Sunday, November 09, 2003

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Every year about this time, the phone rings in Frank Brown's New York office with questions from reporters about sagging attendance. And, even though the origin of the questions varies from season to season, his answer tends to remain the same.

"You are always going to have a team first in attendance and one that is 30th," said Brown, the NHL's vice president of media relations. "We will never avoid that."

Thus, Brown said, the league has no concern that crowds of 10,000 are showing up in venerable locations such as Chicago and Boston. Or that empty seats are appearing in places which long have drawn automatic sellouts such as New York, Dallas and Philadelphia.

Or that a team with the best individual gate attraction in the game, plus an 18-year-old rookie earning headlines everywhere he goes, is experiencing the league's largest drop.

The Penguins are averaging 12,119 through six games at Mellon Arena, down 2,683 from the same point a year ago. The average is second-worst in the league to the Carolina Hurricanes, who are drawing 12,040.

NHL officials are plenty aware that crowds have diminished in Pittsburgh.

"We keep track of everybody," Brown said. "We always monitor attendance."

But that, he added, does not mean they are expending energy worrying about the future of hockey here.

"There are 41 home games in a season. It is impossible to make sweeping generalities based on six games. We know Pittsburgh is off some from last year, but I think you have to look at where things were there last year."

He pointed to the Penguins' 7-2-2-1 start in 2002-03, fueled by 29 points from Mario Lemieux and a power play clicking at a league-record pace of 37 percent.

"The way Mario was going, the way the team was going forward, there was a lot going on."

The team is not nearly as successful this season, but the return of Lemieux and the emergence of Marc-Andre Fleury reasonably might have been expected to, if nothing else, keep attendance level. Instead, it has made the most dramatic drop in the league by a wide margin.

The second-worst drop belongs to the San Jose Sharks, who have lost 2,101. Others with drops of 1,500 or more are the Washington Capitals (1,935), New York Islanders (1,672), and Nashville Predators (1,613).

But, as Brown stressed, pluses nearly offset the minuses.

The Buffalo Sabres, buoyed by new ownership, are up 22 percent, gaining 2,609 fans. The Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils are up 1,510. The Phoenix Coyotes, who move to a new arena at mid-season, are up 1,243. The Atlanta Thrashers, thanks to the game's most exciting performer in Ilya Kovalchuk, are up 433.

Overall, the NHL's average attendance is 15,890, down only 132 from the same point a year ago. It finished last season at 16,589, as hockey in the U.S. tends to draw its best crowds once the footballs have been packed away.

That almost always has been the case in Pittsburgh.

"Funny thing is, no one calls me at the end of the year to ask me what I think about eight consecutive sellouts in Penguins-land or wherever," Brown said. "We look at the way the league is doing as a whole, and the numbers show we are pretty much where we were a year ago."

Icy chips

Part of the reason goals are vanishing is the mounting sentiment among players that it is inevitable. Witness this response from Mats Sundin when asked Tuesday at Air Canada Centre why he and Lemieux and so many other established scorers in the league have two goals or less: "I don't know. You see other players are scoring. But it's very competitive. Look at the standings. Obviously, it is important for the league to get production from a lot of its top players, but everybody's biggest concern is how their team is doing." Asked if there is anything the NHL can do about that: "I don't know. It's a tough question. I really think it's just a case of the league getting more competitive. I think it's tough to see how you're going to change that."

The beginning of the end for Ron Francis? His past three ice-time logs have read 12:47, 12:23 and 13:06, his lowest since 1999. He also has been bumped from first line to third and off the first-team power play. Carolina management has acknowledged a lesser role for Francis, 40, who has two goals, one assist in 13 games. "These are the kind of players you think are going to play forever," general manager Jim Rutherford told the Raleigh News & Observer. "At some point, there are changes in roles." Francis' take: "It's different. It's something I've never done."

Luc Robitaille, 37, is Los Angeles' No. 2 scorer and apparently not ready for a diminished role. But that did not stop him from bringing up the possibility of retiring soon Wednesday in Sunrise, Fla.: "I think we're all going to be forced to retire next year. I don't know yet. I'm taking it one year at a time. Even this year, when they asked me how long I wanted to sign for, right away I said, 'One year, and we'll see what happens.' " Asked when he will know it is time to quit, he replied: "I'll know. You can tell when you can't keep up anymore. That's when you have to go."

Ian Moran has one goal and a modest plus-3 rating in Boston, but he has earned high praise from rookie coach Mike Sullivan: "He's been one of our most consistent defensemen," Sullivan told the Boston Globe.

Lemieux is not the only player in the NHL receiving a sizable portion of his pay in deferred money. Mark Messier actually is getting nothing from his current one-year, $4 million contract until 2006. That is when he will receive the first of five payments of $800,000.

The spin goes on: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman opined to Bloomberg News Thursday that Brett Hull and Jeremy Roenick are not the only players in the league who think player salaries are too high, even though Hull and Roenick are the only two to offer such viewpoints: "When they look at the economics of the game, whether they choose to admit it or their union chooses to admit it publicly, deep in their hearts they understand that something is wrong, and it has to be fixed." An NHLPA lawyer vehemently refuted the suggestion.

With his Coyotes down, 2-1, to Colorado and four seconds left, Jan Hrdina had the puck on his stick in the high slot. And passed to his left. He has one goal and 11 shots in 12 games for Phoenix, which signed him to a one-year, $2.2 million deal in September.

Before he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto Monday, Grant Fuhr, who made his name by shining in shootouts, made clear he would love to see a return to the day when more goaltenders had to work for a living: "I think you're going to have a lot more full buildings for a 10-5 game than you will for a 2-1 game where there's no excitement. I'd love to see the game opened back up where every night it turns into a shootout."

Messier should be among the rare exceptions to skip the three-year waiting period to get into the Hall, joining 10 others, including Lemieux. Fittingly, he would be No. 11.

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