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Thursday, June 14, 2001

Here we go again.

Haven't we suffered enough?

It's not so much the Penguins are finally taking their turn with their hands out, looking for public money to build a new arena they say they need to survive in small-market Pittsburgh and stay competitive with the Avalanche and the Devils and blah, blah, blah ...

It's the ordeal they and the politicos are about to put us through.

Why do we have to endure it again when we know how it's going to play out?

The elected officials will talk tough in front of the television cameras and say there is no way they can justify even one more dollar for a sports facility to their constituents.

Angry callers will phone the talk shows and say they'd rather see the Penguins leave town than give one cent to the rich players and rich owners, even if, in this case, they are one and the same, and even if that person is Mario Lemieux.

Lemieux will threaten to sell the Penguins to Seattle billionaire Paul Allen.

Someone will call the talk shows and take Lemieux's name in vain, making Pittsburgh radio history.

Mayor Tom Murphy will call a news conference to introduce Dallas billionaire Mark Cuban as a potential buyer. "Of course, I'm going to keep the team here. I'm a Pittsburgh guy," Cuban will say. He will be wildly cheered at a Penguins' game that night, then back out of the deal a few days later.

Tipped-off photographers will catch Lemieux and Allen together on a Palm Beach golf course, leading to more speculation the Penguins' move to Seattle is imminent.

Someone will call the talk shows and mention Lemieux's name in the same sentence with Roger Marino's.

An ashen-faced Murphy, Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey and Gov. Tom Ridge will announce their plans for arena funding. "We don't want to be remembered as the saps who lost hockey in Pittsburgh forever," Murphy will say.

Someone will call the talk shows and mention Murphy, Roddey and Ridge in the same sentence with Bob Cranmer and Mike Dawida.

Larry Dunn will emerge from his cave to lead the screams about corporate welfare.

Seattle's Best Arena will open in September 2005, on the Centre Avenue site across from the soon-to-be-imploded Mellon Arena. Lemieux, coming off his fourth consecutive scoring championship, will lead the Penguins to a 5-3 win against the New York Rangers in the inaugural game. Jaromir Jagr will have a goal and an assist in a losing effort.

"I'd love to be able to play in the new arena," Lemieux said yesterday.

It would have been a lot more honest if Lemieux had said:

"I'm going to love counting my money from the new arena. ... Listen, I'm just as greedy as the other guys in town. Rooney and McClatchy got theirs, now I want mine. And if I don't get it, I'm outta here."

How refreshing would that have been?

Based on candor alone, I'd have said on the spot, "Build the man his arena!"

I'm going to say it now anyway. We'll get a lot more use and enjoyment out of a new arena than we will a new ballpark and football stadium. Certainly, it's needed more. It would have been nice if Howard Baldwin had jumped on the Plan B gravy train with the Pirates and Steelers so we could be done with this stadium/arena mess by now, but he didn't. That doesn't change the fact the big Igloo, cool as it is, is old and breaking down. We can't be a big-league city without a big-league civic center. Forget about losing hockey. Top musical groups won't come here much longer. You can kiss the NCAA tournament goodbye ...

They haven't even been able to open the arena roof since 1996, for heaven sake.

That fact conveniently was pointed out yesterday by the Penguins' publicists. Their handout also included such gems as, "The arena was designed during the Eisenhower administration" and "When the arena opened, the Pirates still had nine years to play in Forbes Field" and, my personal favorite, "The Beatles played at the arena."

The rhetoric has begun again.

Lucky us.

About the best we can hope for now is that Lemieux doesn't promise us a new arena will do for the Penguins what PNC Park has done for the Pirates.

Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com.