Dwan Street plays hockey in two leagues in Newfoundland. On Twitter, she describes herself as a hockey player, triathlete, runner, hound mom, activist and Pittsburgh Penguins fan.
After cheering on the Penguins from afar for more than 30 years, she now has a more personal reason to cheer, as the team is reaching out to her in a time of need.
Street was in a bad accident last Sunday while on her way to play in a hockey tournament. The crash totaled her vehicle and left her with an injured hand and a collapsed lung.
Her hockey equipment was trapped in her vehicle. She told her parents she wanted them to try to salvage her equipment, but that proved to be difficult.
In an interview with Channel 11, Street said: “They tried to pry the doors off. That didn’t work. They tried to lift and shake it. That didn’t work. The guys decided they would take a torch to cut the vehicle, and it started a fire.”
Street was in the hospital, her hockey equipment destroyed. She not only plays in two leagues, but she said she’s on the ice playing hockey nearly every night.
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Street bucked the trend with her family and her friends to become a Penguins fan at a young age. Her father was a Detroit Red Wings fan. She wanted to be an Edmonton Oilers fan like her friends, but her father didn’t like that. She eventually began to cheer on the Penguins of the early ‘90s and remains a fan to this day.
She was in Dartmouth when Sidney Crosby carried the Stanley Cup through a parade in 2017. She got to see the Cup up close and personal later that summer when Derek Clancey, the Penguins director of professional scouting, took it to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
All of Street’s friends know her passion for hockey and the Penguins, so in the aftermath of the accident and the loss of her equipment, one of her friends reached out to the Penguins on Twitter. The Penguins' social media department saw the tweet and reached out to Street.
She eventually got a surprising call from Andi Perelman, new media director for the Penguins. The whole encounter left Street emotional.
She told Channel 11: “I was sitting in my car dealership this morning replacing my vehicle, and I got a DM on Twitter. At first, I thought it was a parody account and then I saw it was the Penguins account. I opened it up read the message and the saleslady across from me said, ‘Are you OK?’ because I started to tear up a bit. I said 'Yeah, I just got a message from the Penguins,' and she laughed because she knew what a Penguins fan I was and I lost my Penguins hockey gloves.”
The Penguins not only reached out to Street, but they are going to replace all of her lost equipment. “It’s such a classy organization. I can't thank them enough. They turned a terrible week around,” said Street. “I don't think I could've been more of a fan, but this definitely did it.”