Beware of the Penguin.

Now that the Pittsburgh Penguins have been sold to a Hartford businessman, it's time to start guessing where they'll wind up.

The ingenius new arena plan is quite resourceful, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Anyone who's ever waited for a jackpot from a casino should know that. Since the owner-in-waiting has already expressed an interest in moving the Pens to Kansas City, it would seem that there's a likely Seattle Sonics-like ending. The new owner says they want to stay in the city where the franchise is, while salivating over a brand new arena somewhere far away.

Naturally, this begs the question....

Where would the Penguins go? I think the best bets (assuming they leave, which is probably 50/50) are Kansas City, Houston, Winnipeg and Hartford. I'll explain why in the extended section...



Since the owner has already expressed an interest in moving to Kansas City to the new Sprint Center, it makes sense to rate them as the highest probable landing spot for the Penguins. The new arena will basically be an upgrade/replacement for Kemper Arena, and it appears Kansas City is actively looking for a major league level tenant. Since the NBA doesn't look to be adding teams any time soon, and the NHL has the whole lockout thing to live down, it makes sense that a relocated team in either league consider Kansas City. If the Penguins leave Pittsburgh, I say it's about a 60% likelihood that they wind up in KC.

Hartford would be a sentimental favorite, since the new owner is based in Hartford. However, the big problem in Hartford would be the lack of an NHL caliber arena. Sure, they could go back to the Civic Center until a new arena is built, and there's no concern that the Civic Center will be torn down. However, the recent trend in the NHL has been the new arena, that be-all, end-all revenue source that will make smaller markets competitive. Woukd the NHL's new salary cap and cost certainty structure help a team in an old arena? Probably so, in the interim. And the NHL would probably bask in the glow of positive coverage if an old WHA/NHL market was welcomed back into the league. There's also the folks down the road in Bristol who'd be very happy to have an NHL team. Some of them never got over losing the Whalers. And to be fair, Hartford had a plan in place to build a stadium for the New England Patriots before Foxboro stepped up with a replacement for the old stadium there. There appears to be a will in Hartford. Is there a way? I say 20% probability the Penguins land here if they leave Pittsburgh.

Houston is another market that could probably handle an NHL team. They would have gotten a team in the last expansion round had they had an arena plan in place. Alas, the voters of Houston didn't approve the Toyota Center until after the deadline to appease the NHL had passed. I think they were willing to play in the old Summit/Compaq Center for a year or two if they knew a new building was going to be built. One possible concern here is the lease agreement with the NBA's Houston Rockets. As I remember, the AHL's Aeros were not given favorable terms in the new building. Part of that might have been payback for the days in the Compaq Center, where the owner of the Aeros (Chuck Watson) held all the playing cards. Knowing that the city would hurt more if they lost the Rockets than the minor league Aeros, Rockets owner Les Alexander played every card in the deck to get favorable terms in the new Toyota Center. The Aeros play there now, and Watson is now a minority owner, having sold the majority shares to the Minnesota Wild. The lease terms might be so onerous as to prevent anyone but Alexander from owning an NHL team in the Toyota Center. Remember, Les Alexander had an agreement to purchase the Edmonton Oilers, and if local investors had not been found, he would have moved them to Houston. Some say that was a ploy to get a better hand in negotiating for a new building, but now that the new building is in place, he might have the only hand he needs. The Toyota Center is an outstanding venue for hockey, but 2 questions remain: Could Houston support the NHL, and could anyone but Alexander own them? With those 2 major questions, I think we have to put the probability of seeing the Houston Penguins as 5-10%.

Finally, the wildest wildcard of them all, the city of Winnipeg. The MTS Centre is the replacement for the Winnipeg Arena, the old barn that housed the Winnipeg Jets during their WHA/NHL days. Currently, the MTS Centre is home to the AHL's Manitoba Moose, but it's clear by the looks of it, they do not intend for the Centre to be down in the AHL very long. Winnipeg is following the template successfully employed by the cities of Nashville, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City: Build a state of the art arena, and hope for the best. One has to ask why cities would incur such huge startup costs just based on a hope. My best guess says that these mid-level cities build the arenas with a not-so-secret hope that they'll land a wandersome NBA or NHL team, and if they don't, they can still make good money on the concert and convention circuit. A city like Oklahoma City, once they have a modern arena in place, can offer the same amenities as a major convention destination city can, at a much cheaper price. A major league franchise adds to the city's cache and in theory, that cache could lead to more conventions. Naturally, major league franchises aren't the reason Orlando, Las Vegas and San Antonio are major convention destinations. Between those 3 cities, they have 2 franchises total. Expanding convention facilities is becoming more and more important, though, and adding new arenas only enhances that. Back on track to Winnipeg, though, as much goodwill as the NHL would garner from returning to Hartford, they could arguably get more by returning to Winnipeg. There's something about the migration of hockey franchises to the United States that really cheeses those Canadians off. The flip side to that is...now that the NHL is back, Canada loves it more than ever. Do they need to be placated any further? Taking all of this into consideration, I give the probability of the Winnipeg Penguins as 10-15%.

Dooby-dooby-doo.