Wednesday, October 04, 2006

24 hours and counting !! Orpik out for a month; Pens sale imminent ?

Aaaah, it's finally here. It's hockey time, boys and girls.

Good games tonight so far, Buffalo and Carolina, along with Ottawa and Toronto.

I gotta say this about those Caniacs, those are some great fans. I've had the pleasure to go down there about six times, mostly for Pens/Canes games, and every time I go down there, I have a great time.

And as is the case in a lot of major cities around the U.S., there are a lot of transplanted Pittsburghers there. Usually, I'd say in a soldout crowd of approx. 20,000, there have got to be about 3,000 Pens fans.

Brooks Orpik is gonna be out of the lineup for about a month after surgery with a cracked bone in his right hand. I haven't seen any callups from WBS yet, but I would think it would be Noah Welch. I hope he's back before the Nov. 11th game in Raleigh, that's the 1st game in Raleigh since Orpik nailed Erik Cole, that should be a wild game. And I'll be there, 6 rows from the ice.

Speculation is flying around that the Pens will announce tomorrow that an agreement in principal has been reached with Mr. Blackberry, Jim Balsillie, to buy the Pens.

According to this story by Andy Conte from the Trib, who was on Sportsbeat tonight with Stan, the announcement will most likely be made tomorrow to coincide with opening night. Also, and most importantly, Andy indicated that according to their sources, as long as their is a viable plan for an arena, Balsillie will NOT attempt to move the club.

I think this is gonna be great news. No way that the Pens make an announcement of a new owner on opening night with an intention to move the team.

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