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There are a number of college sports programs named after animals that boast a real, actual member of that species as their official mascot; UConn and Georgia respectively have a husky and a bulldog they trot out at events, while Colorado and Texas each have a massive horned animal that routinely appears at games.
Professional sports franchises, on the other hand, tend to prefer to outsource that particular duty to people who suit up in various costumes while entertaining and interacting with fans inside their arena or stadium.
That’s currently the case with the Pittsburgh Penguins, who’ve been relying on an anthropomorphic penguin known as “Iceburgh” to handle those duties since the early 1990s.
The introduction of Iceburgh filled a void that had been created 20 years prior, as the Penguins had opted to go a full two decades without a mascot in the wake of a somewhat ambitious experiment that ultimately had a pretty tragic end.
That story begins with a real, actual penguin named Pete, who made his grand debut in 1968 but sadly cemented himself as the NHL mascot equivalent of William Henry Harrison thanks to what transpired shortly after he landed the gig.
This is his story…
The Pittsburgh Penguins (probably) killed the live penguin they used as a mascot
The Penguins played their inaugural NHL season in 1967, but the newly-established franchise had a little bit of trouble getting local fans invested over the course of a season that ended with them posting an underwhelming record of 27-34-13.
The product on the ice was obviously the biggest factor when it came to luring in spectators, but the team also decided to think outside of the box while trying to figure out some other ways to up the intrigue.
That ultimately led to a dialogue between the Penguins and the Pittsburgh Zoo, which agreed to loan Pete—a Humboldt penguin born in Ecuador—to the team ahead of the 1968 season to serve as its first-ever mascot.
While having a live penguin is a pretty solid flex on its own, the Penguins didn’t stop there, as they got CCM to create a tiny pair of custom skates for Pete and recruited a member of the figure skating team at the University of Pittsburgh to (unsuccessfully) try to teach him how to use them to navigate the rink.
Pete the Penguin made his grand debut during a game against the Flyers on February 21, 1968 and reportedly made a grand total of six appearances at the Civic Auditorium before disaster struck less than a year after he was introduced to the world.
On November 23, 1968, Pete passed away after contracting pneumonia, which was believed to have stemmed from dangerously warm conditions in the nesting habitat that had been constructed for him at the venue (the Penguins memorialized him by placing his taxidermied body in the team’s offices, although it was eventually removed after some people complained).
The Penguins attempted to replace Pete with another live penguin dubbed “Re-Pete” who made his first appearance at the start of the 1971 campaign.
While he thankfully avoided befalling a similar fate, the team struggled to recapture the magic of his predecessor and shelved him to create the void Iceburgh eventually filled in 1992.