Penguins' Franchise Can't Escape Funk
By John Mehno

Hockey is in trouble in Pittsburgh. Again.

People who jumped on the bandwagon in the late 1980s don't understand that the current predicament used to be a way of life for the Penguins. The goals were always the same: Just squeeze into the playoffs and hope that would let them make the next payroll.

That was a million years ago, days when department stores and movie theaters thrived in downtown Pittsburgh and your monthly parking bill didn't exceed the payment on the car. Fans filled about half the seats at the Civic Arena, which had fewer seats then, and were something of a peculiar cult in a football-mad town.

Fans were so starved for information that they'd call Myron Cope and politely ask if there were any plans to do a hockey show. They'd get about one a month in season, which was probably the proportion needed to keep from annoying the football-mad audience. The crusty old lead columnists from the city's two dailies rarely bothered with hockey, so the team's publicity man would drag one of the players across the street for a lunch interview that might yield some extra coverage.

When fans gathered on the Arena's concourses to swap irrational trade rumors, they also shared their dream, a deep pockets owner who would come in and run the franchise properly. In the interim, they kept the faith and believed that the over-the-hill discards the Penguins salvaged from good teams would somehow make things better.

When the front office couldn't produce talent, it substituted mayhem. Battleship Kelly, Steve Durbano, Bryan Watson, Dave Schultz and Gary Rissling were among those who slugged their way through Pittsburgh.

Things changed with the arrival of one man and it wasn't Mario Lemieux. It was Edward DeBartolo, Sr., a millionaire mall developer from Youngstown who came to town with a scowl, a very low profile and a checkbook. DeBartolo was a tough businessman, the equipment manager couldn't order a $3 roll of stick tape without clearance from the home office, but he gave the franchise stability.

Even though he had no great affection for hockey (and tended to bluntly express that), DeBartolo authorized and funded the building program that finally let the Penguins plan a future beyond one season or one pay period. He let the Penguins escape the "just make the playoffs" mindset and rot enough to get the first overall choice the year Lemieux was the jewel of the draft.

DeBartolo allowed them to trade for Paul Coffey and Tom Barrasso and add payroll even when the investment wasn't paying off. He kept paying the bills and the Penguins eventually won the Stanley Cup. They had a rally to celebrate at Point State Park and people booed when DeBartolo was introduced.

So now the Penguins are awful and barely solvent again and fans again dream of a miracle millionaire (Mark Cuban?) who will come in and spend with little regard for the bottom line.

The Penguins had an owner like that once, and people booed him.

In other matters:

• As bad as the Pirates have been for the last 11 years, has there been a season that's created less anticipation than this one? Radical measures might be needed to sell tickets for those weeknight games in April and September. Paris Hilton Video Night, anyone?



• Kelly Buchberger of the Penguins played 46 games without collecting a point. That's almost impossible for a forward, given the liberal policies for awarding assists. Put it this way: There were 19 NHL goaltenders who had collected at least one assist when Buchberger's shutout was still in effect.



• Funniest late night TV show? Consistently, it's cult favorite the Fedko Fone Zone on PCNC.



• What's the only thing worse than this Penguins' season? How about a half-hour post-game phone-in radio show. Some poor slob punches up the station, hoping to hear "Wooly Bully" and he gets Tab Douglas jabbering about who looks good in Wilkes-Barre these days.



• When the Pirates were heading toward arbitration with shortstop Jack Wilson, the two sides were said to be $450,000 apart on a 2004 salary figure. You could argue that Wilson's talents aren't worth $450,000, never mind having that amount as the gulf between estimates.



• Mike Mularkey became the latest in a long line of Bill Cowher assistants to move up to a head coaching job. Maybe other teams recognize that anyone who can survive working for Cowher has the mental toughness to take on the challenge of running his own show. It's an impressive alumni list and even more surprising given the lack of opportunities Chuck Noll's assistants got in the Super Bowl years.



• Some of those bobbleheads are amazingly realistic. My Mike Lange Talking model keeps ordering another round.

John Mehno can be reached online at: johnmehno@lycos.com