DBWI: Mario Lemieux buys the Penguins

Pittsburgh sports hero (and life hero after surviving cancer) Mario Lemieux led the Penguins to two Stanley Cup championships in the early 1990s, and God I feel old just talking about the Penguins. I have to wonder if I’d still be a Penguins fan if Lemieux’s plan to buy the team hadn’t fallen through. And if the Penguins would be relevant today or even if they could have stayed in Pittsburgh.

What if the local legend had managed to pull it off?
 
The team would still be marginal at best if it weren't for repeated infusions of special treatment by the league as Commissioner Gary Butt...er...Bettman proposed. It's just as well that the team became the Seattle Sea Lions, with strong Pacific Northwest ownership (probably the only arena in the league where coffee--yes, Starbucks--outsells beer). There's a strong four way rivalry between the LA Kings, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks, and Sea Lions that's fun to watch.

Sidebar I: the Anaheim Ducks were never quite able to make it a five way rivalry, and after years of falling attendance, became the second incarnation of the Cleveland Barons.

Sidebar II: it's kind of amusing that Sidney Crosby, the perennial league leader in whining to the referees, gets to spin out his career in Québec with the Nordiques, which franchise is perennially strapped for cash. The ownership mortgaged that team to the hilt to keep Crosby, and is thus stuck with a glorified AHL franchise trying to run with the big boys like Boston in the Atlantic Division. What's funnier still is the reaction in Québec to his thinly veiled requests / pleas to move to the expansion Denver Dinosaurs: not too many Anglophones get roundly booed night after night in French.

And what of Pittsburgh? The AHL re-established the Pittsburgh Hornets at the same time as the league resurrected the Baltimore Clippers. That's led to a smaller-scale Baltimore-Pittsburgh rivalry: kind of the moon to the Ravens-Steelers sun.
 
Yeah, Bettman turned the Penguins into a sideshow. I mean, he managed to keep teams in Miami and Phoenix but managed to fuck up Pittsburgh beyond recognition to the point where no one in Pittsburgh trusts him. Heinz and PNC are both interested in bidding on an NHL team but have said they would never work with Bettman under any circumstances, so Pittsburgh will just have to settle for what most in western PA call “a pleasant diversion separate from the serious business of the Steelers.” Pay no attention to the Pirates, I guess.

And yeah, the Crosby situation is a sorry shame. He’s basically the Philip Rivers of hockey - one star carrying a team that can’t do shit because ownership sucks. Crosby was basically ownership’s pledge to keep the team great after they burned white-hot in the late 90s and early 2000s, developing a sort of Celtics-Lakers rivalry with the Red Wings. As a Wings fan, I used to hate the Nordiques, but Crosby and the fans don’t deserve this shit.

And what idiot came up with Denver Dinosaurs? Oh right, that dumb fucker Stan Kroenke. Now he’s trying to do to Denver a worse version of Quebec.
 
Here's the logo for the Denver Dinosaurs...

dino.png
 
And while we're at it, here's the NHL alignment in this alternate timeline:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:

Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins
Québec Nordiques
Montréal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Hartford Whalers
Hamilton Bulldogs
Toronto Maple Leafs

Metropolitan Division
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals
Cleveland Barons
Detroit Red Wings
Buffalo Sabres

WESTERN CONFERENCE:

Continental Division
Chicago Black Hawks
St. Louis Blues
Minnesota North Stars
Denver Dinosaurs
Winnipeg Jets
Dallas Wranglers
Houston Aeros

Pacific Division
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Seattle Sea Lions
Vancouver Canucks
Edmonton Oilers
Calgary Flames
Portland Chinooks
 
How are you going to mention west coast NHL rivalries without mentioning the Chinooks and Sea Lions? Sure, the Chinooks haven't been able to consistently keep up success and make the rivalry fun to watch, but when they are good? I can't believe that their rivalry is so underrated.
 
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