By John Buccigross
Special to ESPN.com
Oct. 12, 2006, 4:44 PM ET
We're going back to Pittsburgh? Nah, I don't think so
The Pittsburgh Penguins are history. Gone. You can kiss them goodbye. And there is nooooooooooo doubt about it.
New owner-in-waiting Jim Balsillie has given Mario Lemieux a giant hockey bag of cash that will allow Mario to join seven more country clubs and buy 18,378 more bottles of wine. Balsillie will also take away Mario's legacy as a player when he moves the team to Hamilton or Toronto or Las Vegas or Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan. Mario will not have an NHL sweater anymore. Scratch my back with a hacksaw and buy my dog one, too.
Great Balsillie of fire.
Balsillie will move the Penguins. Pittsburgh is the 22nd-largest TV market in the United States and that number will likely move in the wrong direction in this century. Bigger market sizes (TV homes) that don't have NHL teams: Orlando (20th), Sacramento (19th), Cleveland (16th), Seattle (13th), Houston (10th) and Chicago (third). (For the record, Hartford is 28th. It's the largest TV market without a pro sports team and a larger market than Raleigh, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Kansas City, Columbus, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y. A man can dream, can't he?)
The Penguins will not be going to Las Vegas, which is the 48th market and has slightly more TV homes than Buffalo (49th). Sure, some sleazy high roller might go to a few games in Lost Wages, but while Sidney Crosby has a nine-point night, he will be playing video poker on the back of the seat in front of him, leave in the second period to get some free prime rib and will pass on a Peter Lee bobblehead doll at the souvenir stand. Plus, you could build nine brand-new hockey arenas with the money lost at blackjack tables by players over the past 15 years. This is the last place the NHL needs to be.
The Penguins will not be going to Kansas City (31st). The Penguins will end up in Canada. And why not? What the NFL is to the United States, the NHL is to Canada. Passion has never been higher and the Penguins have a ready-made Canadian icon in Crosby. You can't imagine the immediate impact this would have in Canada. The cash to be made by Balsillie is mind-boggling. There is a huge economic windfall to be made in Ontario. The Ontario Ministry of Finance (were they in an Austin Powers movie?!) reported last April that the province's population is projected to grow by 30.7 percent, or 3.9 million, from an estimated 12.54 million to 16.40 million by July 1, 2031. The population reaches 14.54 million under the low-growth scenario and 17.85 million under the high-growth scenario by 2031.
Supporting another hockey team in Ontario, especially near Toronto, will not be a problem. It poses the same question I had about Minnesota a few years back when that city didn't have a team: "What took so long?" When the North Stars moved to Dallas, I would have done everything possible to get my franchise to Minnesota if it was based in the States before it was awarded the Wild.
And Balsillie has the pockets to float the ship until it takes full sail. In 1999, Research In Motion, a small pager manufacturer, introduced the BlackBerry. It quickly became one of the most successful high-tech companies of all time, slightly edging out Atari and Gottlieb, who made the video game Q*bert in 1982. Ol' Jimbo became one of the richest men in Canada. Balsillie and his co-chief executive, Mike Lazaridis, were collectively paid $95 million this year. Balsillie is now worth an estimated $1 billion thanks to the success of the BlackBerry. The man has a lot of Balsillies.
Balsillie is also a well-known philanthropist ("I give to you … a hockey team!) in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario, where Research In Motion is based and where he lives with his Canadian wife and two Canadian children. This guy is more Canadian than the late John Candy drinking Blue backstage at a Hip concert. He ain't moving to Upper St. Clair, Sewickley, or Indiana, Pa.
But we won't hear him say that. He will say all the right things until the moving vans are heading north on I-79.
FULL STORY
Special to ESPN.com
Oct. 12, 2006, 4:44 PM ET
We're going back to Pittsburgh? Nah, I don't think so
The Pittsburgh Penguins are history. Gone. You can kiss them goodbye. And there is nooooooooooo doubt about it.
New owner-in-waiting Jim Balsillie has given Mario Lemieux a giant hockey bag of cash that will allow Mario to join seven more country clubs and buy 18,378 more bottles of wine. Balsillie will also take away Mario's legacy as a player when he moves the team to Hamilton or Toronto or Las Vegas or Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan. Mario will not have an NHL sweater anymore. Scratch my back with a hacksaw and buy my dog one, too.
Great Balsillie of fire.
Balsillie will move the Penguins. Pittsburgh is the 22nd-largest TV market in the United States and that number will likely move in the wrong direction in this century. Bigger market sizes (TV homes) that don't have NHL teams: Orlando (20th), Sacramento (19th), Cleveland (16th), Seattle (13th), Houston (10th) and Chicago (third). (For the record, Hartford is 28th. It's the largest TV market without a pro sports team and a larger market than Raleigh, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Kansas City, Columbus, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y. A man can dream, can't he?)
The Penguins will not be going to Las Vegas, which is the 48th market and has slightly more TV homes than Buffalo (49th). Sure, some sleazy high roller might go to a few games in Lost Wages, but while Sidney Crosby has a nine-point night, he will be playing video poker on the back of the seat in front of him, leave in the second period to get some free prime rib and will pass on a Peter Lee bobblehead doll at the souvenir stand. Plus, you could build nine brand-new hockey arenas with the money lost at blackjack tables by players over the past 15 years. This is the last place the NHL needs to be.
The Penguins will not be going to Kansas City (31st). The Penguins will end up in Canada. And why not? What the NFL is to the United States, the NHL is to Canada. Passion has never been higher and the Penguins have a ready-made Canadian icon in Crosby. You can't imagine the immediate impact this would have in Canada. The cash to be made by Balsillie is mind-boggling. There is a huge economic windfall to be made in Ontario. The Ontario Ministry of Finance (were they in an Austin Powers movie?!) reported last April that the province's population is projected to grow by 30.7 percent, or 3.9 million, from an estimated 12.54 million to 16.40 million by July 1, 2031. The population reaches 14.54 million under the low-growth scenario and 17.85 million under the high-growth scenario by 2031.
Supporting another hockey team in Ontario, especially near Toronto, will not be a problem. It poses the same question I had about Minnesota a few years back when that city didn't have a team: "What took so long?" When the North Stars moved to Dallas, I would have done everything possible to get my franchise to Minnesota if it was based in the States before it was awarded the Wild.
And Balsillie has the pockets to float the ship until it takes full sail. In 1999, Research In Motion, a small pager manufacturer, introduced the BlackBerry. It quickly became one of the most successful high-tech companies of all time, slightly edging out Atari and Gottlieb, who made the video game Q*bert in 1982. Ol' Jimbo became one of the richest men in Canada. Balsillie and his co-chief executive, Mike Lazaridis, were collectively paid $95 million this year. Balsillie is now worth an estimated $1 billion thanks to the success of the BlackBerry. The man has a lot of Balsillies.
Balsillie is also a well-known philanthropist ("I give to you … a hockey team!) in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario, where Research In Motion is based and where he lives with his Canadian wife and two Canadian children. This guy is more Canadian than the late John Candy drinking Blue backstage at a Hip concert. He ain't moving to Upper St. Clair, Sewickley, or Indiana, Pa.
But we won't hear him say that. He will say all the right things until the moving vans are heading north on I-79.
FULL STORY