When the Penguins and Flyers began the Eastern Conference finals of the National Hockey League on Friday, one of the most eagerly anticipated matchups was between R.J. Umberger of the Flyers and Ryan Malone of the Penguins, two of the first Pittsburghers to make it to the NHL. But long before these local yokels had to go through each other to reach the Stanley Cup finals, they had to go through me. Which they did. Without great difficulty.

I'm talking here about my high school hockey career at Taylor Allderdice High School back in the mid-1990s.

I was the nervous kid from the inner city school who had somehow ended up in a local all-star game, probably due to an accounting error. During one of my first shifts, I carried the puck up against a defenseman whose name I later learned was Umberger. The kid was just a freshman at Plum High School, but that's not how it felt when he stepped into me. The collision was something like the one between gnats and the windshield of an Amtrak train. Let's just say that my memories of Umberger are distinct but dim.

In the case of Malone, the two of us played in a few tournaments together during middle school and had slumber parties at his mom's suburban condo, where he was the friendly skinny kid I could wrestle into submission to boost my self esteem. When I later played his high school team, Upper St. Clair, he had practically doubled in size and skill and I seem to remember trying to wrestle with one of his outstretched arms.

In these showdowns with Malone and Umberger -- and with so many other kids who bruised me over the years -- I took some comfort in the fact that all of us were going nowhere fast with our hockey skills. It had been drilled into me that no one from Pittsburgh had ever made it to the hockey big leagues. This was a football town, after all, and hockey players came from Canada.

But, I see now that I had underestimated just how deep was the Pittsburgh revolution that had been started by my childhood idol and the greatest hockey player this city has ever seen: Mario Lemieux.

For me, that revolution began in middle school, on the street outside my house in Squirrel Hill, where kids from the neighborhood would gather on roller blades and fight to be No. 66, Super Mario.

Middle school is not a good time for anyone, and I've managed to block most of the memories, but what I do remember was a hockey frenzy of early morning practices and backyard workouts as Lemieux and his young sidekick, Jaromir Jagr, led the Penguins first to one and then to a second Stanley Cup. There was that game where Lemiuex spun between two Minnesota North Stars to score in the Stanley Cup finals. The game ended near midnight but in celebration my friend and I cleared the ping pong table out of the basement and unleashed a fury of adolescent slapshots.

In the years that followed, hockey rinks popped up everywhere in the Pittsburgh suburbs. When I showed up for games I was stunned by how good some of the kids were, but I remembered the city's hockey track record; I would think to myself, if they play so well here, imagine what kids must be able to do in Minnesota. I let that idea defeat me -- well, that idea and my subpar stick-handling -- and my hockey career ended on the junior varsity team in college.

But not every Pittsburgher was so easily defeated, which I realized as I watched some of my old teammates rise through the ranks -- most of all Malone. I had drifted out of touch with him, but during college I checked in on the Internet as he became a star at St. Cloud State and then was drafted by the Penguins and then, wonder of wonders, became the first Pittsburgh-bred player to make the NHL.

I chalked it up to the mysterious genius of Lemieux who, by then, was the team's owner. But then I noticed that Malone was not alone. Umberger became the first Pittsburgher to be chosen in the first round of an NHL draft, and soon after I left Harvard, a Pittsburgher became the captain of the Division I varsity team there.

Lemieux has been in the news this year as he found a way to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. This was a gift to the city, but nothing like the one he gave Pittsburgh 15 years ago when he inspired hundreds of young hockey players -- from Umberger and Malone down to my now cubicle-bound self. I still get my exercise in New York City by taking the subway to a hockey rink where I meet up with a fellow Pittsburgher to skate around, announcing our passes and shots as though we were Lemieux and Jagr.

The larger ripples hit home last weekend when I sat in my apartment watching Malone on television as he delivered a series of crucial plays to help drive the Penguins past the New York Rangers in their playoff series. A day earlier, Umberger had been all over the sports pages, scoring two goals to lead the Flyers' unexpected playoff run.

The current playoff series between the Penguins and Flyers is being billed as an intra-state showdown, but to me, with all due respect to Philadelphia, this series is really a showcase for Pittsburgh hockey.

As the puck drops in the coming days, Penguins play-by-play announcer Mike Lange will come on air, just like he did during all the years of my childhood, and say, "It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh." That has always given me chills. But now, it's clear to me that every night is hockey night somewhere in the Burgh.

This is a hockey town. Thanks, Mario.