Pittsburgh Steelers draw inspiration, motivation from Stanley Cup

With the Penguins capturing the Stanley Cup, the Pittsburgh Steelers are looking to pick up where they left off.

Professional sports teams that share a city typically have a good relationship with each other, whether it be support via social media or promoting each other at their own events. Then, you have Pittsburgh. When you play a team from Pittsburgh, you don’t just play one team. You play the whole city.

This was again on display for the world to see when the city’s NHL franchise, the Pittsburgh Penguins, went on another remarkable run en route to a fifth Stanley Cup. Not only did fans everywhere back the black and gold on ice, the Penguins also got some help from their gridiron comrades, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Whether it be over Twitter:

Or in the arena suite:

Although forever known as the “Steel City” Pittsburgh has taken on a new mantra: The City of Champions. With the most recent hockey title, Pittsburgh has now joined Boston as the only two cities in the United States to win five Stanley Cups, World Series titles and Super Bowls.

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With winning comes the pressure to continuously perform at a championship level, something the city of Pittsburgh knows all too well (we’ll exclude baseball). Winning a Stanley Cup cannot be overstated, yet in a football crazed town that has yet to claim a Lombardi Trophy in almost a decade, all eyes have now shifted towards the Steelers expecting similar results.

You can bet the Steelers are more than willing to take that challenge.

“Special” is how Safety Mike Mitchell classified the sports teams’ bond with each other in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Among the more vocal players was linebacker Arthur Moats, who had this to say via the same interview:

"“We’re always competing, man. They won a championship, we gotta get us one. They’re getting another one; we gotta get another one.”"

As if there wasn’t already enough pressure on Mike Tomlin’s squad to bring home a seventh Super Bowl title, the black and gold team featured on ice have now done their due diligence.

With a presumably healthy roster heading into the 2017 season, there’s no reason to think that Pittsburgh shouldn’t make another deep playoff run. The offense is loaded on both arms of attack, and the defense is starting to play together as one with young talent sprinkled everywhere.

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After another championship was brought to Pittsburgh on Sunday night, there was a message sent to the Steelers, and a very clear one at that: There’d better be a parade involving the Lombardi Trophy, and it better happen soon.