Zack Abel could not sit still in his chair. He kept looking all over the room in the Igloo Club at Mellon Arena.

It wasn't hard to figure out who he was looking for. The Sidney Crosby jersey he was wearing said it all.

"I like him and (Marc-Andre) Fleury," Abel said. "He's good."

Abel, an 8-year-old cancer survivor from Franklin Park, was one of the 25 children who took part of the 22nd annual Make-A-Wish Practice and Party on Tuesday. The Penguins invited the children and their families to watch the team practice at 11 a.m., then players joined the children for lunch.

"We have such a great group of guys that all we have to do is let them know what date we scheduled it, we make sure it's a day they practice at Mellon Arena, post a couple reminders in the locker room and that's it, they're here," Penguins director of community/alumni relations Cindy Himes said. "Every year they're great. The entire team comes up and they're wonderful. They meet every family at every table, so we're very, very lucky."

Himes helped organize the first event when she was the team's media relations director. Though the names have changed, from Mario Lemieux, Craig Simpson and Moe Mantha to Colby Armstrong, Ryan Whitney and Adam Hall, the same enthusiasm that christened the event in the mid-1980s remains today.

"Even during the Cup years when we had all those guys like Kevin Stevens, (Jaromir) Jagr, Tommy Barrasso, Joe Mullen and Mario, they all came up every year," Himes said. "Every player that's played here at the time we've had this event has come up here."

While the kids were eating, the Penguins players changed out of their practice attire, showered and joined them for lunch. Several of the players, including forwards Erik Christensen and Georges Laraque, wasted no time finding an empty seat at one of the tables and joining a family.

Jazzmine Henry, 7, of Vandergrift came prepared with hockey cards, reams of paper and a hockey helmet for autographs. But it didn't prepare her for seeing a slew of players led by defenseman Brooks Orpik come one after another up to her table.

"It's really fun," Henry said. "I've only been to practice once before and that was a long time ago. I feel happy because I've never had a chance to see them before, only on TV."

Instead of concentrating on one family, most of the Penguins drifted from table to table, conversing with the families, signing autographs and posing for pictures.

"Obviously these kids have certain disadvantages, but it's good to see them come down," defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "They enjoy hockey and they get to see some of their favorite players like Crosby and (Evgeni) Malkin and it's just something really nice that the Penguins do.

"It's an hour of our day. We're definitely fortunate to do what we do, we're role models for the community and they're kids. To them we're heroes and people they look up to and it really brightens up their lives."

Though some of the players stayed for an hour, some like Crosby and Maxime Talbot were around the entire time. Talbot and Laraque also distributed turkeys to families in the Hill District the day before Thanksgiving and are among the many players who promote the organization's community outreach programs.

"This is the same type of thing as when we delivered the turkeys, and I really mean this, you make people happy and that's the best thing in the world," Talbot said. "These guys might have stuff to do in the afternoon, but they take time to spend with every single kid."

Crosby embodied that. He not only went to every table, he engaged every person at the table in conversation, signed all the autographs they wanted and posed for more pictures than a supermodel at a cover shoot.

"It's always fun for us," Crosby said. "This stuff's easy to do and we have fun doing it."