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Mario is the man to beat on slots

Mario is the man to beat on slots

If you could be anyone in history for a day, you could do worse than be Mario Lemieux last week.

Sure, his team raised such a stench that his coach got the axe, his best playing days are behind him, and a heart ailment even had him off the ice for a spell.

But all The Great One needed to do was mutter, more in sorrow than in anger, that there is only "a slim chance" that his Penguins will stay in Pittsburgh, and the state's politicians did a 180-degree turn with the precision of a marching band.

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Suddenly, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato was vowing to find a way to use $90 million in state funds for a new arena, and Gov. Ed Rendell was essentially saying if that's how the county wants to spend state money, it's OK with him.

At the risk of sounding like Oprah, just step back from the public policy question for a moment and imagine how that must feel.

You've been in Pittsburgh a long time, made your fortune, had some great times, but you tell you friends, "Man, I am just sick of this house. It's drafty and lousy for parties. I'm out of here."

To which your friends, and even people who haven't thought much about you in years, yell, "Wait! Don't go! We'll build you a new house!"

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Must be gratifying.

I've been an agnostic on replacing Mellon Arena, partly because WEAE sports-talk host Mark Madden is all for it and he's the one man in Pennsylvania who scares me. Mark is an old friend, but if you don't think he's an intimidating presence, you should hear the way callers -- including at least one City Council member -- were sucking up to him last week. It was like listening to Dorothy's first encounter with the great and powerful Oz.

Nobody wants to question Madden's tale about how top acts consistently bypass Pittsburgh because they won't play Mellon Arena, an argument that doesn't stand up to even mild scrutiny.

The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Green Day, Usher, Kanye West, Destiny's Child, Prince and Metallica all have played the arena in the past three years or so. The music world, the Harlem Globetrotters and Ringling Brothers do not care that the arena turns 45 next year. Keith Richards turns 62 today and he still rocks. If we build a new arena just to lure in the likes of Celine Dion, whom Mr. Madden says doesn't care for our place, she can stay and I'll move to Canada.

No, the question here is how much it is worth to keep "Pittsburgh" in front of "Penguins." Do we spend millions, as we did for the Pirates and Steelers, to keep them here? Or is there a way to forsake tax money and shake all the construction costs from the losers who will be dropping coins in a Pittsburgh casino soon?

Somewhere between the zealotry of hockey fans shouting "yes" and small-government doctrinaires yelling "no" lies an interesting argument. Before the Penguins move to Kansas City or a $300 million arena is built to stop them, we need answers to key questions.

Can Mellon Arena last indefinitely? What are its future maintenance costs? What would be the financial impact of losing the principle tenant and 40 or more dates a year?

The sports dollar is discretionary and could be spent elsewhere if Penguins fly, but where would the money go? What would be the financial impact on a strapped city that would lose not just amusement and parking tax revenue, but the taxes and jobs generated by the hotels, restaurants and bars that feed off fans spending freely on hockey nights in Pittsburgh?

Nobody ever said all sports are created equal, so the precedent of North Shore stadium development gets the Penguins nothing now. But the team has an innovative plan to get the rights to the lone Pittsburgh casino and use its winnings to build a new arena.

A casino should be more lucrative than a hockey team, so that shouldn't be given away lightly, but until another would-be operator offers Pittsburgh something better, Mr. Lemieux's arena is the offer to beat.

It was a very good week to be him.

First Published: December 18, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

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