It was Day 1 of training camp, and there were lots of questions swirling around the Penguins as players began to report to the team's practice facility at Southpointe shortly after sunrise for photos and physicals.
How would the Penguins handle the absence of Jaromir Jagr, who had been traded to Washington two months earlier? Could any (or all) of the prospects the Penguins got from Washington in that deal -- Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk -- have a significant impact in their first season here? Could the defense overcome the departure of rugged mainstay Bob Boughner via free agency? Were any of the young players who'd made Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's surge to the American Hockey League's Calder Cup final that spring possible -- guys like Andrew Ference and Eric Meloche, Milan Kraft and Michal Rozsival -- ready for full-time employment in the NHL?
Those issues all seemed so important as dawn was breaking that morning, and they provided fodder for countless conversations.
By mid-morning, almost no one was talking about them.
Or thinking about them.
Or caring about them.
For this was a training-camp day like no other, before or since.
Really, a day unlike any other in the history of this nation.
It was Sept. 11, 2001.
There was interest, but not alarm, when the first reports arrived that an airplane had struck the North tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
The initial reaction of most seemed to be that it was a terrible, unfortunate accident, and there were expressions of hope that neither the physical damage nor the human toll would be too great.
That changed a short time later.
Everything changed a short time later.
When another plane hit the South tower about 20 minutes later, it was obvious that this had been no accident or horrible coincidence, that a horrific attack was in progress, even if its full scope wasn't readily apparent.
That came more into focus with news that a third plane had slammed into the Pentagon in Washington, and then that a fourth had crashed in Somerset County, for reasons that weren't immediately known.
By that time, hockey discussions and all other standard Day 1 small talk -- "What did you do this summer?" and "How do you like those new skates?" -- had ceased, replaced by a voracious appetite for information, for any nugget of news about whether there had been additional attacks or word of survivors pulled from the World Trade Center rubble.
Players congregated in the team lounge and weight room to monitor events on televisions there, and when they had to venture to the indoor soccer field on the other side of the complex to get their photos taken, many checked with reporters hanging outside the locker room to see if anything of consequence had happened while they were incommunicado.
"Obviously, hockey's not big on our minds," left winger Kevin Stevens said while making one such trip. "This is the first day of training camp, and it's part of our life -- and life has to go on -- but what's happened in New York and across the country is devastating."
The full extent of the devastation wouldn't be known that day, of course, and the reverberations of what transpired that Tuesday morning are still being felt around the world.
Although there was no way to get a complete macro perspective on the terror attacks just hours after they began, Stevens recognized immediately that their impact would extend far beyond Manhattan and Washington and Shanksville.
And would endure long after the start of that training camp had been forgotten.
"It's crazy," he said. "This day will change our lives for a long time."
