Rush a fraternity ... rush to judgement ... and rush to the Igloo's ticket windows

It began as a modest little marketing ploy, an innovative attempt to sell a few seats that would otherwise have gone unfilled.

It has morphed into a full-blown phenomenon.

Overnight.

Give or take a decade.

The Penguins' Student Rush program, which allows students with valid identification to purchase tickets for $20 if any are available an hour before the scheduled start of a game, was introduced in the mid-1990s, but is enjoying unprecedented success this season.

A record 1,800 students attended a game against Boston Nov. 22 at Mellon Arena, contributing greatly to the standing-room turnout of 16,958.

Three nights later, however, only 98 Rush tickets were sold for a game against the New York Rangers. Not because there was no demand, but because there was very little supply.

Fans willing to pay full price have exclusive access to tickets until an hour before game time, and a Saturday night game against a strong draw such as the Rangers generally translates to a healthy turnout without an infusion of Rush fans.

Odds are that some students were turned away from the Rangers game because the tickets ran out, but the Penguins try to minimize disappointments by making it known via their Web site what the chances are of students being able to buy Rush tickets for a particular game.

Students often arrive at the arena hours before the tickets go on sale, and there have been times this fall when the Rush line stretched around much of the building. While there haven't been any reports of in-line tailgating yet, some students do things like tossing a football around to pass the time.

Penguins officials, who report that some season-ticket holders have protested seats being sold at a discount, counter that those often are singles that would not appeal to fans who come in a pair or larger group.

They also believe that the students enhance the overall experience for other fans because they tend to raise the volume -- and enthusiasm level -- of the crowd.

Oh, and there's one other benefit that no one with the team likely envisioned while devising a program meant to move isolated seats on a game-by-game basis: Conversations with some relatively new season-ticket holders have turned up a number who say they never would have considered attending hockey games if not for the Student Rush program.

Circumstances conspired against the Moore-LeClair-Ruutu line

The line was the Penguins' most impressive in the early days of training camp, and was dismantled for reasons that had nothing to do with anyone who played on it.

And no one who was part of it has been quite the same since.

The unit of Dominic Moore between John LeClair and Jarkko Ruutu showed promise of developing into an outstanding third line after being assembled at the start of the preseason.

But after Evgeni Malkin got a dislocated shoulder in an exhibition game Sept. 20, Therrien opted against minimizing the impact on his entire lineup by plugging No. 1 draft choice Jordan Staal into Malkin's spot on the No. 2 line.

His logic -- which hardly was unreasonable -- seemed to be that with Staal just days past his 18th birthday and attending his first pro training camp, asking him to assume such a prominent role was too much to expect.

Consequently, Therrien undertook a major overhaul of his lines, blowing up the LeClair-Moore-Ruutu unit and scattering its members throughout the lineup.

Later, he would put those three back together, but they never clicked the way they had in camp.

Neither LeClair nor Ruutu had a significant impact during the first two months of the season -- LeClair's play, coupled with an obviously strained relationship with Therrien, led to him being waived three days ago -- and the Penguins still have not come up with a third line as effective as the LeClair-Moore-Ruutu unit showed the promise of being.

Down for the count ... or is it up?

At last check, Sidney Crosby was leading the Eastern Conference in the NHL's all-star balloting, with 247,854 votes.

That means a lot of people out there recognize Crosby's remarkable abilities, and perhaps appreciate his passion for the game.

Or it might just mean that there's one person out there who really, really likes him. And has expressed that 247,854 times.

Actually, the reality probably is somewhere in the middle. There's no question that Crosby, even at age 19, is one of the most accomplished and popular players in the league, and that translates to a lot of support in the voting.

But there also is nothing about the process, which is conducted through the league's Web site and a cellular telephone company, that prevents fans from casting multiple ballots. And even though a league executive said "precautions" have been taken "to make sure that no scripting can be used to 'auto-vote'" motivated fans are free to stuff the cyber-ballot box if they're willing to put in the effort required.

And based on the support Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury have received so far, a lot of Penguins partisans are.

That's a nice acknowledgement of what those three have contributed to the Penguins' success to date, but it also makes a case for employing a one fan-one vote -- or, at least, one computer-one vote -- system in future seasons.