The Pittsburgh Penguins have a chance to win the Stanley Cup on Thursday night in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final if they can beat the San Jose Sharks. Naturally, a lot of people in the city want to be there if it happens. For those that could not get tickets, or did not want to spend more than $1,200 for a standing room only ticket, they could gather outside of the Consol Energy Center for the Penguins' outdoor watch party.
Thousands of people have chosen to do that.
People started arriving outside as early as 9 a.m. ET (puck drop is scheduled for around 8:20 p.m.) and as early as four hours before the start of the game they had to begin closing streets because of the crowd, which you can see in the picture above.
Keep in mind that even though the screen is pretty big, it is not so big that you are really going to get a great view if you are up on that hill.
This is what you are looking at.
Here is the view from the top of the street about three hours before faceoff.
The crowd became so big that it not only closed a major street in both directions, but at around 5 p.m. the Penguins announced that a second big screen was being placed downtown in Market Square.
#BREAKING: @penguins crowd outside CONSOL so large, officials opening 2nd big screen in Market Square. #LetsGoPens
— KDKA (@CBSPittsburgh) June 9, 2016
Of course, people are not just sitting on blankets or lawn chairs. A few people (I counted at least three as early as four hours before the game) brought couches.
