PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – There are some teams Pittsburgh fans simply love to hate. The Ravens come to mind and in hockey, there’s the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Penguins will host their cross-state rivals tonight at Consol Energy Center.

“I’m excited to see the rivalry. It should be fun,” Jillian Harvey said.

Jillian and her mom came from Wilkes-Barre to see the Pens play the Flyers tonight. She knows who she will be cheering against.

“Claude Giroux,” Jillian said. “Don’t like him. Just a dirty player.”

It seems Pens fans dislike plenty of players who wear orange and black.

“Since I started watching them in ‘97, Eric Lindros all the way up to today, you’ve got Scott Hartnell, you have a constant theme from day one,” Stefano Fina said.

Perhaps last spring’s loss to the Flyers in the playoffs still stings too much. But, maybe there’s something more to why Philly is public enemy number one.

“I think their fans are pretty aggressive from what I have seen. So, maybe the fans and the players play dirty,” Christine Czekaj said.

“Two cities in Pennsylvania going right at it. Growing up in the 80s and watching them in the Spectrum and never winning. It’s nice to see them come back out on top,” Fred Schoenefeldt said.

Now the flyers have the Pens’ number in Consol, where they have won five of the first six meetings between the teams. With nothing but Eastern Conference action this year because of the lockout, there will be many more meetings.

“I think that increases it you know? More chances to do something wrong or make the fans mad or something, so I think it’s a lot of close games that makes it heated,” Czeka said.

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