New Penguins fan club rises in Australia

The next time you’re thinking of leaving a Penguins game early to beat the traffic or decide to go to bed before the end of a late game on TV, consider fellow fan Jonathan Northall. The founder of the British Pens Fan Club has moved to Australia where, due to the 14-hour time difference, the traditional start time of a game is around 9 a.m. — the next day.

“It’s very weird. As much as it was inconvenient for a midnight or 1 a.m. start, it was easier in a way for us to cover games,” Northall said, recalling his time as one of the British Pens “Brinzers” fan club. “A lot of Australian fans do struggle to see the games live, but since it’s right as people are going to work, a lot of them watch the games on delay. It makes trying to grow a fan club difficult.”

The British fan club organizes via social media for most games, with live Twitter updates. Its Facebook page has about 800 followers. But Northall says he expects growing the OzPens social media following also will prove to be a challenge.

“Social media in Australia is a little more in its infancy than in the U.K. and the U.S.,” Northall said. He estimates he has found about two dozen Penguins fans, and is convinced there are more.

According to the NHL website, the first Australian player was drafted by an NHL team this year. He’s Nathan Walker, who currently plays for the Hershey Bears, the Washington Capitals’ American Hockey League affiliate.

Australia does have a semiprofessional hockey league, the eight-team AIHL, established in 2000. The sport’s history goes back to about 1904 in Australia, when a team in Adelaide played ball hockey on an ice rink, according to the AIHL website. A more Canadian style of hockey came along later, with teams in Melbourne and Sydney. Unfortunately for him, the nearest AIHL team to Northall, who lives in Brisbane, is 11 hours away in Sydney.

Given the geographic obstacles he already faces, it would be understandable if Northall considered opening up his fan group to any NHL team’s fans. But he remains devoted to the Penguins.

“There will be [Philadelphia] Flyers fans out there, and there will be [New York] Rangers fans, and I’m not really interested in welcoming any other teams,” he said. “For me, a Pens fan is a Pens fan, whether they’re in Australia, or the UK or the Burgh itself. It would be nice to find more fans in Australia, but at the end of the day, it’s about connecting Pens fans around the world.”