Lemieux calls Balsillie's bluff, and he's keeping the dinero, too

Uh-0h, now you did it.

You done pissed Mario off.

Le Magnifique thought everything was peaches and cream between he and his golfing buddy Jimbo.

I mean really, what's 175 million clams between friends ??

Psyche !!

Well, today Mario basically said "aight", then informed today's press conference that the Penguins would be keeping Balsillie's deposit, believed to be approx. $10 million. The Pens believe that Balsillie's pullout consitutes a breach of contract.

And to top it off, despite public pronouncements over the weekend by Balsillie that he could still make a deal for the Pens, Lemieux squashed that notion, informing the press today that the deal with Balsillie is "dead".

Mario also stated that the Pens will now have no ownership discussions until after the Pittsburgh slots license is hopefully awarded on Wednesday in Harrisburg.

In the meantime though, you're beginning to hear the same familiar names as rearing their ugly heads once again pertaining to the possibility of owning the Pens.

Cuban. Murstein. Lemieux again.

And a new Canadian one, but this one's adamant that if he owns the Pens, in Pittsburgh they most definitely would stay.

Frank D'Angelo, whose company owns Steelback beer in Canada (never tried that one, someone let me know how that brewski tastes), has told anyone who wants to listen that he wants to buy the Pens and keep them in the 'Burgh. By the way, would that be poetic justice if the new owner of the PITTSBURGH Penguins owns STEELBACK Beer, or what.

I listened to him this afternoon on XM Home Ice 204 with Todd Lewis and Phil Esposito, a good friend of D'Angelo's. In fact, it's Espo who is attempting to set the meeting up between D'Angelo's team and Ken Sawyer and Mario. Some of his comments were quite surprising, albeit a good kind of surprising. I have even read tonight the possibility of D'Angelo building an arena with his own cash, where he could have naming rights and beer sales.

To be honest, I can't even think about any future possibilities with anyone right now, not until Wednesday.

I'm just trying to imagine just how in the hell ANYONE EXCEPT Isle of Capri could possibly win this license.

A state-of-the-art multi-purpose facility (we REALLY need to stop referring to this as simply a hockey arena) that's built with absolutely no taxpayer money.

That should be the kicker right there.

A slots casino location MUCH more accessible from the entire Pittsburgh metro area, as compared to the traffic cluster f%$k around the Station Square area.

What could POSSIBLY be any VALID reasons why Harrah's could win ??

This should be a slam dunk.

Will it ?? I have to think IOC is gonna win it, it's just clear in my mind.

But could they lose it ?? Sadly, this isn't about hockey, this is about politics. I've seen worse.