Let the Penguins go.
Let ’em move.
The soap-opera intrigue tied to Pittsburgh’s NHL future has gotten ridiculous.
This should sound a little familiar to those who were in Colorado during the Rockies’ infamous 1976-82 tenure in the league, when the only constants were the rumors about the franchise’s survival and possible moves to virtually every major North American city without an NHL team.
The difference in this instance is the Penguins have marquee young superstars and are on the verge of greatness, but that doesn’t matter if the only place available for the franchise to play is the oldest arena in the league. Mellon Arena is simply a dump, not nearly to the extent of the old Boston Garden, for example, but minus the leeway granted historical landmarks.
The NHL should tell Mario Lemieux that he has earned the right to oversee a sale of the franchise to someone committed to moving the Penguins, or to remain the managing general partner and engineer a move himself.
To Hamilton, Ontario. To Portland (Oregon, not Maine). To Houston (Texas, not Mississippi). To Kansas City (Missouri, not Kansas). Or to wherever they’re wanted.
The latest twist was a Pennsylvania gaming panel’s decision to award a coveted Pittsburgh slots license to a company owned by Detroit-based Don Barden instead of to the Isle of Capri Casinos. The “Isle” was committed to building a $290 million arena to house the Penguins, among other attractions, in downtown Pittsburgh as part of the deal. There are a handful of “Plan B” arena-funding proposals on the table, but none are as simple as the Isle promise.
I’m not going to second-guess the gaming board’s decision, primarily because that would be presumptuous and ill-advised for anyone who hadn’t sifted through the details of all the proposals. To argue that the decision had to go the Isle’s way, at all costs, to increase the likelihood of the Penguins’ survival in Pittsburgh would be blinkered hockey chauvinism. The Penguins’ fate should have been a factor, but not an overriding concern.
But I know this much, from experience: The maneuvering and bluffing and machinations all get tiresome. As sad as this is, the NHL should plan on allowing Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the rest of the Penguins to relocate for next season, which is the franchise’s prerogative under its expiring lease.
Nobody can say Lemieux, who stepped into ownership as one of the franchise’s major creditors in the team’s bankruptcy, didn’t try to keep the team in Pittsburgh. For many reasons, some of them selfish, he did.
It’s time to end the melodrama, and tell Pittsburgh that if the city ever builds a new arena suitable for the NHL, the league will ponder a return. Pittsburgh is a good hockey city. Always has been. Always will be. But without an arena, that’s a moot point.
Jim Balsillie, the chief executive officer of the company that makes the Blackberry wireless device and the on-again, off-again suitor for the franchise, withdrew his offer last week. Yet he has reiterated his interest in pursuing the deal on other terms, and he even said those terms could include keeping the team in Pittsburgh under the right circumstances. In a letter that was released to the media, Balsillie apologized to Lemieux if Lemieux “interpreted our inability to reach an agreement as an offence to you or the team.”
(Personally, I’m guessing that if there was a misunderstanding, it was because it’s impossible to type anything complicated on those tiny Blackberry keys.)
So where should the Penguins end up? The answer depends on ownership, but all things being equal, in the New NHL, it makes more sense than ever to put teams in the largest markets possible – minus NBA competition. Unless they’re in top 15 U.S. markets, which all are taken, the NHL should go to the largest markets where hockey would be the biggest pro winter act in town.
A lot of cities could fit that description, but Kansas City, with a new arena available, heads the list.
The wild card would be Portland. Yes, there is an NBA franchise in Oregon’s largest city, but the Trail Blazers have ruined what once was the perfect marriage between the NBA and a market. Blazers owner Paul Allen, one of the richest men in North America, essentially turned over the Rose Garden to the arena corporation’s creditors, who would love to stick it to Allen by having an NHL team as the arena’s primary – and perhaps more popular – tenant.
And unless the franchise returns to the traditional Portland Buckaroos name, familiar to Denver fans from the old Western Hockey League days, “Portland Penguins” would be alliterative and roll right off the tongue.
Realignment
The NHL isn’t as good as other leagues at planting trial balloons or self-serving information with compliant members of the media or broadcasters working for teams or league-owned networks. But some power brokers gave it a shot last week, floating a proposal calling for four divisions instead of six, based on time zones. Under that setup, Colorado would be in an eight-team division with Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver, Phoenix, Calgary and Edmonton.
The proposal is a joke, primarily because it dodges so many other issues. I’m not one of those adamantly opposed to an expansion from 30 to 32 teams, under which a four-division setup would make more sense and which this seems to portend. It wouldn’t dilute the player pool that much, and critics who harped on that issue in past expansions largely ignore that the internationalization of the NHL has mitigated the “damages.” (Many of those arguing for “dilution” are of the school that would be thrilled if 63 percent of the NHL players were from Moose Jaw.)
But the league needs to take care of its scheduling and other problems under the 30-team setup.
As a trial balloon, it already is full of holes.
Sweaters
The Philadelphia Flyers’ management scheduled an ugly holiday sweater contest for the team’s Saturday afternoon home game against Ottawa, which went into the books as an ugly-enough-on-its own 6-3 loss that extended Philadelphia’s losing streak to nine games. Members of the Flyers’ alumni were going to serve as judges, awarding a $1,000 first prize during the first intermission.
The fans were challenged to wear “the most garish, obnoxious, horrible holiday sweater.”
This is being typed before the contest, but I’m thinking that if anyone had worn the Vancouver Canucks’ infamously garish “pajama” sweater from the late 1970s, perhaps with a Santa patch where the captain’s “C” would go, that would have been the winner – hands-down.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
