Ben Roethlisberger heard the helicopters overhead, watched on television as people jammed Downtown for a parade to celebrate the Penguins’ Stanley Cup, and it played with his emotions.
“I’m super excited for them, for the city, for Mario and all that,” Roethlisberger said as the parade proceeded across the Monongahela River from the Steelers practice facility on the South Side. “It’s funny how fast time goes because it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, but, when you think about it, it was.”
The Steelers paraded through Downtown after winning Super Bowl XLIII seven years ago. It was the second such parade for them in three years to celebrate winning a Lombardi Trophy.
Watching the Penguins’ parade Wednesday stoked the desire of Roethlisberger and his teammates to have another one of their own.
Said Roethlisberger, “You’re like, man, it makes me want to get there, too, makes me want to go down and find out how many people were there, to say we have to get there and have more people come. More like that, not jealousy. I’m real happy for them, obviously.”
No Steelers could attend the Penguins parade because they were in the middle of their minicamp that comes to a conclusion Thursday. Many of them watched on TV screens as they ate lunch.
Some watched in awe, while it brought back memories for others such as Roethlisberger who remember their own. Only six players remain with the Steelers who paraded through Downtown with the Lombardi Trophy seven years ago — Roethlisberger, James Harrison, Greg Warren, Lawrence Timmons, Matt Spaeth and William Gay.
“We were just watching on TV, reminiscing a little bit with some of the young guys,” Warren said. “We were saying how cool it was and the experience afterwards, just going back and remembering some of that. It gives you a little more drive in the offseason. That’s the goal.”
The Steelers came close five years ago before losing to Green Bay in the Super Bowl, 31-25. After missing the playoffs entirely in 2012 and 2013, they resurfaced the past two years but were eliminated in their first postseason game in 2014 and went 1-1 last season.
Oddsmakers have them among the favorites to win the next Super Bowl.
“It’s hard to achieve,” Warren said. “When you’re there in the moment, I think sometimes you forget how hard it is until you’re on the outside looking in.”
All-Pro center Maurkice Pouncey knows about that. The Steelers reached Super Bowl XLV his rookie season of 2010, but he was unable to play after his ankle was injured in their AFC championship game victory. Pouncey is back practicing with the Steelers after he missed all last season because of a broken leg/ankle, two years after he missed virtually all of 2013 with a knee injury.
“I watched [Wednesday’s parade]. That was big-time for the city and for the Penguins,” Pouncey said. “That’s definitely something I want to do one day, hoist a trophy here.”
He noted that only those six Steelers remain who actually have done that.
“Isn’t that crazy? That means we haven’t won one in a while. We have to get back, man.”
Penguins winger Chris Kunitz is a neighbor of linebacker Arthur Moats.
“I saw him coming home [Tuesday], him and his wife and his family,” Moats said. “They were excited still. I congratulated him, told him it was on us now. We have to make it like ’09.”
Both the Steelers and Penguins held championship victory parades within months of each other that year.
Ed Bouchette: ebouchette@post-gazette.com and Twitter @EdBouchette.
First Published: June 15, 2016, 6:04 p.m.
