The Cole Harbour Colony
That's because they were 18 of the captain's friends and acquaintances who had traveled to Pittsburgh from his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.
"It's not too often they get down, usually once a year," Crosby said before adding with a grin, "For what they were wearing, I think they deserved two points. It was nice to see that one go in and obviously nice to get the win."
A bunch of them had come to Pittsburgh in March of 2018
wearing jerseys from all of the different organizations Crosby has played for
, and it had quite the positive reaction - to the point where people recognized them at the airport on their way back to Canada. So they decided to commit to another theme night for this trip.
"We didn't want to do the same thing, we wanted to do something a little bit different," Justin Dowding said.
This particular idea originally started as a joke in their group chat after Crosby's cousin Terry Forbes suggested that they dress in penguins costumes for the next game they attended.
"Then it was just calling each others' bluff if we were going to do it," Mike Greene said. "And then we had extra money left over after everybody transferred money to one person to buy the tickets so we could get one section together, so we bought them online."
When they attended the Penguins' morning skate, they told Crosby of their plans.
"He knew, but he didn't quite understand the extent of the ridiculousness," Greene said. "So when he saw it this morning after we showed him a picture, he was like, Jesus."
"He was like, you guys are idiots," Nick Kielbratowski said with a laugh.
In addition to the penguins costumes themselves, they had also bought black and yellow wigs along with sunglasses as a disguise of sorts.
"A couple of the guys were like, 'Seriously? What are we doing? This is going to be on TV, I have to go to my job,'" Greene said with a laugh. "So the sunglasses were to help guys hide who they were a little bit. I don't think it worked out that well."
Because the costumes weren't of the highest quality, the crew waited until right before they left for the game to don their full get-ups.
"It was like a wedding party," Greene joked. "One of the guys had a suite and we were doing each others' costumes up."
When it came to the jerseys, it wasn't about fighting over which one to wear - it was about fighting over what jersey notto wear, and that was Crosby's TimBits jersey from 1993. That honor went to Dowding, who handled the constant chirping from his buddies all weekend long with good humor.
The guys gave Dowding another hard time tonight when they customized his penguins costume by cutting off the sleeves.
"We made him do it," Greene said. "He was a little upset about how loose-fitting these were, so we had to find a compromise. He's like, I work so hard and you guys don't let me show it off."
When they walked through the hotel bar on their way out, "the crowd erupted," Dowding said. "The place was packed."
They got an equally strong reaction once they took their seats down by the glass next to Suite 66, which was somewhat unexpected.
"We didn't think it would get a reaction like this," Kielbratowski said. "People are loving it."
Including Crosby, who tried to get a picture with them during warmups, but it didn't turn out.
First the jerseys, then the penguins costumes - what's next for the Traveling Crosbys?
"I don't know, but we've got time to think about it," Kielbratowski said.
