End of the Line
Team On Edge of Extinction
By Bob Grove

Since the February day in 1966 when a consortium of 21 investors was granted a National Hockey League franchise in the city, the Pittsburgh Penguins have spent an unusual amount of time on the edge of extinction.

The team has been sold numerous times, the first just five months into its inaugural season. It has been owned by a Detroit banker, a businessman from Great Britain, a former ticket manager for the rival Philadelphia Flyers and a Youngstown billionaire; pursued by singer Andy Williams; and contemplated briefly by George Steinbrenner. It has been run by the NHL; had its doors locked by the Internal Revenue Service; plunged twice into bankruptcy; shopped surreptitiously by Roger Marino; rumored at various times to be headed for Hamilton, Ont., Saskatoon, Sask., Portland, Seattle, Las Vegas, Kansas City and a host of other cities; and then rescued by - who else? - Mario Lemieux.

Now the 40-year-old franchise with the oldest arena in the NHL is up for sale again and back on that familiar edge, only this time there is an end game on the horizon. Sometime in the next year the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will award a license for a stand-alone slots casino in the City of Pittsburgh that will either ensure the team's future here or push it out of town for good.

"Our goal is to keep the team here forever," says Lemieux, whose ownership group has partnered with Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc., and Nationwide Realty Investors to form a group, Pittsburgh First, that has proposed a $1 billion plan to construct a $290 million multi-purpose arena without public subsidy and redevelop the Lower Hill District site of the 45-year-old Mellon Arena if successful in winning the license.

Also competing for the license are Forest City Enterprises, the owner of Station Square, which has partnered with Harrah's Entertainment to propose a casino, condominiums and hotel rooms at Station Square, and Detroit businessman Don Barden, who has proposed a casino, nightclubs and amphitheater near Carnegie Science Center.

The Penguins' plan to keep the team in Pittsburgh is an outgrowth of the current ownership's repeated attempts to rally regional support for a new building that can make the team profitable and provide the city with a place to host the multitude of events that help make Pittsburgh a major cultural center.

"The reality is there isn't sufficient tax dollars to build a new arena, and the reality of the economy forced the Penguins to think about new ways to fund an arena," says David Morehouse, hired in January 2005 as Senior Consultant for Special Projects to assist the team's efforts to win the slots license. "They tried to figure out a way, and first it was to be included in the legislation for gaming, and they were written out at the last minute. So they were faced with a choice: do we leave, or do we try something else? "And they came up with this idea, and I think it's a no-brainer. Let's use profits, private money, to fund a new arena. We've found a unique way to do this that doesn't cost the taxpayers any money."

Adding to the emotional volatility of the battle for Pittsburgh's NHL future were two announcements by Lemieux last month.

On Jan. 19 he said his ownership group was beginning the process of selling the team, which is only bound to Pittsburgh through next season, but which must stay under any owners if awarded the slots license. Five days later the 40-year-old Hall of Famer retired from the game, citing his inability to play at his customary level and health concerns raised by an irregular heartbeat that may require surgery.

When the slots license is awarded, most likely between November 2006 and January 2007, Lemieux will be neither player nor owner.

"Now it's up to the Gaming Board and local politicians, local leaders, to support our plan, which is by far the best one out there," says Lemieux, who understands this high-stakes game might not have a pleasant ending and added simply, "I'm not going to be the one who's going to move the franchise."

Such a sentiment is understandable, given the fact the Penguins' fate has been inextricably linked to Lemieux now for almost 22 years. The kid from Montreal who spoke only halting English when he moved here in the summer of 1984 has since become arguably the greatest athlete in Pittsburgh history.

His presence saved a team that was a financial and competitive failure, bringing the city two Stanley Cup championships; he became a charitable force through the Mario Lemieux Foundation; he kept the team in Pittsburgh by pulling it out of bankruptcy in the summer of 1999; and then, after being rebuffed in efforts to find public funding for his proposed public building, he helped put together the plan that now sits before the Gaming Control Board.

The seven-member Gaming Control Board was created to oversee the implementation of the slots legislation passed in Harrisburg in July 2004 legalizing 14 casinos in Pennsylvania. According to its website at www.pgcb.state.pa.us, the Board plans to hold 11 days of public hearings in seven regions of the state between April 6 and May 3 so that "everybody can have a say in what happens in their community." The date(s) of the Pittsburgh meeting had not been set but all meetings will include public testimony by those who register to speak by March 6.

Democratic Governor Ed Rendell appointed three of the Board members, including chairman Tad Decker, a corporate lawyer from Philadelphia; Sanford Rivers of Pittsburgh, a former NFL official on leave from Carnegie Mellon University, where he serves as Assistant Vice President for Enrollment; and Mary DiGiacomo Colins, a Common Pleas Court judge in Philadelphia who was hired as an assistant to then-District Attorney Rendell in 1985.

Also on the Board are Joseph Marshall III of Philadelphia, CEO of the Temple University Health System who was appointed by House Speaker John Perzel (R) of Philadelphia; Jeffrey Coy, who represented Franklin County for 11 terms in the state House and resigned to take this position after being appointed by House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese of Greene County; Scranton lawyer William Conaboy, Vice President of Allied Services who was appointed by Senate Democratic leader Robert Mellow of Lackawanna County; and Ken McCabe, a former Marine and head of the FBI's regional field division in Pittsburgh who was appointed by Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer (R) of Altoona.

Forest City is hardly unknown in political circles, which is why former Mayor Tom Murphy famously declared before leaving office that "supposedly, the fix is in" for it to win the license. According to local published reports, Forest City has given almost $150,000 to Rendell while also giving $29,000 to Mayor Bob O'Connor and $20,000 to Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.

That's another challenge for the Penguins, says Morehouse.

"Our whole strategy and philosophy is the more light shined on this process, the better, because we started off behind in the politics of this in that we didn't have the relationships that some of our competitors did with elected officials," he says. "So we had to put a plan together than was not a little bit better than theirs but a lot better than theirs. "We're going to need help from Penguins fans and the people in the region. People are going to have to let their voices be heard, so this decision is made on the right terms, made with the people of Pittsburgh's interests at mind. That's why we call our group Pittsburgh First. It should not be made because of any political ties or financial donations or any other reasons."

The Penguins, whose lost 2004-05 season due to the NHL lockout was estimated to have cost the region $48 million by the Greater Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau, already have public support from members of the state Senate and House, the Allegheny County Council and Pittsburgh City Council. Additionally, the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, the Allegheny County Conference of Economic Development and the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Council of Carpenters also support their proposal. And fans are getting involved. The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League and its thousands of youth players scheduled a rally to support the Penguins' plan just prior to the Feb. 4 home game against the New York Islanders, and the independent website, www.slotsformario.com, has for more than a year been collecting petition signatures. There are a lot of unknowns ahead in what is an unprecedented process in Pennsylvania, and likewise the coming months bring uncertainty for Lemieux. What role, if any, he might play in a new ownership group remains to be seen.

"No matter what happens in the future, I'm always going to be a Pittsburgher. My heart's always going to be here," he said.

But his hockey team, alas, may not.

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.