Pittsburgh Dish

The Pens trade

Future shock?

by Ryan Caione

The Penguins had been cruising along with a 9-4-4 record since they lost their all-everything center and reigning NHL MVP, Sidney Crosby. In his absence, Evgeni Malkin inspired MVP talk of his own by proving he is every bit Crosby’s equal and ascending to the top of the league’s scoring race.

Their starting goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury, has missed two months, but erstwhile third-stringer Ty Conklin has not only surpassed expectations, but has passed Fleury on the depth chart while putting up gaudy statistics of his own. The Pens are contending for the top spot in the Atlantic Division, as well as the Eastern Conference, and having fun doing it. It seemed the young team would keep growing together until it became big enough to steamroll everything in its path, like the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s.

Until Tuesday, that is. Pens general manager Ray Shero said before the NHL’s trade deadline that he didn’t anticipate making any changes that would disrupt the fabric of his tight-knit club. He even admitted afterwards that he hadn’t had planned any deals as late as two hours before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. moratorium on roster moves.

The Pens did acquire bruising-yet-plodding 6’7” defenseman Hal Gill (remember how he used to torment Jagr?) from Toronto in return for draft picks. The deal fulfilled a need and wasn’t expensive. But Shero wasn’t done. With the clock ticking toward three, he pulled the trigger on one of the biggest deals in franchise history, one whose effects will be felt for years to come.

From Atlanta, the Penguins acquired Marian Hossa, a perennial 30-goal scorer and the sharp-shooting winger the team has been lacking, and Pascal Dupuis, a speedy defensive forward. Both will be unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. In fact, what made a player of Hossa’s caliber expendable is that he and Atlanta had been unable to come to terms on a contract extension and the Thrashers wanted to get something in return for him before he split. It is believed that Hossa is eager to test the lucrative free agent waters this summer.

The Penguins will undoubtedly negotiate with him, but he is making $6 million this season and will likely seek a raise. Malkin also is due for a contract extension, as are Fleury and Jordan Staal. It is understood that no one will outearn Crosby, who is slated to make $8.7 million per season. In the unlikely event the Pens resign Hossa at his free-market value, the team could end up paying up to $30 million per year to five players. If he walks, as expected, the Pens will be back where they started, in need of another high-scoring winger.

In exchange (and forgive the melodrama here), Shero ripped out a chunk of the team’s guts by shipping heart-and-soul winger Colby Armstrong, sniper Erik Christensen, teenage forward Angelo Esposito, last year’s first round pick and once the most highly touted prospect of his draft class, and a first round selection in this summer’s draft, to Atlanta. All lost for a player – a very talented one – that may end up playing only a couple of dozen games with the club.

It is sad to see Colby Armstrong, a favorite amongst fans and his teammates, go. He reportedly took the news that he was dealt especially hard. Dupuis will fill the same role he did, although I doubt with as much joy. Christensen has a wicked shot, but plays too much along the perimeter to utilize it. There is a chance he could explode for 40 goals someday, but he also may have plateaued. It’s unusual to think that a 19-year-old has languished, but that may be the case with Esposito, whose stock has plummeted. Late first-round picks are valuable, but are rarely sure things.

Yet for all the ambivalence this deal engenders, it is tantalizing to think what Hossa might accomplish playing alongside Crosby and/or Malkin. The Pens still have an embarrassment of young talent. But they also gave away a ton of potential and assuredly helped to make Atlanta a better team. By shipping it out all at once for what appears to be a short-term fix, Shero has left the cupboard bare for future trades. The deals that he pulled on Tuesday make the Penguins stronger right now and cement their status on the short list of contenders for the Stanley Cup this spring. Without Hossa, the Pens were poised to compete for championships into the foreseeable future. With him, the sky's the limit -- this year. They could’ve had so much more.

(In the interest of full-disclosure: Initially, I also felt the Pens mortgaged their future when they traded blossoming youngsters John Cullen and Zarley Zalapski for Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson in 1991, and we all know how that turned out. But neither of the players they acquired then were short-term rentals, nor did I know yet that Francis is half-human, half-divine.)

Marian Hossa, Pascal Dupuis, and Hal Gill are scheduled to debut in Penguins uniforms on Thursday night in Boston.

Hey, Bob Errey

Have a beer with us

If there were a Make-a-Wish Foundation for reasonably healthy adults, Mr. and Mrs. Dish would wish for the opportunity to buy Pittsburgh Penguins television color commentator Bob Errey a beer.

Errey, who was drafted fifteenth overall by the Penguins in 1983, played a significant role in helping Pittsburgh's flightless, ice-bound waterfowl net two Stanley Cups in the early 1990s.

Today, Errey makes Mr. and Mrs. Dish laugh hysterically as he warns against deploying the "can opener" ("You can't put the stick between the legs and do the can opener Stegggie!") and relishes the "pickle stabber."

His enthusiasm for hockey has inflamed the Dishes' Penguins passion (we understand there's an ointment for that) and nearly makes up for Pens management shunting the inimitable Mike Lange off to the hinterlands of radio.

Mr. Errey, you're informative and you're a hoot. Drop us a line at editor@pittsburghdish.com to redeem this free beer offer. We'll talk hockey.

Bloomfield blue lines

A group of kids preferred pucks to PlayStations in a Bloomfield alley yesterday. The Pens (not too much older than these dekers) take the ice at 7 p.m. tonight in Round 1, game 5 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Connecticut band mixes pucks with punk

The Zambonis: The Jimmy Pol of the Pens

Mrs. Dish saw the Zambonis a few times while back in Connecticut and even she--who hasn't bought an album since Honky Chateau (shut up Frank) and never liked hockey all that much--thinks the Zambonis are really swell. Listen here--even you non-hockey fans might be inspired to watch tonight's playoff game. This young(ish), scrappy band and the Baby Pens should schedule a play date.

From The Zambonis website:

Few rock bands have been featured in both Sports Illustrated and Billboard. Few have played both punk-rock clubs and Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. Few have appealed to fans young and old. But the quirky 100% hockey-rock Zambonis have somehow prevailed—impressing music snobs, sports freaks.

The Zambonis formed in 1991 when defenseman/guitarist/singer Dave Schneider envisioned a group that played nothing but songs about hockey. And he wasn’t joking. What started as a fun “little thing” is now the most popular sports-rock band in North America. Explaining his band’s unique style, Dave says, “We’re the only band in the world whose two biggest influences are The Beatles and Wayne Gretzky!”

For the “minor-league years,” The Zambonis stuck close to their Bridgeport, Connecticut home. But in 1996, The Zambonis’ first full-length CD, 100% Hockey...and other stuff, changed everything. The 15-song disc cracked the Top 25 on both the CMJ and Gavin charts, spent 13 weeks on the CMJ Top 200 and worked its way onto NHL, NCAA and minor league hockey arena playlists nationwide.

Commenting on the disc, The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Slapstick meets slapshots…For the true hockey fan, this is a must. For the casual fan, it’s still one big smile.” While Billboard added “They have a sense of humor about themselves…A timely and surprisingly appealing release.” Time Out New York chimed in, anointing the band “The Pearl Jam of hockey rock.”

It wasn’t long before the band performed at Madison Square Garden. Even though the event was a monster truck rally, it still counts, right?

Continue reading about the Zambonis here.

Breaking News: Pens Don't Stink

OK, I admit it. I was wrong about the Penguins. Very wrong.

by Ryan Caione

I thought I would be tired of the losing by now. Sure, I thought the Penguins would improve this year, maybe even remain on the fringes of playoff contention. I'm as gaga over the Penguins as anyone, but I’m pragmatic too. I’m just glad I don’t know as much as I thought I did.

Before the season, I began to write a Penguins season preview for the Dish, but never finished because it was so glum. The team would have to lean far too much on too many inexperienced players. As great as Sidney Crosby is, he can’t do it all by himself. 18-year-old Jordan Staal would play nine nondescript games and be sent back down to his junior team (or he’d play well and be sent to juniors anyway, for economic reasons).

Defenseman Sergei Gonchar would have another of his patented slow starts. A bizarre defection from Russia and the ensuing culture shock would hinder the development of wunderkind Evgeni Malkin. The players signed by new general manager Ray Shero during the offseason were merely warm bodies. The struggles of Marc-Andre Fleury that stretched from last season into this year’s training camp would endure. Heck, I even thought waiving backup goalie Dany Sabourin (!) was a dubious idea. And if the Pens would win, it would be in boring 2-1 or 3-2 games thanks to coach Michel Therrien’s defensive preachings.

(I also thought the Steelers would win more often than once a month, but that’s another story.)

But you know how it turned out. The Penguins got off to an exuberant start, shutting out the hated Philadelphia Flyers on opening night, and winning seven of their first ten games, spurred by their youngsters. Crosby is in the top 10 in scoring again. Malkin scored a goal in each of his first six games, something that hadn’t been done since 1917, the NHL’s first year of existence. Not only is Staal still on the team, but he’s pulling double shifts and leads the league in short-handed goals. Fleury has regained his confidence. Newcomers Dominic Moore and Nik Ekman are scrappy, yet responsible players. The Penguins’ team speed is equal to any in the game. The players even seem to have taken some of Therrien’s instruction to heart, especially in regards to positioning. And can that penalty-killing, net-crashing, goalie-deking freak Maxime Talbot get an Amen?

Of course, the Penguins aren’t out of the woods yet. Before beating the Flyers again last night, they lost five in a row. But consider the competition: the last two Stanley Cup champions, Tampa Bay and Carolina; the two teams I picked to be in the Stanley Cup finals this season, Ottawa and San Jose (looks like I’m wrong again); and a team that only has one loss all year, the Anaheim Ducks. Most of those games were close into the third period. Last season they would have been over before the first intermission. This year the Pens have enough skill to continue to apply pressure when they're behind, if not to overcome deficits.

Still, the Penguins rely too much on Crosby and Malkin. Their defense, as usual, is shaky. They give up far too many shots and Fleury continues to kick out too many rebounds. Their schedule, which was sparse to begin the season, doesn’t get any easier.

But if having an up-and-coming, exciting, never-out-of-it Penguins team to love on again means I’m wrong, momma, then I don’t want to be right.

(The Penguins play another top team in Buffalo on Friday, and then return to the Civic Arena to play the rival New York Rangers on Saturday. Call 412-323-1919 for tickets.)

Study says prayer doesn't work

It cost researchers $2.4 million to discover that asking God (in photo) for help doesn't help. They could've asked Penguins fans for free.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

By Benedict Carey, New York Times

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.

In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.

"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.

Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.

Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.

Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them."

In the study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery.

The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.

The researchers asked the members of three congregations — St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Mass.; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City — to deliver the prayers, using the patients' first names and the first initials of their last names.

The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.

"It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Dr. Bethea said.

The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group — 18 percent — suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent in the group that did not receive prayers. In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance.

One reason the study was so widely anticipated was that it was led by Dr. Benson, who in his work has emphasized the soothing power of personal prayer and meditation.

At least one earlier study found lower complication rates in patients who received intercessory prayers; others found no difference. A 1997 study at the University of New Mexico, involving 40 alcoholics in rehabilitation, found that the men and women who knew they were being prayed for actually fared worse.

The new study was rigorously designed to avoid problems like the ones that came up in the earlier studies. But experts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.

Bob Barth, the spiritual director of Silent Unity, the Missouri prayer ministry, said the findings would not affect the ministry's mission.

"A person of faith would say that this study is interesting," Mr. Barth said, "but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started."

Trade Winds

Pens wheel and deal, win or lose.

by Ryan Caione

The NHL trade deadline day, which came and went on Thursday, usually is one of my favorite days in all of sports. Most every fan has dreamt of far-fetched trades to augment their team, and before the league’s yearly moratorium, NHL general managers traditionally turn into fantasy geeks and wheel and deal players like scrip. However, judging from the paucity of big names and big deals in this, the first year of the salary cap, it appears that blockbuster deadline trades could be a casualty of the NHL’s new economic reality, one of the few negatives of the more equitable system.

Back in the day before the newfangled Internets (and when the Penguins were actually good), I would make sure I was near a radio so I could get updates on whom the Penguins might acquire to fortify their team for the stretch run. Indeed, the Pens’ general manager, Craig Patrick, cemented his reputation by pulling off the quintessential deadline-day trade when he pried demigod Ronnie Francis (in photo) and bruiser Ulf Samuelsson from the Hartford Whalers in 1991. Former Pens GM and current assistant GM Eddie Johnston was Patrick’s counterpart in Hartford at the time, and part of me still thinks he was lending his once and future employer a favor. The Pens, of course, won their first Stanley Cup two-and-a-half months later.

Other than that empire-builder, though, Patrick’s best deals haven’t come at the deadline, but earlier in the season or during the off-season, like the ones that netted the team Larry Murphy, Petr Nedved, Darius Kasparaitis, and Alex Kovalev. In fact, some of his worst trades were deadline deals. The trades that sent Bob Errey to Buffalo for Mike Ramsey and Markus Naslund to Vancouver for Alex Stojanov still stick in my craw. Granted, Moose Hedberg, who helped lead the Pens during their memorable run to the 2001 Eastern Conference finals, came to the team in a deadline deal. And Patrick hasn’t exactly been bargaining from a position of strength this century, either.

But the Pens are sellers, not buyers, this year, and their GM remained true to recent form on Thursday, dealing the team’s second-best player, Mark Recchi, to the Carolina Hurricanes for offensive defenseman Niklas Nordgren, whom I’d never heard of until the Pens/Hurricanes game on Saturday; winger Krys Kolanos, notable only for the appalling spelling of his birth name; and a second-round draft pick, which may end up being the most valuable asset the Pens got in return -- unless, of course, their history of abysmal selections in the second round continues. (Lee Giffin, I’m looking in your direction.) Patrick also unloaded defenseman Cory Cross and Ric Jackman on Thursday for a roll of gauze and a sack of pucks, respectively.

Cross came to the Pens, along with Jani Rita, Meter Maid, earlier this year in the trade that shipped Dick Tarnstrom to Edmonton. As evidenced by that deal and the Recchi one, Patrick is apparently of the mindset that as long as the team gets two players as half as talented as the one he’s dealing, it’s a wash.

Of couse, none of this really matters this year. The team is firmly anchored at the bottom of the league standings and nothing they could’ve done by way of a trade would change that. But they do keep finding inventive ways to lose; most recently, they’ve been spotting teams three- and five-goal leads before storming back and making the game interesting, only to fall a goal short in the end. Some of their most exciting hockey of the year has come in the third periods of three of their last four games. The flipside of that is the team was godawful during the first and second periods of those same games.

This weekend, the Pens play rare back-to-back home games at the Arena, against New Jersey on Saturday and Philadelphia on Sunday. If nothing else, the team can throw a small monkey wrench into their hated rivals’ playoff plans. You should go see them while you still can. The Pens need your love.

Do you really want this town to be like Hartford?

Caione's plea to preserve Penguins presence.

by Ryan Caione

The NHL has settled down for a winter’s nap as its best players travel to Turin to compete in the Olympics. The break comes at a good time for the Penguins. Heading into the two-week respite, they won back-to-back games for only the third time all season, beating one of the best teams in the league, Carolina, and one of the worst, Washington. (No matter how bad they are, the Penguins will always own the Capitals.) Also heartening is the fact that the Penguins’ most pivotal players, Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Mark Recchi, and, yes, Sergei Gonchar, who had perhaps his best game of the season against his former Capitals teammates, played exceptionally well in those two contests. And the Penguins are bad enough that only two of their players, Gonchar (Russia) and Tomas Surovy (Slovakia), are representing their countries at the Games. Their teammates should be able to take much-needed rests while representatives of other NHL squads, most of which have several Olympic competitors each, go through the grind of up to eight games in 12 days.

Of course, all is not peaches and cream for our Favorite Waterfowl. The team is on the selling block and will be moved if a new arena is not built in Pittsburgh, just as attendance at games is on the rise and the Penguins stockpile young talent. Gaming company Isle of Capri has already ponied up the dough to build a new venue using no taxpayer funds. The deal is contingent on the firm receiving the state slot machine license allocated to Pittsburgh. It seems like such a no-brainer. The Civic Arena is over 40 years old. Despite what the Tribune-Review would have you believe, a new arena would not be solely used for hockey. Pittsburgh will eventually need a new all-purpose arena, for numerous events: basketball games – remember, when the NCAA tournaments come to town, they are held there -- circuses, concerts, conventions, truck pulls, and may others. And if, god forbid, the Penguins leave, a minor-league team would surely move in to take their place, for Pittsburgh has one of the best, most-knowledgeable hockey fan bases in the US.

If Isle of Capri doesn’t win the slots license, no fewer than seven cities are competing for the right to be the Penguins’ new home city. Three of them, Winnipeg, Hartford, and Kansas City, have had and lost NHL teams in the past, and are obviously still smarting from their loss of their major league franchises. Two others, Portland, Oregon and Hamilton, Ontario want to join the ranks of the big leagues. All five of these markets are smaller than Pittsburgh. Another candidate, Las Vegas, can be disregarded, I believe, in light of the Rich Tocchet/Janet Jones gambling scandal. I don’t know why the final candidate, Houston, wants a team. Most Texans wouldn’t know a hockey puck from a pierogi.

Much of Pittsburgh’s civic pride and national perception derives from their sports teams. For a city that is still recovering from the demise of the steel industry a generation ago, losing another major part of its identity would be an irreparable blow (just ask Winnipeg, Hartford, and Kansas City). I can understand Mayor Bob, County Man Dan, and Governor Ed wanting to have a “Plan B” for a new arena if the Isle of Capri deal falls through. But hopefully the state Gaming Board will do the most obvious -- and right -- thing to keep the Pens in town.

To each of them: Please keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. The city can’t afford to lose them.

The best hangs up the blades

Lemieux quits, life sucks.

by Ryan Caione

The Penguins sure don’t want us to be happy, do they? All the news coming from the Igloo is bad. Ziggy Palffy abruptly retires after a forgettable stint with the Pens. The team is officially put on the auction block. Their losing streak reached double digits. I had prepared a piece on Monday night bemoaning the team’s rotten luck on the ice after they’ve played tough against the hated Rangers and Flyers, only to lose late in the games amid unusual circumstances. But I showed up at work on Tuesday morning and read the sad news. Mario Lemieux is retiring, again. This time for good.

My love for the Steelers is deep and abiding, but the Penguins were my first. Sure, some of my earliest memories involve family parties on Super Bowl Sundays, but they also involve attending Penguins games with my dad in the early Eighties in a half-empty Civic Arena. Everyone loved the Steelers, of course. Very few, at the time, loved the Penguins. You may recall otherwise, but there was not much fanfare around town when Lemieux began his career in 1984. (The team only attracted slightly over 10,000 fans per game his first year and a sold-out Civic Arena was almost unheard of.) The Penguins were a team I could call my own, and now they had a transcendent star that no one knew about except for me and few other die-hard hockey fans, at least in my 12-year-old mind. Of course, that all changed. It took a few years, but people began climbing on the Penguins bandwagon, culminating with the team’s back-to-back Stanley Cup wins.

They all came to see the greatest player of his era, if not of all time. (I never saw Bobby Orr or Gordie Howe in their prime, obviously.) Lemieux has done things on the ice – score five goals in a game five different ways, score on a face-off, score with his back to the net and his stick between his legs – that no one has ever accomplished. Don’t let anyone tell you Wayne Gretzky was better (though he’s a distant second). Sure, he is the NHL’s all-time leading scorer and owns a barrel full of records that will never be broken. But he played on a team with future Hall-of-Famers from the start of his career while Lemieux plied with the likes of Jim McGeough, Mitch Lamoureux, and a lamp post.

Gretzky’s best hockey attributes -- grace, vision, hands – were all matched, if not surpassed by the much larger Lemieux, who, because of his size and reach advantage, is undoubtedly the player that opposing goalies feared most one-on-one. While Lemieux was never a brawler, he always stuck up for himself; Gretzky had hired goons for that. And Lemieux always seemed to play his best when it was most appropriate, like when he scored a hat trick in the first period of the only NHL All-Star Game held in Pittsburgh, or when he scored four goals in what was (at the time) to be his last game in his hometown of Montreal, or when he scored five goals two days after the birth of his son -- against Gretzky’s St. Louis Blues, no less.

But for all his magic on the ice, Lemieux’s greatest triumphs came off of it. His goal and assist totals may have approached Gretzky’s if his career hadn’t been interrupted several times by frightening health problems. Not by typical hockey-related bumps and bruises, which he endured, but by nightmares you wouldn’t wish on anyone: a congenital narrowing of the spine, a staph infection, an irregular heartbeat, a cancerous lymph node. The fact that he overcame these not only while in the public eye, but while continuing to perform at a level high above his peers, is an inspiration to all and will be his greatest legacy. In 1993, on the day he underwent his last radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s disease, he hopped a plane to Philadelphia and promptly scored a goal and an assist. He missed 23 games that year due to the grueling therapy and still came back and won the NHL scoring title, for Pete’s sake.

Of course, the Pittsburgh would not have a National Hockey League team if not for Lemieux. He saved it at the gate by putting fannies in the seats in the 1980s, and he saved it from bankruptcy by parlaying the money owed to him by the franchise into a controlling stake in the team in 1998. He was never one of us, per se (after all, how many princely French-Canadian millionaires are there roving around Pittsburgh?), is shy by nature and prizes his privacy so much that he never allowed much of his personality off the ice. But he always seemed like he was just one of the guys around his teammates. And by choosing to live in Pittsburgh after his playing career and investing his own money in the franchise, he showed that he cares for us and his adopted home. Cynics may suggest that by putting the team up for sale and retiring now, Lemieux is getting out when the getting’s good, and is looking after his own interests first and foremost. That may be true; only he knows for sure. But he also knows what sport means to Pittsburgh and I think he has done most everything in his power to ensure that we have Penguins hockey to get us through these grey January and February days. And he provided more good times and sweet memories to us than we had any right to expect.

My top ten Mario moments (these aren’t the most important or most famous, mind you, just my favorites):

10. The Penguins were playing in Quebec in February 1987, I think. The game wasn’t televised, so I was listening on the radio. Mike Lange called a goal that you had to be there to believe and went so far to suggest watching the 11 o’clock news that night for the highlights. Here’s what happened: Mario got the puck around center red. Nordiques defenseman Marc Fortier, a step behind Lemieux, dug his stick into Mario’s gut, and then hit him with it a couple times. When that didn’t work, Fortier threw one arm around Lemieux’s waist and threw other up the air like a rodeo cowboy. Not only did that not slow Lemieux down as he bore down on the goalie on a 90-foot breakaway, but he scored with Fortier still riding piggyback.

9. April 2, 1988. In their second-to-last game of the season, the Penguins needed a win in Washington to remain in playoff contention, even though their bumbling coach at the time, Pierre Creamer, was unaware of that fact. In overtime, Lemieux took matters into his own hands, burst down the right side toward the goal, got clipped from behind by Capitals defenseman Larry Murphy, and scored the game-winning goal while sliding toward the net on his backside. Pens win 7-6.

8. February 4, 1997. Lemieux’s 600^th goal. It wasn’t fancy, just an empty-netter, but he had several near-misses during the game. Mr. Dish and I were there at the Arena, screaming our fool heads off the entire time.

7. January 29, 1991. I was at the Arena, again, this time for Lemieux’s first game back after recovering from back surgery and a staph infection.

6. May 8, 2001. Game 6 of the 2001 Eastern Conference Semifinals. With the Penguins on the brink of elimination against the Buffalo Sabres, with the goalie pulled, the puck miraculously drops at Lemieux’s feet at the edge of the crease with less than a minute-and-a-half to play. He scores to send the game into overtime and the Pens go on to win the series.

5. May 17, 1991. During the Pens’ first run to the Stanley Cup, Mario made three grown men look like peewees. He split between Minnesota defenders Neil Wilkinson and Shawn Chambers, who both spun 360 degrees in the spot where they were standing. Then he bore down on diminutive goalie Jon Casey, who was faked to his knees as Mario scored on the backhand on a breakaway.

4. December 31, 1988. Lemieux scored five goals every way possible – even-strength, power-play, short-handed, penalty shot, and empty net. Against the stinking Devils, no less. Happy New Year.

3. April 25, 1989. Game 5 of the 1989 Division Finals against Philadelphia. Mario put on clinic, scoring 8 points (5 goals and 3 assists) and infuriating hothead Flyers goalie Ron Hextall in a 10-7 win.

2. March 2, 1993. The day of his final radiation treatment. A goal and an assist. Even the notoriously rude Philly fans gave him an extended ovation.

1. December 27, 2000. The Comeback. I was at the Arena for this one, too. I’m not ashamed to say that, along with my wedding day (and an AFC Championship Sunday a couple of days ago), that was one of the happiest days of my life.

Thanks, Mario. Enjoy your retirement.

(AP photos)

Penguins report: Go Steelers

The Penguins stink. 

by Ryan Caione

This is nothing new. They have lost their last seven games in regulation, their longest such streak in a season that is fetid with losing streaks. But after the Steelers’ most exciting win in a generation, how could anyone possibly care? Sure, the Flightless Waterfowl are still drawing impressive crowds at the Igloo. But most of those tickets were purchased in the days after the team secured the rights to draft Sidney Crosby last summer. Pitt's basketball squad is off to an impressive start, is one of only three NCAA Division I teams without a loss, and beat perennial powerhouse Louisville on the road, but it barely registers in the city’s conscience. What chance does one of the laughingstocks of the NHL have?

When was the last time the Penguins were this irrelevant? Their rise to the top of the NHL in the early nineties coincided with the Pirates’ tailspin and since then, the Penguins have been the second-most popular team in town (albeit a distant second). The running joke is that the Pirates’ season ends when the Steelers start training camp and the Penguins’ season starts when the Steelers’ season ends. Of course, this year, the Pens’ season was over barely two months after it started.

Histrionics aside (and I love the fact that he called out his team after a poor showing against Edmonton last week), new coach Michel Therrien has not jumpstarted the team. The Pens have won only three games in the month since he was handed the keys to this jalopy. And now they’re brawlers. I’m not sure if that’s admirable or comical. After spotting the opposition 4-1 leads in three of the last four games (and four of the last six), the Penguins have implemented the strategy that if they can’t beat you on the scoreboard, they will beat you with their fists. And they’ve failed at that, too, the long arms of Colby Armstrong notwithstanding. In the first half of the season, the Penguins were involved in only 10 fights. Last Wednesday, the team engaged the Columbus Blue Jackets, of all teams, six times. They’ve had a fighting major in every game since, highlighted by the grudge match between the obnoxious (even when he wore a Penguins sweater) Matt Barnaby and Lyle Odelein in Chicago on Friday. (Poor Lyle Odelein. He has plugged away in the NHL for 15 seasons with little recognition, except from his teammates. He comes come to work everyday and takes abuse from opponents, fans, and his coach. He performs his job well, but screws up occasionally. Just like the rest of us.)

Now goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s contract is about to turn into a pumpkin. He has a clause that stipulates he be paid $3 million if he plays at least 20 minutes in 25 games; he’s appeared in 23. Therrien has tried to rest him, but Jocelyn Thibault, Dany Sabourin, and Sebastien Caron have all been yanked from the crease for impersonating a sewer grate in each of their most recent starts over the past week and a half. Unlike many fans, I won’t be upset if Fleury is sent back to the minors before the clause kicks in. He would benefit from another playoff run in Wilkes-Barre Scranton rather than being used for target practice by NHL forwards. The Penguins projected a $7 million loss this season, with two rounds of playoffs factored in. That playoff run surely ain’t going to happen, so the team is likely staring at even bigger financial losses. If they were in the hunt for the postseason, I’d feel differently. But this season is over, for all intents and purpose. So bring on Pitt’s Big East schedule. Bring on the Turin Olympics (which will mercifully interrupt the Penguins season for two weeks in February). And most important of all, bring on the Broncos.

(The hated New York Rangers, sporting no fewer than five former Penguins, come to the Civic Arena on Thursday, by the way.)

The stars of the week:

Dick LeBeau, Big Ben, the Bus, Joey Porter, James Farrior, Troy Polamalu, Heath Miller, Fast Willie, Alan Faneca, Casey Hampton, Hines Ward, Coach Cowher, et al. Go Steelers!

Un Deux Trois

As a lifelong Penguins fan, I innately despise three teams: the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Rangers, and the New Jersey Devils.

by Ryan Caione

Of course, they all have been rivals of the Pens since the old Patrick Division days. But the Devils and the Rangers epitomize the troubles that led to the lockout that eradicated the 2004-05 NHL season. The Rangers almost single-handedly knocked the league’s salary structure out of whack by overpaying lummoxes like Bobby Holik and Eric Lindros $9 million a year. (Of course, the team hasn't made the playoffs since 1997, and their futility evokes fancy words like hubris and schadenfreude.)

New Jersey set the NHL back decades with their clutching-and-grabbing trap defense that spread like smallpox when lesser teams tried to replicate the success of a nondescript Devils club that won the Stanley Cup in the strike-shortened 1995 season. The resulting deterioration in play throughout the league eventually led to changes to and enforcement of the rules that the Devils and their ilk flaunted for years.

The Flyers are, well, the Flyers -- insecure schoolyard bullies that take their cue from general manager Bobby Clarke, who, as a member of that team during the 1970s, embodied the inaccurate stereotype of hockey players as brutish toothless goons. Other than wearing a suit to work and some cosmetic dental bridgework, not much about him has changed.

Now you can add the Atlanta Thrashers to that list. Before this weekend, they were just another annoying expansion team like Columbus or Nashville, with ugly uniforms and a stupid nickname. I’ve never been to Atlanta, but I’ve been to other nouveau Sunbelt cities like Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston, soulless, sprawling amalgams of strip malls, subdivisions, and six-lane residential streets. I get the impression that Atlanta has much in common with those places, with the only difference being that it burned to the ground once.

Before this season, Atlanta had defeated the Penguins only three times in their five years of existence. This year, they doubled that total in four contests, and each game was notable. In the first meeting, on Oct. 27, Atlanta established a 4-0 lead before the Penguins scorched them for seven straight goals, including six power-play tallies, to win their first game of the season, 7-5. Two weeks later, the Thrashers humiliated the Pens, 5-0. Then, on Friday, Atlanta had another 5-0 lead before the Penguins stormed back with four third-period goals to make it very interesting. The game also featured a simmering feud between their superstar, Ilya Kovalchuk, and ours, Sidney Crosby, who bumped and smacked each other every time they were on the ice together. After his second goal of the game, Kovalchuk showed up Crosby by pointing toward him as he sat in the penalty box. It was like a scene from Youngblood (the worst hockey movie ever made).

The stage was set for the rematch Saturday night. A defining moment came in the second period when Crosby was penalized for diving after taking a stick to the chops, then was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for complaining about the call. Atlanta scored on the ensuing power play. The Thrashers' Jim Slater got credit for the goal after he should have been whistled for goaltender interference when he used the Pens' Marc-Andre Fleury as a divan moments before he scored. The game was decided late in the final period on yet another dubious call. With the game tied at three, Penguins defenseman Ryan Whitney was penalized for slashing while racing for the puck to touch up a routine icing. Atlanta scored another power-play goal with less than four minutes left and won. A rivalry was born.

It’s hard to work up as much froth for the Pens’ next opponent, the Edmonton Oilers, who come to the Igloo on Tuesday night. Since Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier left, I've admired the team: They’re based in Canada, were in a similar small-market predicament as the Pens, and they’ve always played a fast-skating, up-tempo game, even during the clutch-and-grab era, which is why my Dad and I would try and see them when they came to town each year. This season, they’re also red-hot, in second place in their division, and winners of 7 of their last 10, a run the Penguins can only dream of. Let’s hope the Flightless Waterfowl can keep up.

The three stars of the week:

3. Sidney Crosby – The kid’s on a 10 game scoring streak and it’s good to see him get a burr in his saddle. But he was assessed six penalties in the two Atlanta games this past weekend and his outbursts were as uncharacteristic as Troy Polamalu’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the Bengals playoff game. The Penguins need Crosby on the ice, not in the penalty box. He’s got to take a cue from his boss and landlord, Mario Lemieux, who has been known to score lethal goals when he gets riled.

2. Michel Ouellet – Where did this kid come from? And why did it take so long for him to get to the big leagues? All he does is score goals; he has 10 in the 10 games since his call-up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The way he stands at the side of the net and plunks in puck after puck recalls Robby Brown’s first time around with the Pens, except Ouellet can skate and play some defense, too. His hustle to prevent a meaningless empty-net goal at the end of Saturday’s game was commendable.

1. Ilya Kovalchuk – Amid all of his bush-league posturing, he was undeniably the best player on the ice over the weekend, netting five goals in two games against the Pens. The scoring rampage moved him ahead of Jaromir Jagr in the league’s goal-scoring race.

Photo: The handsome Ron Francis

Baby Pens shed diapers; still stink

Olczyk out. A chain-smoking French Canadian in. But don't breathe a sigh of relief yet.

by Ryan Caione

A couple of weeks ago, I opined that the Pittsburgh Penguins would likely lose a best-of-seven series against their superlative minor league club, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Baby Penguins. Now, for all intents and purposes, the team in Pittsburgh IS the Baby Penguins.

Coach Eddie Olczyk was finally given the boot last week and replaced by Michel Therrien, who led the Baby Pens to only one loss in regulation through two dozen games. What’s more, no fewer than 10 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton alums are now on the roster. It remains to be seen if the new coach, reputedly a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking French Canadian -- admirable qualities all -- can turn this mutha out. Neither history nor the talent he has to work with is on his side.

The Penguins traditionally haven’t taken kindly to coaches who treat them less than gently. General manager Craig Patrick and owner/captain Mario Lemieux like to keep the atmosphere light and breezy, running the team like an elite health spa. In the late 1980s, Gene Ubriaco, while no hockey guru (this quote is his career highlight), once likened coaching the Lemieux-captained Pens to teaching table manners to a shark. A few years later, the players ran living coaching legend Scotty Bowman out of town on a rail. Kevin Constantine, also a taskmaster, had limited success in the late 1990s.

However, unlike those men, Therrien has little to work with. There is no skill player in his prime on this team, except Dick Tarnstrom and Ziggy Palffy. At age 30 and 31, respectively, Jocelyn Thibault and Sergei Gonchar should be in their prime, but evidently, they are past it. There are no veteran checkers either. Every team needs a couple of foot soldier-types, even if they are Kent Manderville and Kelly Buchberger.

If this was before the lockout, Therrien might be able to whip the team into a crack squad of trappers. But speed is at a premium in the new NHL and for various reasons, the two fastest guys in the organization, Konstantin Koltsov and Rico Fata, remain exiled in Wilkes-Barre. Granted, neither were scoring, but what in the name of Dan Frawley is Matt Murley doing playing every single game? Shane Endicott and Matt Hussey have done little to distinguish themselves either.

Nearly half of this team’s personnel are 26 or younger and several of those youngsters show great promise. But those are characteristics of a minor league club, not one that just fired its coach in the hopes of clawing its way back into the NHL playoff race. If it waddles like a penguin and trumpets like a penguin, it must be a penguin. Unless it’s a Baby Penguin.

The Christmas presents of the week:

To Michel Therrien: Lozenges and honeyed tea. All that smoking and screaming – there will undoubtedly be copious amounts of both given the way the Pens play – can’t be good on the ol’ epiglottis.

To Craig Patrick -- A desperate (and gullible) trading partner.

To Sergei Gonchar - Bomb squad training, because he handles the puck as if it has a lit fuse. And ear plugs to block out the booing every time he touches it.

To Penguins fans – A stiff drink (and your dog one, too.) It’s already been a loooong season, and it’s not even halfway over. But a new year is upon us, so let’s look on the bright side. Michel Ouellet has the confidence of the new coach and thrived the past two games. Erik Christensen is my new favorite Penguin. We have one of the league’s best young forwards, Sidney Crosby, and one of its best young goalies, Marc-Andre Fleury. And for twenty years, we’ve been graced by the greatest hockey player who has ever lived.

Happy Holidays.

Fans to Pens: Put the talk on ice

Penguins don’t have lips. But members of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club have been flapping theirs, talking a much better game than they play.

by Ryan Caione

Penguins don’t have lips. But members of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club have been flapping theirs, talking a much better game than they play.

In the Post-Gazette over the past week, quotes attributed to various men associated with the team included: "We have to start winning games -- and winning a lot of games -- to get back in the race. We're running out of time,” and "We've lost so much. We're in a big hole, and we have to get out of it." Coach Eddie Olczyk went so far as to proclaim last Thursday night’s game against the Minnesota Wild a “must-win”. That rallied the troops to a disgusting 5-0 loss. Five nights later, they were shut out by the Detroit Red Wings on Monday night. (I refuse to acknowledge Mark Recchi’s irrelevant goal with 29 seconds left in the game.) The Penguins give lip service to having a sense of urgency. Then they loiter around, whistling, with their arms folded behind their backs.

Last week in this space I wrote that things couldn’t get much worse for the Penguins. Well, guess what? They have. Mario Lemieux was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat, which factored in his decision to withdraw his name from consideration for the Canadian Olympic team. A few days later, he asserted that the chances of the Penguins remaining in Pittsburgh beyond next season are “slim,” and in June 2006 the team can begin to solicit offers from buyers who could move the franchise to Kansas City, Houston, Las Vegas, or Portland, Oregon. In the more immediate future, the Penguins face the specter of being eliminated from the playoff race before Christmas.

On Tuesday night, the Penguins continue their unusual skein of games against Western Conference teams. A day after playing the best in the West, the team travels to St. Louis to play the worst. The Blues are one of the only NHL clubs in a more wretched state than the Penguins, and that’s quite a feat. The folks at the Outdoor Life Network must be delighted to be televising a contest between two teams that collectively have 13 wins in 55 games. I’ll be watching with morbid fascination, but you should read a book or spend time with loved ones.

The three stars of the week:

3. Maxime Talbot – He is one of the few Penguins who consistently exerts himself every game. His name doesn’t always show up on the score sheet, but Talbot does the little things that some of his teammates neglect, such as digging in the corners, taking the body, playing diligent defense, and killing penalties. His hard work paid off Saturday night in a rare victory over Colorado when he scored the eventual game-winning goal by crashing the net and following up on his own rebound. He also had a nice short-handed scoring chance against Detroit. The Penguins need more guys to play like he does.

2. Marc-Andre Fleury – The kid must’ve been quacking like a duck after Detroit used him for target practice. The Penguins parted like the Red Sea against the Red Wings and let them fire nearly 40 shots on the young netminder. When a goalie plays as well as Fleury did in keeping the game competitive – he stopped a ridiculous 18 of 19 shots in the first period -- the rest of the team usually responds by elevating their performance, if only because it’s the polite thing to do. Not the Penguins.

1. Henrik Zetterberg – His name sounds like it should belong to the pouting keyboardist of a German electronic band and he looks the part, too. But he scored the only two goals that Detroit needed in an easy win.

Pens lay eggs up and down the East Coast

..from the "What Exit?" State all the way down to Death's Waiting Room.

by Ryan Caione

As Pittsburgh was getting blasted with a Thanksgiving blizzard, the Penguins flew south, hoping that the warmer climes and two stumbling opponents would prove therapeutic to them, as they've been having troubles of their own. Instead they fared about as well as a real penguin would in Florida.

On Friday, the Penguins faced one of the few teams that have been worse off than they – the Florida Panthers, which hadn’t scored more than 4 goals all year. In fact, Florida hadn’t won a game in a month -- a span of twelve games -- and during that time they gave up a goal in the last ten seconds of a game four times. However, not only did their most recent win come against the Penguins back in October, but Florida had inexplicably defeated the Penguins the previous nine times the teams faced one another, too.

The first sign of trouble was that coach Eddie Olczyk, who is reluctant to tamper with his lineup after a win, again started Sebastien Caron in goal. Sure, Caron got credit for the win against Washington on Tuesday night, but he gave up four goals, including two in the third period, and barely kept them in the game as the Pens held onto to beat the Capitals, 5-4. That, er, momentum carried over into Friday night’s game in Miami, as Caron promptly gave up three goals in the game’s first ten minutes before getting the hook from Edzo. He was replaced by Jocelyn Thibault, who gave up three goals of his own as the Panthers cruised, 6-3. Caron and Thibault are upholding the team’s rich tradition by cementing their place in the pantheon of Mediocre Penguins Goalies from Quebec, joining Michel Dion, Denis Herron, Roberto Romano, Jean-Sebastien Aubin, and their patron saint, Gilles Meloche.

The Penguins continued their swing the Florida, facing the Tampa Bay Lightning two nights later. The Lightning are the defending Stanley Cup champions, but have been muddling through this season, bobbing around .500 and coming off an 8-2 loss at the hands of the New Jersey Devils, hardly an offensive juggernaut. The Penguins responded by handing Tampa Bay nine power play opportunities, three which led to goals, and were shut out until they scored a meaningless goal of their own with 73 seconds left in the game. It was one of the Penguins' most uninspired performances in a season that has been rife with them and is quickly slipping away.

Next up are the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night. They’re giving away free gloves at the Civic Arena. Mike Lange said they’re the real deal, boy (the gloves, that is, not the team).

The three stars of the week:

3. John Grahame – The Tampa Bay goalie almost threw a shutout and improved his career record to a gaudy 8-1-1 against Pittsburgh.

2. Olli Jokinen – The large, smiling Finn recorded his first career hat trick on Friday night against Pittsburgh. He’s also the captain of the Panthers. I wonder how many (or how few) people in South Florida know that.

1. The Baby Penguins – Not only has the Penguins’ minor-league club from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton infused the parent team with four young players – recent call-ups Matt Hussey and Michel Ouellet, as well as budding stalwarts Ryan Whitney and Erik Christensen -- but they haven’t yet lost a game yet in regulation, going an unbelievable 18-0-2. Like the Pittsburgh Pirates’ AAA team, the Indianapolis Indians, the Baby Pens probably would beat their major-league counterparts in a seven-game series.

Photo: The Egg-O-Mat, a fresh egg vending machine, was made by the Heinz Manufacturing Co. of Bristol, Conn., in the 1950s. Camillio Epstein, a Warren, N.J., farmer, put the Egg-O-Mat on his 50-acre farm in the early 1950s. After he sold the farm in the '80s, the Egg-O-Mat was neglected.

Read about more New Jersey oddities at www.weirdnj.com. Read about more Pittsburgh oddities here and here.

Pen-ding generation

The former tagline of the Pittsburgh Penguins, “The X Generation” suddenly rings true.

by Mark Weimer

Although the future of the Penguins as a franchise is bright, its continuance in Pittsburgh and the aging of its signed stars may not last the lifespan of a fluorescent light bulb.

Perhaps it is because of my fantastical addiction to Pittsburgh sports, but I doubt that I am the only one from this town who has noticed the transition of the NHL. The NHL of old, in which surely the bolstered roster of the Penguins would thrive, has become a lot younger a lot faster. Speed and quickness are the names of the game, and it is no surprise that players like rookie Crosby and second year player Eric Staal are putting up big numbers.

With such a change in the pace of the game, God of Offense Mario Lemieux looks even slower and the open offensive scheme employed by the Penguins for years seems to give no advantage whatsoever. In the last several games, my heart sank as Lemieux, inarguably the best athlete to ever play in Pittsburgh, did not seem to accelerate beyond a leisurely pace when breaking across the blue-line. Even his stick handling seemed slowed. Perhaps it is age, but perhaps it is acknowledgment. I’m sure he knows that he is not the future of the Penguins as a player, and that he must make his own transition. Let’s hope his recent funk the last few games dies out with the stomach virus he has been fighting during that time and that his upcoming absence from the Philly gives him some needed rest.

Let’s just hope the slightly younger offensive studs, like Gonchar and Palffy, become standouts and put up numbers which one might expect.

With a couple puzzle pieces, the Penguins will shine in the city of Pitttsburgh. Lemieux Group L.P. licensed slots would help and surely a kid named Malkin, who currently tears up the Russian Super League. Alexei Morozov is two points shy of Malkin’s 22 and the NHL may actually be suitable to Morozov’s need for space. He will probably never dress for Pittsburgh again.

For now, let’s just hope that Lemieux’s love for this town passes down to the kid and that there will be a team in this town on which the kid can play. Well, and hope that Thibault’s emergence from an injury induced coma and the Penguins improved defense is for real.

Pengies: Classic C students

Unless there is a dramatic roster shake-up (which could be forthcoming), the flightless waterfowl are what they are: a team that has won less than one-third of its games.

by Ryan Caione

One-fourth of the way into the grueling NHL season, the 2005-2006 Pittsburgh Penguins have thus far proved themselves incapable of carrying over momentum from shift to shift, much less game to game. They have, however, taken mediocrity to a new level. Unable to assemble a dominating performance to kick start their season, the Penguins instead are playing white-knuckle, seat-of-the-pants hockey. They sure aren’t going to win every game doing playing that way and it sure ain’t pretty, but at least it’s been fun to watch.

The Penguins have been ratcheting up their intensity, but it’s still not nearly good enough.

Last Monday night, after two lackluster periods against the Islanders, the Penguins turned up the juice in the third and tied the game, 2-2. What ensued was the longest shootout in the NHL thus far. Each team sent nine skaters to the red line with a chance to win the game. And each goalie turned away shot after shot, until New York defenseman Jason Blake finally beat Pens goalie Jocelyn Thiabualt. It was almost worth it.

Two nights later there was more suspense when brittle “Porcelain” Thiabault was scratched from his expected start against the Philadelphia Flyers after he took a puck in the shoulder during the pregame skate. (Isn’t that what goalies are supposed to do?) Marc-Andre Fleury, who by all rights should be the team’s regular goalie, got the surprise start, and played brilliantly, including some excellent saves during another overtime. Sidney Crosby took a cue from Mario Lemieux and proved that scoring is the best revenge after taking a stick to the face not once, but twice, from the uglier, slower Hatcher brother (Philly defenseman Derian). Crosby's second goal of the night, an overtime game winner, came on a breakaway that ranks as one of the most exciting moments in Penguins hockey over the last five years.

The rematch three nights later also had its share of drama as the Penguins matched the Flyers goal for goal, including one on a wicked shot by Erik Christensen (this kid gives us reason for hope, too) that tied the score at 3, nine seconds after Philadelphia had taken a lead. There was drama, that is, until Philadelphia took control of the game in the third period by forechecking the Penguins into submission, something that’s been happening with alarming regularity.

The Washington Capitals come to the Civic Arena on Tuesday night. This rivalry may have lost some of the vivacity that it had in late 1980s when both teams jockeyed for playoff positioning in the old Patrick Division, or in the 1990s when the Penguins almost annually ousted the Caps from the playoffs (we’ll pretend 1994 never happened, OK?) Even as recently as the season before the lockout, both teams were battling each other for the top pick in the draft. Now, the match-up of teenaged Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin (who is neck-and-neck with Crosby in talent, if not notoriety) should keep this rivalry kindled for years to come.

Three things to be thankful for:

3. Mike Lange – There once was a time that I thought maybe he was losing some of his vim. Maybe it was just me, but after he began doing TV games exclusively in the 1990s, his goal calls weren’t as exuberant; his one-liners were becoming stale. In fairness to him, I wasn’t listening to him regularly the last few years. But this season I am, and he seems to have regained his form. We're lucky to have a Hall-of-Famer calling our games every night.

2. Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Ronnie Francis, Jaromir Jagr, Badger Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, Craig Patrick, Paul Coffey, Darius Kasparaitis, Ulf Samuelsson, Joey Mullen, Brian Trottier, Jean Pronovost, Syl Apps, and all the other all-time hockey greats who called our fair city their home while plying their trade.

1. The Franchise – The Pittsburgh Penguins entered the NHL in 1967 in the league’s first attempt at expansion. Not only where they a fledging team, but they faced the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of the Pittsburgh Hornets, which had won the Memorial Cup as the American Hockey League champions the year before. Their first mascot, a hapless penguin named Pete, died from pneumonia. The team survived bankruptcy twice. It has also endured more untimely deaths of people associated with the team than is fair (Michel Breire, Baz Bastien, Badger Bob, Herb Brooks). But through it all, there has been the skating Penguin (the coolest logo in the NHL), two Stanley Cups, joy, memories, and the ability to unite the community that few things this side of the Steelers can. The Pittsburgh Penguins are a civic treasure, comparable to any educational, artistic, religious, or historical institution you can think of. I hope the muckety-mucks at the state, regional, and city levels do whatever is necessary to ensure that the Penguins will always hail from Pittsburgh, which can little afford to lose another piece of its identity.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Pimply faced Pens

The Penguins’ first 10 games were a period of adjustment. They served to give the team and its players time to get used to new faces, the two-line pass, tighter administration of obstruction rules, and to shake off rust after 15 months without NHL hockey. Over the past week-and-a-half, however, the team has had more emotional ups and downs than a teenager. Let’s recap, shall we? It’s really rather ridiculous.

by Ryan Caione

On Thursday, Nov. 3, the Penguins turned in their finest performance of the young season by leading wire-to-wire and dismantling the New York Islanders, 5-1. Two nights later in Boston, their special teams were appalling and they lost 6-3. Two late goals by the flightless waterfowl made the score closer than the game actually was.

Then, last Monday night in Madison Square Garden, the Pens and Rangers played an excellent, up-tempo game reminiscent of playoff contests filled with crisp passing, spirited checking, and end-to-end rushes. The good guys held on to win 3-2. On Wednesday night in Atlanta the Pens were atrocious, getting shut out 5-0 by a team that has used five goalies already this season.

The next night, after returning from their longest road trip of the season, they showed admirable spunk in another thriller, this time against Montreal, and won their first shootout ever 3-2 on Sidney Crosby’s brilliant top-shelf backhander. On Saturday night they were embarrassed again, this time at the hands of the Rangers, 6-1.

Anyone sense a pattern here? Just typing those paragraphs gave me vertigo. But you know what this means, don’t you? If the pattern holds Monday night against the Islanders, the Penguins will turn in a flawless performance, goalie Jocelyn Thiabault will stop flopping around in the crease like a spawning salmon, and goalless fourth-liners Konstantin Koltsov and Matt Murley will actually show up on the score sheet. A pivotal home-and-home series with the hated Philadelphia Flyers looms after that. Two wins in a row isn't too much to ask, is it?

The three stars of the week:

3. Steve Poapst – The journeyman veteran of 15 professional seasons, signed as an afterthought before the season and originally slated for spot duty, has been a pleasant surprise with his steady play.

2. Sidney Crosby – His game-winner in OT aside, did you see him the other night when he split two defensemen, got knocked to his knees, drew the penalty, and still got the shot off? A lot of ink and airtime has already been wasted on the 18-year-old phenom, but words do little justice to his talents.

1. Jerry Jagger – You may know him as Jaromir, Mario Jr., or Petulant Man-Child. On Saturday, five days after the Penguins broke his 12-game scoring streak, the Rangers winger (that still sounds odd) returned to the city that formerly embraced him as one of its own and, despite being booed almost each time he touched the puck, put up a hat trick against his former team. When the snow settled on the Civic Arena ice, he finished Saturday night tied with Philly’s Simon Gagne at his once-customary spot atop the league’s goal-scoring tables.

The education of the 2005-2006 Penguins continues

After the first month of the season, this much we know: This team is maddeningly inconsistent.

By Ryan Caione

And the only way to stop Sidney Crosby is to grab him by the neck of his sweater and drag him to the ice. We knew it would take a while for this team of old dogs to learn new tricks. The notion, prevalent leading up to the season and though the Penguins’ inauspicious start, was that their collected talent would eventually overcome mental lapses and deficiencies in execution. That hasn't happened, of course. But it does appear they may have mastered some of the new rules by actually figuring out how to check without being whistled for a penalty (or being afraid of getting caught).

Another area of improvement has been on the power play. Expected to be lethal, the unit had stalled. There are probably ruts in the Civic Arena ice at the two points inside the blue line and where, with a man-advantage, Mario Lemieux sets up shop to the right of the goalie. Perhaps his teammates were impersonating fire hydrants, trying to prove the old assertion that an inanimate object could score 40 goals playing alongside Lemieux. But the unit has alleviated some of the predictability by simply realizing that its advantageous to skate around, thereby creating space and confusing the opposition.

The Penguins followed up arguably their best performance of the season in New Jersey (yet another squandered third-period lead notwithstanding) with an even better game on Thursday on Long Island. They then followed that up with another absolute stinker against Boston, which still carries a grudge after we beat them eight straight times during the 1991 and 1992 playoffs. The flightless waterfowl resumed playing defense like matadors, waving their sticks at their opponents instead of red capes. They handed ten power play chances to the Bruins, including multiple two-man advantages, and Boston scored four power-play goals. Meanwhile, the Penguins' power play couldn't even get into the offensive zone, much less stand around while they were there. And aside from the potent grouping of Recchi, Crosby, and Lemieux, Eddie Olczyk still hasn’t settled on his three other lines. (Didn't they sign Ziggy Palffy? Or was that a dream?)

More troubling is the fact that the Penguins have given up the most goals in the NHL. They surrender the first -- and last -- goals of the game at an alarming rate. It’s not entirely the fault of the goalies, obviously, but no one has claimed that starting job. Sebastian Caron appeared, briefly, to have wrested the mantle from Jocelyn Thiabault. He even curbed his disturbing habit of kicking juicy rebounds into the slot. But the man apparently has no need for shinbones or goalie pads. On Saturday night in Boston, he spent more time on his knees than a penitent altar boy. You would think he would get the hint after the Bruins buzzed in three goals from the blue line on rising slap shots. It’s evident that Caron can’t handle the rigors of being a starting goalie that Edzo can send out between the pipes every other night.

Hockey games in November are rarely urgent. But the last-place Penguins need to beat the first-place Rangers on Monday night to keep pace in a close Atlantic Division race.

The three stars of the week:

3. The NHL Center Ice TV package – Sure, the hockey’s good, but there are also commercials from the home teams' cities during the broadcasts. Therefore, not only do I get to watch the Canucks or Oilers play some late-night firewagon hockey, I also get to watch ads for Ham and Egger breakfast sandwiches and the West Edmonton Mall. It’s almost like being above the border.

2.Ryan Whitney – On a team rife with players on the far side of their careers, another kid shows tons of promise. After a solid NHL debut, the former first-round pick appears to be a stalwart on the blue line for years to come. (Of course, the same has been said of penalty-prone Brooks Orpik, whom General Manager Craig Patrick grudgingly resigned before the season.) Whitney is an excellent passer and seems to position himself well defensively…most of the time. He just needs to stay out of his own crease.

1. Sergei Gonchar – He broke out of a slump two weeks ago, then evoked Paul Coffey by finishing an end-to-end rush with a pretty backhander to beat Scott Clemmensen and the New Jersey Devils in overtime on Tuesday. He even checked somebody the other night. I swear.

Vegas on the Mon for Mario

The quest for a new hockey arena in Pittsburgh hit another snag as poorly structured families explained their poorly structured ways.

By Mark Weimer

The most realistic development that could bring a new hockey arena to Pittsburgh is revenue from slot machines which could exist in Pittsburgh by 2007. Despite the promise of increased revenue, some speak out against the plan citing their former spouse’s addictions and idiocy.

According to the Post-Gazette, a meeting was held at the Regional Enterprise Center concerning slot revenue and the finances for a new hockey arena. Two men brought forth ideas, along with a binder containing 26,000 signatures of people who supported the Penguins’ bid for slot revenue. A wide variety of topics were discussed, with the idiots focusing on the devastation of gambling.

One person illustrated the ill effects of gambling, explaining that her ex-husband lost over $50,000. Such loss caused hardships for the family, which seems evident with a divorce. "It blows my mind. How can we destroy lives for money?" she asked. Although nobody responded with such retorts as Operation Iraqi Freedom, outsourcing, or Wal-Mart, it seems clear that gambling was on a different circle of Dante’s hell. Idiotically, this may be true. Nevertheless, in order to justify her presence at the meeting, she added that should gambling exist in Pittsburgh, it should also put revenue towards counseling, college scholarships, grief support, childcare, and other services for loser families.

No blame was placed on the husband, who entered the gambling facility, was checked at the door, walked about for an undisclosed amount of time, and knowingly lost a sum of money.

Another obstacle for a new arena concerns the state of Mellon Arena. Much like a parking lot, frozen pond, street, or driveway, a speaker stated that Mellon Arena was “still adequate” for hockey. Although this statement does not differentiate Mellon Arena from the skating rink and in short articulates nothing, it is not an unpopular opinion. Many idiots believe that Mellon Arena, the oldest, smallest, crappiest arena in the NHL can be the home of a revived Penguin franchise, which struggles to suit fans needs due to its size. The Penguins, despite astronomical ticket sales, are set to lose money this season. To be brief, a new arena would offer more seats, leading to better prices, thus drawing larger crowds to fund a team that has laid the foundations for a hockey dynasty. Leave it to the idiots to destroy hope and promise.

There is no doubt Pittsburgh is in a financial funk. However, at heart Pittsburgh is its culture, its sports teams, its arts, its aesthetics, and its history. Slot machines will be a huge draw to the city and will generate revenue which can be used to improve the other aspects of the city. Atlantic City? Nothing. Everybody, at heart, knows the Penguins need a new arena. There won’t be hockey in Pittsburgh without a new arena, and that will be a greater loss for this town than that which slots can generate.

New columnist covers Ice Burg

Hockey's back.

The following is the first of a series of dispatches from that hotbed of Pittsburgh Penguins fandom, Austin, Texas. The author, Ryan Caione, and his wife, Angela Hoover, moved there in, what was it? 1998? when the then Miss Hoover's job transferred her South. He's got that NHL TV package that allows him to watch all the hockey he wants and he writes well, hence this column.

Caione is a graduate of Beaver High School, as is Mr. Dish. He, like many Beaver High School alums who graduated between, say 1987 and 1992, slouches in an appalling fashion when sitting at a bar stool. Caione and Mr. Dish have theorized this has something to do with the collective self esteem of a group that grew up watching the Steel industry go down the tube as Ronald Reagan presided. Caione frequently exhibited this behavior when he was a student at Pitt, particularly in Oakland's now defunct Beermuda Triangle at the intersection of N. Craig and Centre Ave. He now writes about banks and such for something called Hoovers, one of those online thingies. The similarity between the name of his employer and the maiden name of his wife is purely coincidental.

It’s been too long without hockey. Too long with out pucks, sticks, skates, checks, Mike Lange’s non sequiturs, and guys with names like Maxim Afinogenov and Saku Koivu. Heck, I even started to miss clutching and grabbing. (But who doesn’t now and again?) And I doubt I was the only person who sat through the feel-good family documentary of this past summer and thought of Mario Lemieux every time Morgan Freeman said “emperor penguin."

After a lonely year-and-a-half devoid of hockey due to the work stoppage that eradicated the 2004-2005 season, it’s supposed to be a new era in the NHL. There are new rules. Tie games are a thing of the past, thanks to overtime shootouts. There is more economic equanimity between teams and a promised end to the garage-league tactics (i.e. clutching and grabbing) that the Emperor Penguin Himself has been decrying for a decade and a half.

So far, however, this year’s team has not represented a brave new world, as their off-season signings of proven -- yet aging --familiar players (Mark Recchi, Sergei Gonchar) may have implied. Instead our most favorite waterfowl recall the Reagan era when the Penguins, as they have so far this season, displayed an aptitude for forgoing defensive structure and allowing 7-6 and 6-5 games to slip from their reach. They've won only 2 of their last 20 games in Philadelphia, making Wachovia Center seem like an eerie replica of the old Philly Spectrum, where the Pens didn't win from 1975 to 1989. I won't harp on the fact that the Pens of the mid-1980s also hung hopes on erstwhile 40-goal scorers procured off the street (lord, I hope John LeClair is not Charlie Simmer).

There are flashes of brilliance and times when you, sitting on the couch, think you can play better than they. Nonetheless, the team has played only six games of a scheduled 82. Certainly this year's edition of the Penguins have the talent and savvy to adjust to the new free-flowing rules, rather than collectively playing like a beheaded chicken. Maybe they'll even win a game. But lost points against the likes of Carolina and Buffalo, not to mention division foes New Jersey and Philadelphia, likely will haunt them come spring.

The three stars of the week:

3. Sidney Crosby has been as advertised and better. He’s dreamy.

2. Two nights after New Jersey goalie Marty Brodeur stymied the Penguins in the season opener, Cam Ward, the rookie goalie of the Carolina Hurricanes, turned in an overlooked performance. In the best game of the first week, some guy I’d never heard of had me pulling out my hair as the Penguins set up chance after point-blank chance and he repeatedly denied them. The Hurricanes won 3-2 in the Penguins' first-ever overtime shootout.

1. Can Rico Fata get some love? Why isn’t he mentioned in the same breath as his team's owner and that guy who wins Tours de France (and stomach cancer survivor S