Best Team: Steelers Or Penguins? Your Vote Decides!

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Best Team: Steelers Or Penguins? Your Vote Decides!
Pittsburgh's Champions Both Nominated For 2009 ESPY

Best Team: Steelers Or Penguins? Your Vote Decides!

POSTED: 1:47 pm EDT June 25, 2009
UPDATED: 6:26 pm EDT June 25, 2009

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh sports fans will have a tough decision to make when voting begins for the 2009 ESPYs.

The Super Bowl champion Steelers and the Stanley Cup champion Penguins are both nominated for "Best Team" in ESPN's annual sports awards.

Fan voting will determine the winner. Votes are being taken on ESPN.com until July 11.

Steelers or Pens? We want to hear your comments! Please share them in the "Add your comment" box at the end of this story.

In the "best team" category, Pittsburgh's champions are up against the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies and the men's and women's national college basketball championship teams from North Carolina and Connecticut.

There's also a Pittsburgh competition in the "best coach/manager" category. Nominees are the Penguins' Dan Bylsma, the Steelers' Mike Tomlin, Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, the Lakers' Phil Jackson and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon.

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison is nominated for Best NFL Player, and Penguins teammates Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are nominated for Best NHL Player.

The ESPYs will be handed out on July 15 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

[flippy]

Re: Best Team: Steelers Or Penguins? Your Vote Decides!

Those are some tough calls.

My votes would be:


Penguins over Steelers

The Pens have no weakness. They are loaded all around with young stars at every position. The Steelers have a couple of struggles right now and rely too much on Big Ben to pull games out at the end. Pens still won game 7 of the cup after Crosby went down. Steelers couldn't have won the SuperBowl if Ben got hurt. Slight edge for the Pens even though I like the Steelers more.

Bylsma over Tomlin

Tomlin is already vying for my favorite coach of all time. I think he'll be better than Noll when he's done. He's gonna go down in history as best ever. When God designed the perfect coach, he built Mike Tomlin. But what Bylsma did this year was more impressive. He came from nowhere and he changed the Pens system to turn them into a dominant force in hockey well into the regular season. He made hockey fun and made the Pens' style their strength of being aggressive. He overcame being down 2-0 to win 2 game 7s on the road in these playoffs. He accomplished what Tomlin didn't in his first season - bringing home a championship.


Crosby over Malkin

I've heard MVP chanted so many time for Malkin that I almost think he's better than Crosby. But then when I watched the finals and saw Detroit put their 3 best players on the ice every time Crosby was on the ice, that cements the fact that Crosby is still the better all around player. Geno's making strides. And he's much better all around this year than last. And he has the talent to leap frog Crosby. But the kid's the best, even though Geno will probably get more votes.

Good luck James. But you're only the 3rd best player on your own team. Why isn't he up against Ben and Troy? In a way I kinda like that Ben still gets no respect because it will push him to be better and we'll be as good as Ben is.