Pittsburgh Penguins Company

These Penguins do their thing on the ice in downtown Pittsburgh, not the Antarctic. The Lemieux Group owns and operates the Pittsburgh Penguins professional hockey franchise. The team has represented the Steel City in the National Hockey League since 1967 and boasts back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992. The team won a third title in 2009. Popular through good times and bad, fans root for the Pens at Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena, better known to locals as "The Igloo." Legendary forward Mario Lemieux, who played for Pittsburgh during the 1990s, has controlled the franchise since 1999. While Pittsburgh continues to focus on improvements in talent on the ice, the franchise is also building a new facility to replace Mellon Arena, the oldest rink in the NHL, in order to boost its finances. Construction on the $320 million Consol Energy Center began in 2008; it is being funded partly through proceeds the state gets from slot machine casinos, with the team also contributing to the construction. Local coal mining giant CONSOL Energy agreed to a 21-year naming rights deal in 2008. The Pens hope to have the facility completed for the 2010 season. While they await the new arena, fans are enjoying a resurgence of their Pens on the ice. Young stars such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jordan Staal have re-energized the stands and helped Pittsburgh earn back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008 and 2009; both times the Pens faced the Detroit Red Wings and successfully overcame the opposition in seven games in 2009. The team's post-season campaign that year was led by coach Dan Bylsma, who had replaced Michel Therrien earlier in the 2008-09 season after Pittsburgh got off to a slow start. Therrien had coached the Penguins since 2005. The current state of affairs is in stark contrast to the instability and uncertainty that has visited Pittsburgh hockey in the past. The Penguins were under bankruptcy protection in 1975 (when the IRS padlocked the offices) and then again when the team was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1998 under previous owner Howard Baldwin. Lemieux, who had retired in 1997 after leading the team to two of its championship titles, saved the club the next year by rolling over nearly $30 million owed to him into an ownership bid. The Hall of Fame player resigned his position as governor of the club in 2000 to rejoin the team on the ice, scoring 35 goals in 43 games to take the Pens into the playoffs the following year. (Pittsburgh was eliminated by the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference finals.) Baldwin had helped form the New England Whalers of the World Hockey League (which joined the NHL in 1979 and became the Carolina Hurricanes) and later owned a stake in the Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars) before buying control of the Penguins in 1991 from Edward DeBartolo, Sr.