It's a Great Day for Hockey

Well, it finally happened this week...the city of Pittsburgh and the Penguins NHL franchise finally hammered out all the details for the construction of a new arena and avoided the unthinkable, the Penguins moving to another city. I say unthinkable, but recently, as the parties involved seemed to get further and further away from a resolution, the idea of the Pens moving had become quite thinkable, and at times likely. See, Kansas City has this brand spanking new areana, but no tenant, no hockey or basketball team, and was therefore pursuing the Pens pretty aggressively...pretty much offering them the whole thing (ownership of the arena, money from concessions and parking, etc.) for free if they agreed to move. I think there was realistically only a 25-30% chance that that ever would have happened, but that 30% was sufficient to keep me on pins and needles over the last few months!

But now, the Penguins are rock-solid in the 'Burgh for at least the next 30 years...which is awesome, 'cause they have an incredibly exciting roster filled with star players, several of them still south of twenty years old, and they should challenge for the Stanley Cup for years to come. There's nothing in sports as exciting as the Stanley Cup playoffs, especially when your team is in the thick of it. I love the Steelers, and love watching the NFL, but the NHL is just on another level, and a long playoff run is as exciting as it gets...a huge, exciting game every other night for a month, month and a half...and tons of overtime games...I can't wait.

And, for all of yins that wouldn't know a hockey puck from a urinal cake...relevant cheesecake!