Devander: I HOPE RYAN MALONE LAUGHED

by Jason Devander
jasondevander@gmail.com

Honestly, I wanted to puke.

Granted, some of my stomach-churnings came in the aftermath of the Penguins being bounced by the Red Wings on Wednesday night, but I still wanted to vomit.

It goes back to Game 1 of the NBA Finals when Paul Pierce went down with, what looked like, a serious knee injury. He returned to the game minutes later, but my nausea arrived when he began to hit jumper after jumper and showing, what some called, "tremendous courage" by coming back after being hurt so seriously earlier.

He came back after flailing around on the floor, crying into the team doctor's arm while clutching his knee -- he refrained from licking his palms, a la Ferris Bueller -- and then teammates carried Pierce off the floor, which some folks at The Big Lead describe accurately as "more uncomfortable than any injury he received on the play." . For the big finish of embarrassment, team trainers or hangers-on whisked him away in a wheelchair to the locker room.

When you saw him go down, you thought "wow, that's a shame...his season's probably done." Then, as he returned several minutes later, healed by the miraculous powers of a neoprene knee brace, the inclination I felt became "wow, what a whiny, pussified girl" and so much like the kid you knew in fourth grade who cried when he got hit in the mouth with a Nerf football.

Now, I'm not the first nor the last to criticize Pierce. The Los Angeles Times' Bill Plaschke called BS on the moment, and so did, Phil Jackson, in so many words. But courage? Puh-leez. Yet, there were pundits after the game trying to compare Pierce's recovery from a knee injury to the comeback that the Knicks Willis Reed made in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals.

Are you serious? Yes, they were serious. But, no, seriously people considered this an inspiring comeback. Have we gotten to this point in our society where the standards for magnificence are lowered to such an alarming degree?

Of course, the wonderful citizens of Boston will say this is the greatest thing ever, and they will all use this as another case of how the rest of the country hates-on everything Boston. In which case, they'll be right. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Boston is the new New York in the "I Hate Your Teams and Fans" Derby. (And for the record, I despise the expression "hate-on" and any form of "haters." Hate-on sounds too close to Head-On, the headache relief remedy applied directly to the forehead.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Lakers fan or a Celtics fan. And I really do believe that Pierce hurt his knee. But I am a sports fan who respects and relishes real acts of courage and playing through pain, especially on the largest possible stage of which the game can be played.

For the record, I believe Willis Reed's return in the 1970 Finals should always be remembered as one of the gutsiest and heart-filled performances by any athlete in any sport. Period. It ranks right up there with the Toronto Maple Leaf's Bobby Baun breaking his ankle in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup Finals and returning in the same game to score the overtime winner. It's there with Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series. And let's not forget Michael Jordan's flu game in 1997.

But seriously, did Paul Pierce deserve the laurels that so many were ready to bestow upon him?

You want to talk about courage and playing through pain in THIS playoff year? How about Sergei Gonchar crashing into the boards at full speed in Game 5 vs. the Red Wings, hurting his back and shoulder, and then coming back to be a part of Petr Sykora's game-winner in overtime. And even that wasn't as impressive as Ryan Malone taking the USS Hal Gill's slap shot right in the face near the end of the second period, breaking his nose (again), and then returning for the start of the third after he was stitched up. Hell, Malone got up on his own and skated to the bench as blood poured from his face.

Malone didn't need a damn wheelchair.

And that's why I hope he laughed at Paul Pierce because, as the commercial says, "you'd never make it in the NHL."

Devander: IN YOUR LIFETIME

by Jason Devander

jasondevander@gmail.com

Basking in the warm glow of the Penguins bouncing the Rangers out of the playoffs, I can't help but be nostalgic.

This playoff victory left me reflecting and analyzing the greatest sports moments of my life. Usually, I don't get this deep into my life unless I'm forced to go into Jo-Ann Fabrics with my wife and kill the time by taking a fat smash in one of the store's public restrooms. [Ed note: hope it's not the Logansport, Indiana location. Things might get messy.]

It forced me to ask the questions, which I pose to you as well:
1. Who do you have a greater allegiance to sports-wise? Steelers? Penguins? Pirates?
2. Who's given you the greatest memories in your lifetime?

That last prepositional phrase in your lifetime is the key to this whole argument.

Since I've left Pittsburgh, keeping the Pittsburgh teams close to my heart had warded off homesickness from time to time. The place of greatest association for me has always been with the Steelers, and why shouldn't it be? Five Super Bowls... a slew of Hall of Famers...the Terrible Towel, et al.

But, for as great as my passion is for the Steelers, they haven't provided me with the greatest memories in my lifetime when I examined things more closely.

Quite honestly, the Penguins, during my lifetime, have that distinction for a 33-year-old Gen-X'er like me, which will surely make Mark Madden's heart proud.

But I'm not looking for anyone's approval, just for the correct answer.

It may be blasphemous, to some, when you consider I was born during the time of the Steelers Dynasty of the 1970s. Hell, as far as my family folklore goes, my Dad had a "heated discussion" with my Mom just before I was born because my due date was to fall on Super Bowl Sunday, which would have been the Steelers first appearance during Super Bowl IX. My Dad was torn as to whether he should attend my birth or watch the game on TV. Luckily, I solved the problem by being born a few weeks after the Steelers 16-6 victory over the Vikings.

But do I remember those Super Bowls very well? Nope. To me, they are NFL Films cinema, filled with the drama you've come to expect, but the emotional chord does not vibrate as strong with me. What I remember are the days of Delton Hall, Tom Ricketts, Weegie Thompson, and Tim "Whoops" Worley, in his pre-taser days, of course.

The Pirates, well, let's just move on to the Penguins...

In 1984, Mario Lemieux arrived, and the arrival influenced my life greater than few things ever would. I picked up a hockey stick and learned to play because he arrived. I got to play hockey in college (albeit on a small level) because of his arrival. I got to cover hockey for some of my early employers because I developed a passion for the sport that started with Sixty-six's arrival.

But when I look back at some of the best and most-memorable moments that were tied to sports, my thoughts are littered with Penguins memories.

• I still remember the first game my Dad took my brother and I to at the Civic Arena. It was against the Montreal Canadiens, and it was Eat 'n' Park street hockey stick night, which also was the first hockey stick I owned.
• In 1989, we scored tickets to Game 1 of the Rangers/Penguins Patrick Division semis. We sat at the very top of the arena underneath the luxury boxes there. The crowd roared, and I was whipped into a frenzy. During the said frenzy, I pumped my fist into the air repeatedly and cracked my hand off an I-beam. My hand swelled instantly, but when my Dad looked at it, he said, "you busted it up pretty good. You're gonna have to wait to get ice since the game's about to start." And I did wait to get my hand examined, and in the meantime, I soaked each finger individually in my quasi-cold cup of Sprite from the wonderful people at Aramark.
• I remember Mike Lange saying "Lord Stanley, Lord Stanley, get me the brandy," as the Penguins won their first Stanley Cup in 1991.
• A year later, the Pens swept the Blackhawks, and I got laid several hours later for the first time. Yes, that was a good day.
• I can still see Kevin Stevens face smashing into the ice during Game 7 against the Islanders in 1993. That was also the night of my senior prom where my girlfriend at the time broke up with me because we missed the first two hours of the dance in order to watch the Penguins game. So, that's a Game 7 upset and my chick dumped me. Not so good.
• When referees called a penalty shot in overtime of Game 4 between the Penguins/Capitals, I kicked a hole in the paneling of the bar which my roommates and I built inside our apartment. As we watched the hours roll by and the beer cans stack up, Petr Nedved eventually scored in the fourth overtime, and even though it was late, we still had beers to celebrate. And went to class the next morning.
• A year later, I sat at a bar watching Mario Lemieux wave goodbye after the Pens were bounced by the Flyers in Philadelphia.

  

Whether my best memories are with the Penguins or Steelers -- hell, even the Pirates too -- it all really doesn't matter. In the end, I'm still a Pittsburgh kid at heart who's looking for new memories and ways to still feel like I did when he was at home.

My Big Mouth: Will I Still Love You Tomorrow?

by Jason Devander
jasondevander@gmail.com

Since Sunday, I haven't felt right. It wasn't a physical illness but more of an uneasiness and a sense that things weren't right in the world as I knew it.

After great soul-searching (read: 7 Yuenglings and 4 shots of Blackberry brandy), I could finally put my finger on the problem. Or, at that point since I was hammered, put my finger in the general direction of the problem.

Two things that I have loved from afar -- the wondrous creation of Jessica Alba and the wondrous collection of the Pittsburgh Penguins -- have changed dramatically before my very eyes this week. And it makes me wonder silently -- or aloud to any other bar patron within shouting distance of me -- will I still love them as much in the future as I did in the past?

...What she was ...

...What she is now...

When I was doing my penance and watching the Oscars telecast with my wife, I first saw Alba looking preggers. Gone was the taut, firm and sexy body that forced the logic-thinking neurons in my brain to shut down and triggered my basest of emotions. That's right: Jessica Alba's mere appearance turned me into Mr. Peepers.

Seeing her on-stage giving an award with arms no longer looking chiseled and wearing a dress that completely hid her glorious butt from the world's view, I grew sad. I could feel my facial muscle collapse and forming what I suppose is a frown of some type. My mouth fell wipe open like a short-bus-riding, mouth-breathing, window-licker. But it was the tear that rolled down my cheek which brought suspicion to my wife.

"Why are you wiping your eyes?" my wife asked.

And, like any other guy in my position, I stumbled poorly to find a weak-ass lie.

"Oh, uh," as I stumbled, "I was just thinking about the Olympics and how the Chinese won't help stop the genocide in Darfur. It saddens me." (Again, you have to remember that Jessica Alba runs my mind aground faster than a drunken ship captain.)

"Is this because Jessica Alba's getting fat?" my wife replied, almost taking a supreme joy that this goddess is now mortal. "Get over it."

Eventually, I'd have to get over this change, but at the moment, it was like discovering that Roy Hobbs really didn't exist.

(Editors note: We tried to explain to Jason that Roy Hobbs was a fictional character, but for whatever reason, thought this was, what he called, a March Fool's Joke...whatever that means.)

After battling with the Alba Question for a good 36 hours, another curve was thrown my way. While at work surfing the net and searching for any content on Google that mentions Jessica Alba + workouts + pregnancy -- which was done simply to plant the seeds of hope that JA would get her fine form back -- I get an email from a buddy telling me, "The Penguins swoop in at the deadline and get Hossa. I hate you and your team." (My friend, after all, was a Flyers fan...nobody's perfect.)

WHOA! Is he serious? So, I headed towards TSN's coverage of the trade deadline. It was true....IT WAS TRUE! The Penguins got Hossa and Pascal Dupuis for Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito, and a 2008 1st round pick.

Wow. Hossa joins the Pens to ride shotgun with Sid the Kid and make a serious run at the Cup. Unreal. This has the impact of the Francis/Samuelsson trade in 1991, or the Coffey deal in the 1987! (And what is the limit on exclamation points (!) in one column?)

Looking at the trade particulars, I kept looking at Armstrong and Christensen. I liked both players. They felt like little brothers to me. I remember when the Penguins drafted them. I remember reading articles about their development, and I cheered when they made the big roster. They felt like family.

Then that gnawing feeling came back. The same one I felt Sunday. Thankfully, it wasn't sexually driven.

The Penguins were different. They just weren't the collection of happy-go-lucky kids who were growing up together, learning together, and eventually winning together. Nope. The world I knew changed, and business creeped in with the team and the game. Even though they were both players who played complementary roles on the team, Armstrong and Christensen felt like a big part of the Penguins family, the future and their subsequent success.

Watching the Penguins beat the Islanders with a short bench, I still felt as if something was off. Ditto that after the 5-1 loss to the Bruins Thursday, where the newly acquired Hossa sprained his knee. It was like Wayne's World when Garth saw Wayne's basement in the sound stage.

This is my Penguins team, but this isn't my Penguins team.

It's just like seeing Jessica Alba pregnant at the Oscars: this is Jessica Alba, but this isn't the Jessica Alba I get stupid over.

In time, I know I'll find a new chemistry with this Penguins team. We always do after trades, and I think we have Craig Patrick to thank for that -- he got us used to the concept of trading assets. And I'm guessing I'll still find the lust I possess for Alba too. Just, for right now, it seems like the time to wallow and yearn for the good old days. You know, good old days that go back as far as last Saturday.

"My Big Mouth": The Blame Lies Within

by Jason Devander

jasondevander@gmail.com

Full Disclosure: I have always had a ton of respect for U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, so I was pleased to see that he brought "Spygate" back into the headlines two days before the Super Bowl.

Even though Spygate has labeled the Patriots as cheaters, I don't think enough blame has been placed on the Steelers for helping create the New England Dynasty.

Yes, it's true...it's damn true that the Steelers have helped perpetuate the Patriots Dynasty. Even though I may be burned as a heretic for pointing an accusatory finger, the Steelers, in some ways, have played significant roles in the last two NFL Super Bowl dynasties.

Case #1 - The Dallas Cowboys - 1990s Edition.

In the 1990 NFL Draft, the Steelers had the 17th pick, and sitting behind the Steelers were the Packers at picks 18 and 19. With new offensive coordinator Joe Walton, the Steelers had their eye on a young tight end who would be a perfect fit for the new offense, and they knew nobody else would take him. So, the Steelers entertained offers at 17, traded down four spots with the Dallas Cowboys, and got a third round pick for their troubles.

The Cowboys used the pick to draft an undersized running back out of Florida named Emmitt Smith. You may have heard of Emmitt Smith from his stint on Dancing with the Stars, but believe it or not, he's also the NFL's All-Time leading rusher.

At 18 and 19, the Packers chose linebacker Tony Bennett and running back Darrell Thompson respectively. At pick 20, the Falcons chose Steve Broussard. Surprisingly, none of these players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sorry, citizens of Canton, OH, you'll have to wait another year to add these busts.

The Steelers chose Eric Green at number 21, a tight end from Liberty, who was a Pro Bowler and a solid choice before he began to eat too much. The third round pick became OLB Craig Veasey, who played two years with the Steelers and registered 6.5 sacks in his 6 NFL seasons. Not bad if you like an outside linebacker who averages a sack a season.

Most uninspiring rookie card photo ever?

If the Steelers hold onto that pick and take Green at 17, then Smith likely goes to the Packers at 18. From there, we're talking about a Brett Favre/Emmitt Smith/Sterling Sharpe form of the Triplets, and the Green Bay Packers could very well have won 3-4 Super Bowls in the 1990s.

Instead, we got the Triplets of Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Smith for 10 years, enough arrogance from Dallas to make you go Britney on your family -- what? too soon? -- and that nauseating proclamation from the the King of the Helmetheads and Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson, "How about them Cowboys!!!"

Case #2 - The New England Patriots - 2000s Edition

Thanks to the game of "What If" I submit to you these plausible, and in some cases ridiculous theories, as to how the Steelers helped the Patriots in the creation of a dynasty.

1. The most obvious: the Steelers had two chances to keep the Patriots Reign of Darkness from ever forming during the 2001 and 2004 AFC championship games. If it wasn't a Troy Edwards penalty, then it was Rodney Harrison picking off Ben Roethlisberger and taking it for a touchdown. Those truths are self-evident.

2. By winning the AFC title game, the Chargers went on to play the Super Bowl against the 49ers and were slaughtered. Because of that ass-whooping, Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau continued to believe they had a chance to win a Super Bowl. If the Steelers had won that game like they should -- I'm looking in your direction Tim McKyer -- then Harrison and Seau would have realized that they were terrible players and either retired or got arrested for some kind of crime like filming midgets having sex and passing it off as kiddie porn. (Ok, long shot, but still plausible.)

3. Bill Cowher didn't do a good enough job in frustrating Mike Vrabel when he was with the Steelers. Vrabel considered retiring from football at one point when he was with the Steelers, and if Cowher had succeeded, New England's defense would be different and maybe not as good. Instead, the Patriots got a highly-motivated linebacker who can catch touchdown passes on the goalline.

4. I refuse to say that drafting Tee Martin over Tom Brady was a mistake at the time. To think that Tom Brady was going to be a great quarterback would be extreme revisionist history, and Martin won a national championship in his one year as Tennessee's starter.

Since I can't go back and change any of these things, I only ask that the Steelers step up and take some blame.

After all, it's the 21st Century: it's always someone else's fault.

"My Big Mouth"

by Jason Devander

jasondevander@gmail.com

Full Disclosure: I really intended this first column of "My Big Mouth" to be about why the Penguins organization needs to look at the Tampa Bay Lightning and hold them up as a "terrible warning" and not a "good example" of how to retain its superstars. Right after that sentence, I would use a throw-away joke about my parents' marriage also being a "terrible warning" and not a "good example" of selecting a mate. Please keep the knee-slapping to a minimum. Right here, in this paragraph, I would explain how the bloated contracts tendered to Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, and Brad Richards will keep the Lightning from ever winning a Stanley Cup. It would be filled with statistical BS and show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those players cannot be traded under the current salary-cap system, and that will keep the Lightning from acquiring the complementary talent needed to be a Stanley Cup contender. It made perfect sense. The timing seemed right with Friday's game against the Bolts. But then I thought again: hasn't that subject been broached before? What the hell's so original about that idea? If this is my first column out-of-the-gate for Mondesi's House, why would I want to attach my name to such a tired and overdone subject? Don't the esteemed readers of Mondesi's House deserve better? Of course, you deserve better. Silly reader. It also helped that the Penguins not only dropped the contest to Tampa Bay but also lost Sidney Crosby for four weeks with a high-ankle sprain. Like the Coyote, I was back to the drawing board, and at 10:11pm, I knew the ACME store had closed.

As I recapped the events of the night in my head, I tried a quick brainstorming session to see what I could come up with for an alternate topic. Would it be The End of Conklin's Run, and how similar it was to the movie Logan's Run? Maybe there was something about Brooks Orpik's terrible showing in his own end, and we can somehow blame this on Ed Olczyk? But, the only thing that kept coming up was disappointment and boobs.

An easy cure for Boobs-on-the-Brain would be a quick bit of surfing the net, and fifteen seconds later, my head...er, my brain... would be clear to find a suitable topic for the column. But that wasn't in the cards for me, especially with my wife watching 20/20 just 10 feet away.

So, tonight, I chose to curtail my urges and use this primal instinct as an energy that could be channeled like Ebby Calvin LaLoosh from Bull Durham... (my apologies for the photo...)

Where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah, boobs. More specifically, Erin Andrews' boobs.
(I refuse to shrink this photo...and please use Pantene Pro-V...Erin does!)

One of the cooler things that the NHL Center Ice package started doing recently is occasionally providing you the choice of watching either the home's or visitor's telecasts of the game. Normally, I'll watch the FSN Pittsburgh feed, but tonight, there was no FSN because the game was being telecast on the NHL Network for those of us who have DirecTV. Instead, I got the Tampa Bay Lightning's telecast, which was brought to you by the wrinkly old asses of Sun Sports.

It was here I had an epiphany: Sun Sports used to be called The Sunshine Network not too long ago. (Due to one too many Yards of Beer at Mario's on the South Side, I've lost the ability to quantify time accurately. So, not too long ago, could be 10 minutes to 10 years. After some quick research, I determined they were The Sunshine Network as recently as 2001. How do I know this? Keep reading .)

A great excitement washed over me when I saw we were getting the Sun Sports feed because this was the network that first brought Erin Andrews to our attention. For those of you who don't know, Andrews used to be the sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Lightning before she joined ESPN. Believe me, I know about this quite well.

Back in 2001, the Sunshine Network -- see, I told you there would be a payoff if you kept reading -- posted a job opening for a sideline reporter who would cover the Lightning's games and the weekly wrap-up show. At the time, I was still a young, print reporter who had some experience doing local television news. I applied for this job, and I inexplicably became one of the five finalists for the position. As you probably guessed, I lost out to Ms. Andrews and her girl bags. Losing this job changed my career direction permanently, and I gave up any aspirations of being on television and decided that I should stick to the print media.

(Gratuitous Erin Andrews shot because it's been a few paragraphs since you've seen one.)

Eagerly, I wanted to see who was in the on-deck circle of fame? Who would be the next Erin Andrews? Was she some hot little Tampa-area honey who doubles as a closet-puckbunny? Maybe she was from the Miami area and a Latina hottie who had a huge yearning for rugged hockey players? Maybe - OH DEAR GOD PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN - Erin had a younger, almost-identical-looking sister who was equally as hot and an absolute slut? What I got was disappointing.

That five-word sentence doesn't even convey the actual empty, hollow feeling I now owned, like someone stuffed a Shop-Vac hose down your throat to pump your stomach because you didn't want your Mom to know that you, not the dog, actually ate all that Play-Doh.

Paul Kennedy popped on my screen as the sideline reporter.

(Images may appear younger than they really are.)

He was a nice, generic white guy. Pleasant voice. Seemed like someone's uncle who enjoyed wearing Cardigan sweaters with the suede elbow patches. No Tampa-honeys. No former coked-out cheerleaders or anorexic/bulimic former beauty queens looking hot. It was just a dude. Then, I got on the Internet and found out that he's was the one who replaced Andrews when she left for ESPN.

Anger swelled inside of me. It began to bubble to the surface, and I tried to yell at Mr. Kennedy, as a way to vent my frustration, my anger, and defiantly tell the people at Sun Sports that THIS MAN WILL NOT DO!!!

All I could muster was a fart, a high-pitched one at that.

My wife looked at me with disgust because this capped a night that filled with two dozen chicken wings and a row of Double-Stuf Oreos for dinner. That health-conscious feast slowly put me in a happy quasi-coma from both the high fat content of the wings and the insulin burst from all the sugar in the Oreos. Like a dog, my wife patted me on the head, and I could feel myself drifting off for a 5-minute, pre-game nap.

As my eyes got heavy and the telecast went to commercial, my thoughts turned to Andrews, her righteous sweater-friends, and how my life could have been different if I had gotten that job instead of her. Maybe I'd be the heartthrob that brought women viewers to ESPN. Maybe I'd be the person who they'd be blogging about and holding me up as an icon for my quick wit, professional delivery, like able nature, and penchant for fashion. Instead, I'm a guy with a beer gut, sitting on a couch, and fighting off chicken-wing-and-Oreo coma. I never had a chance.

The Mondesi's House Team: Jason Devander

JASON DEVANDER

Column: My Big Mouth

Frequency: Bi-weekly

Claim to fame: I was at the game where Jerome Lane broke the backboard at Fitzgerald Field House vs. Providence and still have a piece of glass from it. I also skated against career minor leaguers during pick-up hockey in Hershey, PA, and it was then I realized that I had absolutely no shot at playing in the NHL.

Background: Like many male children born in Western Pennsylvania during the Steelers Dynasty of the 1970's, his first diaper was a Terrible Towel. This initial gesture of love by his mother and father set the foundation for the Pittsburgh-area sports junkie that he still is today.

As a wily 6-year old, who was already analyzing point-spreads in football, Jason watched Dan Marino dissect the Cincinnati Bearcats during his first memorable Pittsburgh-related sporting event in 1981.

After begging his father for weeks, he watched a doubleheader between the Giants and Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium -- which also happened to be the highly-anticipated Jason Thompson/Foodland jersey day to youths 12-and under -- but had his hopes of a sweep dashed by Jeffrey "One-Flap Down" Leonard's grand slam in the 14th inning of Game 2.

Mario Lemieux's arrival taught him that hockey pucks were neither inflated or stuffed, and while at his first Penguins game in 1985, he saw the Penguins play the Canadiens and got his first hockey stick, which was placed in his overly-sweaty, juvenile hands and sponsored by the fine people at Eat 'n Park.

While he didn't get to see his first Steelers game in person at Three Rivers Stadium until 1996, which was only because he was dating -- or can he say boning? We'll go with dating for now -- a Pitt cheerleader at the time whose family had season tickets, Jason learned to support his football team by watching them every week and screaming at the television as loud as he could, a trait he learned from his father. This also furthers the point made by the old anti-drug ad of "I learned by watching you."

Entering adolescence, Jason took his love for sports and writing and attended a local college so he could begin working on future that included being a reporter in the media industry. (And someone who uses dashes and ellipses incessantly.) He worked in the media for several years as a local Pittsburgh-area stringer and wrote articles published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review among other publications. After several years working in the Pittsburgh-area, Jason landed a job with an unnamed media company in New York, where he, his wife, and daughter currently live.

At work, Jason spends more time than he should reading up on his beloved Pittsburgh teams, and after years of prodding, his wife finally allowed him to get the NFL Sunday Ticket and DirecTV at home. He now watches the Steelers there, which makes his wife happy since Jason no longer calls her for car rides on Sundays because he was too drunk to drive home from the bar, but she's still not pleased that he yells and curses at the TV every time he watches a game. Any game for that matter.

While he imparts his knowledge about Pittsburgh sports to his daughter (and other subsequent children he conceives with his wife, which will likely be following a night of overzealous drinking after a major Steelers or Penguins win ... he knows, however, that there are no such thing as major wins for the Pirates anymore, so it looks like most kids will be born in Fall or Winter), he hopes that being a Pittsburgh sports fan who lives out of state gives him a different perspective than other writers.

Or not.

"I'm extremely honored to be a part of the Mondesi's House team of guest writers," Devander said. "The blog is the standard by which all Pittsburgh sports blogs are judged, and I hope that I can uphold that standard among this incredibly talented group of writers."

"Now, where's my beer?"