PITTSBURGH (AP) — The city prepared for a victory parade to celebrate the Penguins’ Stanley Cup championship as its police and other public safety officials celebrated a victory of their own: making only one arrest as fans poured into the streets to celebrate Sunday night’s win.
The parade will begin Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. downtown. A similar celebration after the Penguins’ 2009 championship — scheduled seven years ago to the day — drew nearly 400,000 fans. Additional details of the parade were to be announced as the event draws closer.
Sunday night’s arrest involved a fan who allegedly taunted a mounted officer’s horse with a skateboard.
Tens of thousands of people celebrated in the streets after the Penguins beat the San Jose Sharks 3-1 to win Game 6, clinching the best-of-seven final series 4-2.
The championship is the fourth for the franchise, with others coming in 1992, 1992 and 2009. The city’s fans have had other reasons to celebrate in recent years, with two Steelers Super Bowl victories in 2006 and 2009.
Only four fires were set, one involving a couch, one a mattress and two with loose newspaper, all of which were quickly extinguished, city officials said.
Among other things, the city cited a little-known ordinance that bans interior furniture from being used for exterior purposes, mostly on porches. The stated purpose of the ordinance is to keep vermin and pests from gathering, but it enabled public safety officials to rid streets of items that might be burned if the celebration turned unruly. Crews were also out in force emptying trash bins and newspaper boxes for the same reasons, and the strategy appears to have worked.
One man was taken by ambulance after suffering facial injuries in an assault, but charges have yet to be filed in that incident, police said.
