NHL Kills Team Media Guides, Record Books

The National Hockey League is going green, and team media guides are going, too.

In an effort to "reduce paper waste" the NHL has mandated that all teams stop the annual publication of media guides. The league will also end it's publication of the yearly record book.

The media guides will still be produced, but will only be distributed electronically in pdf form on the exclusive NHL media site, and in some cases, on each team's website.

This bums out the hardcore stats geeks and media guide collectors, but we'll have to live with the tree-saving mandate.

We'll cherish all 40 Penguins guides and hope that the trees that will be saved might find new life in the form of wooden hockey sticks. Remember those?

Ban the composite sticks for the sake of old time hockey!

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The ground is broken...

Moving forward with the evolution....

Penguins and elected officials broke ground this morning on the new arena.

The top photo is the magical moment and the bottom photo shows the engraving of the ceremonial shovel.

What's in a name?

There's no place like home...

August 14, 2008

Finally! The Penguins have announced a date for a groundbreaking to replace Mellon Arena, the oldest arena in the NHL.

Check out the history of all five major arenas that have been home to competitive hockey in Pittsburgh.

Here's the story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Here's what the Penguin's nation is saying on Let's Go Pens.com

Home remodeling

The Penguins lost Pittsburgh native Ryan Malone a few days before the free agency deadline on July 1. No hometown discount from the hometown guy.

Malone wasn't the first guy from Pittsburgh to play in the NHL.

The Pens signed a hometown replacement: Bill Thomas.

Here's a list of native Pittsburghers to make it to the NHL.

Getting close on the Arena's Groundbreaking

The groundbreaking for the new arena should happen in the first week of August.

To place everyone at ease over the cash flow of Don Barden's (he won the casino license for the Majestic Star and promised new arena funding of $7.5 million for the next 20 years) – the state has an emergency funding to cover any delays from Barden.

Click on the photo at left to learn more about the three Pittsburgh arenas before Mellon Arena opened to the public in September 1961.