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<p>Hockey fans celebrating the Pittsburgh Penguins&#8217; championship season might as well keep Wednesday&#8217;s victory parade rolling right out of the Steel City to a destination about 265 miles east.</p><p>Bring the party to Greater Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>Players who first sharpened their skills and skates here &#8211; with the franchise&#8217;s top minor league affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins &#8211; did some of this season&#8217;s heavy lifting, allowing superstar Sidney Crosby and company to joyfully hoist the Stanley Cup on Sunday night.</p><p>Pittsburgh defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-1 in Game 6 of the final series, capturing the franchise&#8217;s fourth NHL championship.</p><p>Although admittedly partial, we&#8217;d like to believe this title is testimony to the caliber of &#8220;the Baby Penguins&#8221; program, and the player-development pipeline flowing between Wilkes-Barre Township Boulevard and Pittsburgh&#8217;s Boulevard of the Allies.</p><p>We are not alone in this assessment. Promoters of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins noted in an article posted this week to <a href="http://www.wbspenguins.com/" target="_blank">wbspenguins.com</a> that a half-dozen players who began the 2015-16 season skating in Mohegan Sun Arena later &#8220;played significant roles in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for Pittsburgh.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;On the long and difficult road to hockey&#8217;s ultimate prize, one of Pittsburgh&#8217;s biggest assists came from Northeastern Pennsylvania,&#8221; the article stated.</p><p>Goaltender Matt Murray, for example, won 15 games for the Penguins over the season and registered 18 saves in last weekend&#8217;s season-ending victory. Meanwhile, players Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary and Tom K&#252;hnhackl each contributed multiple goals and assists during the team&#8217;s playoff run.</p><p>Of course, the Wilkes-Barre-to-Pittsburgh connection doesn&#8217;t end there. Head coach Mike Sullivan, who started the season in Northeastern Pennsylvania, took over the parent club in December while it still hovered near the bottom of the standings. And seven of his Penguins players, in addition to the six who made the leap to the NHL&#8217;s upper echelon this season, previously had played for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton club of the American Hockey League.</p><p>So, yeah, the championship trophy belongs to the Pittsburgh Penguins. But a bit of the glory deservedly goes to &#8220;the Baby Pens&#8221; organization here in our corner of Pennsylvania.</p><style>
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Our Opinion: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins share in glory of Pittsburgh’s Stanley Cup triumph