story is quite right).
“It was my mom’s idea that the team would be called the Penguins, and that everyone would show up in tuxedos,” Doug recalled to the Citizen this week. “I think that she forgot that the fan base in Pittsburgh was steel mill workers, so that never happened.”
Nor did Pete ever did learn to skate properly. Penguins’ GM Jack Riley noted at the time that although they got Pete into skates and gave him lessons, “He always wanted to flop on his stomach. We couldn’t get him to stand up on them.”
As reported in a news article appearing in the Globe and Mail before the season commenced: The “Pittsburgh Penguins are confronted by two problems as they prepare for their second season in the expansion division of the National Hockey League.
“They have a penguin who can’t skate and a defence that has neither depth nor an outstanding performer.”
Nevertheless, both Pete and the Pens’ inexperienced defence appeared on the ice at the start of the 1968-69 season. The players wore blue, while Pete was often outfitted in a harness, without skates, and walked on the ice by a trainer. At times, he rode atop the Zamboni between periods.
And while the team rumbled on to a last-place finish that year — tied with the Minnesota North Stars — Pete made his last live appearance in front of just 7,000 fans on Nov. 16, 1968, as the young club lost 2-1 to the New York Rangers. The three-yearold penguin was returned to the Highland Park Zoo following the game, and five days later the Pittsburgh Press reported that Pete “was gravely ill with pneumonia.” He died two days later, on Nov. 23.
“He was a penguin, an animal,” noted Penguins defenceman Duane Rupp following Pete’s death, “and they wanted to keep him warm.
“Well, he didn’t want to be warm. He wanted to be cold.”
After his death, Pete was sent to an area taxidermist to be stuffed, after which he was put on display in a trophy case in the lobby of the team’s arena offices. When a few people complained, however, Pete was unceremoniously spirited away.
“I think Pete got chucked in the Dumpster,” says Doug. “At least that’s the story. But Dad’s dying to find out where Pete is.”
Doug barely hesitates when asked if anyone in Pittsburgh at the time thought that having a live penguin for a mascot was a bad idea.
“What WAS crazy,” he says, “was bringing hockey to Pittsburgh. I mean, I was ostracized for being a hockey player. It was like, who plays hockey? It was like how we laugh at lacrosse players or soccer players. It just didn’t catch on.”
The Pens, he notes, didn’t sell out a single home game until their third season was almost over.
“Did Pete boost attendance? Maybe a small bump. But enough to pay for his skates? I don’t think so.
“So that,” he concludes, “is the story of Penguin Pete.”
Well, not quite. The Penguins eventually replaced Pete with a new mascot, another live penguin on loan from the Pittsburgh Zoo.
They named him Re-Pete.