Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Trevor Kuhlman, 22, of Cranberry, cheers as the players are introduced for yesterday's game against Ottawa at Mellon Arena

As a member of the new generation of hockey fans who have embraced the new generation of Penguins, Autumn Dubbs was perplexed at the excruciating pace of talks that finally produced a funding plan for a new arena that keeps her team in Pittsburgh.

"My generation has really fallen in love with this team and the players," said Miss Dubbs, 23, of Crafton. "I thought the politicians were trying to keep young people here. If they had moved to Kansas City, I'd have moved, too."

All of those frustrations have been smoothed over like the way a Zamboni resurfaces rutted ice. Yesterday, in the first playoff game in Pittsburgh since May 2001 and the first home playoff game of the post-Mario Lemieux era, Miss Dubbs and her mother, Linda, were among the standing-room-only crowd greeting the Penguins at Mellon Arena with thunderous, towel-waving adulation.

Having taxed her credit card a bit to procure a couple of playoff tickets on eBay, Miss Dubbs wore her Sidney Crosby T-shirt under her Marc-Andre Fleury jersey for the occasion. Her mom wore a Lemieux sweater. Together, they represented two generations attending their first playoff game, cheering for a common love.

"I'm so excited," said Miss Dubbs, a graduate of Point Park University. "The playoffs are much more intense. You feel like you're more a part of the game. It feels more personal."

And her mom had no troubling embracing the new breed of Penguins.

"The puppies are awesome," she chuckled.

The visceral connection between a team of young stars and its admirers had the raw energy to raise goose flesh even among old-timers as the Penguins returned home tied with the Ottawa Senators in the first round of a Stanley Cup playoff series. The decibel levels climbed higher when Gary Roberts, the oldest player on the team, scored a goal 52 seconds into the game.

The Penguins expected an energy boost from the crowd -- "It's going to be wild," said assistant coach Mike Yeo -- but that and home ice advantage weren't enough to lift the Penguins over Ottawa in a 4-2 loss last night. The Penguins trail, 2-1, in the best-of-seven series.

In truth, the throng straining its vocal cords at Mellon Arena, and watching on TV at taverns and taprooms, was a cross-section of Pittsburgh -- lifelong buyers of season tickets and graying baby boomers who came of age when the franchise was born four decades ago.

But there's an undeniable new level of energy freshening the Penguins by the infusion of fans who were in elementary school when the franchise was winning multiple Stanley Cups in the early 1990s. And as young as they are, they're still older than players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, who are making the hockey world take notice even if none of them has reached his 21st birthday.

"Just as spring is all about new beginnings, this young team, and their arena-to-be, is a new beginning for Pittsburgh," said Sarah Hannity, a Point Park graduate who was drawn to the Penguins with her friends last year, when Mr. Crosby arrived. "They're just a great, exciting group of guys, and I think people would watch them even if they were playing croquet.

"Pens fans are the most loyal in the city. See how many people would support the Steelers this year if their record is as bad as the Pens' record was last year," she added.

It's not all that difficult to quantify. The team gets an energy boost when it plays in its domed 46-year-old civic auditorium, a place affectionately known as The Igloo. (It's also a place where rain leaks through the stainless steel roof onto the public address announcer, as it did last night.)

"You need that new generation of fans. They're terrific. They give us a shot in the arm every time we're on the ice," said Eddie Johnston, a Penguins executive who drafted Mr. Lemieux and now gets to see Mr. Crosby and company grow. "The whole city is buzzing."

Hockey fans around here have suffered through some lean years. Even last season, when the team got off to its worst start in franchise history, a fan in a Crosby jersey wore a bag over his head. Admittedly, hockey isn't for everybody. But there's always been a passion for the game among fans who combine blood-boiling emotion with a frozen surface.

In fact, the ardor for hockey here approaches the passion where the game was born, according to Georges Laraque, a Penguins player who grew up in Montreal and who played with the Edmonton Oilers in last year's Stanley Cup finals.

"It almost feels like you're playing for a Canadian team," Mr. Laraque said. "I compare it to Edmonton, where we had blue collar fans who work hard, know their hockey and appreciate hockey. I never thought I would see it. It's not like Toronto where the seats are filled with businessmen coming up in ties and stuff. This is more a blue collar crowd. They come to share with us. It's just awesome."

The support of young fans is one reason why the Penguins have the highest percentage of viewers in any U.S. market. Of all the baseball, basketball and hockey teams covered by the Fox Sports Net regions in the country, the Penguins are the highest rated team.

"It speaks to the appetite of the Western Pennsylvania sports enthusiast. There's nothing like winning to raise people's enthusiasm," said Steve Tello, senior vice president and general manager of FSN Pittsburgh.

Thus far in this series, the Penguins and Senators have been featured on FSN, the English and French language national stations in Canada, the U.S. network Versus and NBC.

"You get national and international exposure when you have a team that is this young and this good," Mr. Tello said.

Whether it's in a family living room or out in any sports bar in the area, Penguins fans gather to wear their garb and cheer on their team even when it's playing in hostile arenas on the road.

"They know we're watching," said Mike Oechslein, 21, of Bridgeville, out with a couple of friends who are students at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University and have taken advantage of buying tickets at special rates for college students.

At the Pittsburgh Bottleshop Brew Pub and Cafe in Heidelburg last week, Brittany Vonda, 21, of Collier, admitted that her stomach was churning in the playoffs more than it did when she watched the Cup teams of the past.

"It's more exciting watching now that I know the game better. We're going to grow up with them," she said, wearing a No. 87 jersey.

Her companion, Joe Clarke, 24, also has been a Penguins fan for a long time.

"Our generation watched them win the Stanley Cup when they were young. We're hoping to experience the same thing that the Steelers did for a new generation," he said. "We're back to where we were."

With five plasma TV screens, the Pittsburgh Bottleshop draws a cross-section of fans. Coach Michel Therrien and his assistants have been known to drop in to unwind after games, so it was little surprise that every seat around the bar and every table was occupied for the first playoff game.

"A lot of people are pumped up for the playoffs," said manager Natalie Plescia. "It's crazy. They haven't been in the playoffs for a while. I hear everyone talking about it -- but especially the younger crowd."