PITG wins slots license; It's just a bump in the road, people...

Wow, are there some pissed off Pens fans tonight.

Face it boys, that decision is over, there is no good gonna come out of stewing over it for days, weeks, or however long you plan on being pissed off.

The IOC bid for the slots license undoubtedly would have given the Pens an immediate answer to their future, that future being in Pittsburgh.

But while the PITG's win does still leave an amount of doubt into the Pens' future home, don't fall into the doom and gloom that the media is now portraying, along with the idiots that comment to those media articles.

There are two distinct, but joined, evolutions that will be going on in earnest in the coming weeks and months that will, in my view, ensure the Penguins remaining in Pittsburgh for a long, long time.

First of all, we have the ownership issue. All of the familiar names are coming up again. I'm not going to name them all again. Some people are already speculating that Mario is so pissed off now that he's going to sell to the highest bidder, and he's not going to care if that person wants to move the team.

That, my friends, is what General Norman Schwartzkoff referred to as "bovine feces".

And he's right, that is utter bullshit.

I don't care what everyone is saying, Mario Lemieux will not get this team moved if he has any say in it.

We may have even more prospective owners coming out of the woodwork now, due to the fact that the value of the selling price went down about 40 million clams, after the IOC failed to win the bid.

Which leads us to Plan B.

Plan B is not some diabolical scheme concocted by mad scientists.

Plan B is a relatively simple plan that, with a minimal amount of negotiations, can ensure the Pens' staying in the 'Burgh.

Now that the Pens can talk to the city and county again, I'm sure that we'll hear over the next few days that Plan B is viable, they'd be stupid not to say something to that effect.

The new owner will now have to pluck down about approx. 130 million over 30 years, which includes 8.5 million up front plus 4.1 million yearly, all of which is entirely negotiable with the state.

PITG has already formally agreed to 7.5 million for 30 years, plus 7 million annually will come from the State's development fund, which comes directly from slots revenue.

And there's your Plan B.

No city money, no county money, no tax money.

The property for the new arena has already been bought, demolition WILL commence in January.

So yes, boohoo, the Pens will have to kick in some money for the arena. They won't be getting a completely free arena, OK fine, join the party like every other NHL club has had to do.

So it will do everyone a helluva lot of good right now for the Pens to stop the "oh, I don't now about Plan B" talk.

It's a very good deal, and the sooner they start negotiating, either by the Lemieux group or whether they defer to the prospective owner, the quicker they'll have a deal.