Behind The Net
Rolling The Dice
By Bob Grove

Here in Pittsburgh and across the other pockets of North America where hockey's roots are too strong to be pulled up whole by a lockout, these are remarkable times. The National Hockey League is attempting nothing less than its own reinvention, both economically and artistically, while the Penguins' owners contemplate the sale of majority interest in the team and an uncertain future tied to legalized gambling.

The decisions and agreements being forged right now at the league and local levels are shaping up to be nothing less than the foundation of the game for the foreseeable future.

The sudden turn in May to meaningful, productive contract talks between the league and its players - where was this focus a year ago? - gave way in June to the possibility of a new collective bargaining agreement by early summer. That, of course, will be a watershed moment for the NHL.

Of course, labor sanity will be only the first step toward recovery. There's still the monstrous tasks of re-engaging fans, forcing the game back onto the radar screen of American television, injecting offense into a moribund product and devising a way to award Sidney Crosby, the 18-year-old whose resume spits math from the Gretzky and Lemieux textbooks, to one very lucky team.

No major sport has faced so massive a challenge, and yet neither has any major sport had such an opportunity to wipe out so many mistakes in such a short period of time.

Incredibly, however, all that is only half the battle for the Penguins - and perhaps William Del Biaggio III, the California businessman who has assembled a group of investors interested in the team. Their deep pockets would help Pittsburgh take advantage of its considerable cap room in a new NHL.

Payrolls aside, the Penguins could still leave town in 2007 without a plan for the construction of a new arena. The building that will make it possible for the Penguins to be profitable - and for the region to address one of its most pressing cultural needs - must result from the process of awarding a casino license to one of several interested groups.

That process will be managed by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, so of course the process will be inherently political. That means anything can happen. Which brings us back to our time in hockey history: it's fraught with uncertainty but sure to be talked about for decades to come.

PSR Senior Writer Bob Grove has been covering the Penguins since 1981 and currently serves as a regular co-host on the Penguins Radio Network.