Pens pitch city for playoff action
In their pitch to the National Hockey League, the Penguins pointed to three things they hope will put them over the top in becoming one of the league’s “hub” cities for potential playoff games: modern facilities, experience hosting major events and their partnership with UPMC.
That Pittsburgh is not a COVID-19 hot spot is also a critical factor.
“There’s a lot going for Pittsburgh, so we said, ‘Let’s take a shot,’ ” said Penguins VP of communications Tom McMillan, who helped put together the bid.
On Tuesday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman revealed Pittsburgh was one of 10 cities still under consideration. The NHL plans to pick two hub cities to host its unique 24-team postseason tournament, the dates of which are still to be determined.
Conference affiliation will not be a factor in the decision, so both cities could be west of the Mississippi River. Other NHL markets in contention include Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver are also
under consideration, although Canada has a 14day mandatory quarantine requirement for those arriving in the country.
Mr. Bettman said he anticipates a final decision in three to four weeks. He also said the NHL has not yet selected cities because “things are rapidly evolving” and “we want it to be based on the best-available information at the time.”
Mr. Bettman added that hub cities will ultimately be chosen based on “COVID-19 conditions, testing availability and government regulations.”
“As we are starting to open up, in the yellow [phase] and hopefully we’ll be green in a couple more days, we’ve seen our numbers remain low even as we went into yellow,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Wednesday, a day when Western Pennsylvania reported two new COVID-19 deaths. “I think this will be a good boost and a shot in the arm for this region to see something like that come here.”
The NHL is certainly no stranger to hockey in Pittsburgh.
Since PPG Paints Arena opened in 2010, the Penguins have hosted an NHL draft, World Cup of Hockey games and the NCAA’s Frozen Four. You may recall there being a couple of Stanley Cup finals in the building too. Plus, in the past decade, the Penguins put on two outdoor games at Heinz Field.
In the weeks that followed the March 12 shutdown of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league let its 31 teams know it was considering having multiple hub cities serve as neutral-site locations if the season were to resume and encouraged them to submit bids. The hurried process was unlike bidding for those other events.
“It’s not the kind of annual bid you make where you know all these categories,” Mr. McMillan said. “We didn’t have much time. It’s a very complicated, one-of-its-kind scenario. Our whole senior staff was involved. We kind of dropped everything for a while and were just working to put this together very quickly.”
In the PowerPoint presentation Penguins president and CEO David Morehouse gave to league decision-makers, the Penguins highlighted that experience. PPG Paints Arena and the City of Pittsburgh met the league’s requirements for things such as NHL-caliber locker rooms, team meeting space, available practice ice in the area, and the number and quality of hotels downtown.
“They’re very familiar with and comfortable working in our environment,” Mr. McMillan said. “We knew that would be a plus. There would be no question marks in their mind that we would be able to pull this off logistically.”
The Penguins also made sure to tout their partnership with UPMC. The team’s practice facility in Cranberry, UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, is the NHL’s only practice rink in the same building as a sports medicine facility.
Leslie Davis, chief operating officer for UPMC’s health services division, said it is prepared to be hands-on if the NHL selects Pittsburgh as a hub city, and specialists and infectious disease physicians will be available to the league and its teams.
“It would be a great opportunity for Pittsburgh, just to be able to get these businesses back again and get more activity into the city and into the airport, the hotels, catering,” Ms. Davis said.
For example, UPMC staff could handle administering tests, oversee health protocols, and track and trace any potential outbreaks. Ms. Davis said they envision a setup similar to an Olympic village.
For safety reasons, fans are not expected to be allowed in the hub arenas. The NHL has indicated each team will be allowed a traveling party of 50. It has not been decided whether families will be permitted to stay with players and team employees in hotels. Assuming they are not, and also factoring in essential NHL employees, the total influx should be fewer than 1,000 people.
“They’ve got a pretty good plan in place,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “I think the state feels comfortable with it. We certainly feel comfortable with it locally. … This isn’t like what they’re talking about in Charlotte, bringing in 50,000 people in for the Republican convention or something like that.”
Still, the Penguins needed buy-in from political and business leaders as the city was designing its own plans to eventually emerge from the pandemic.
“The city, the county, our health people, our VisitPittsburgh and our hotel industry, everybody’s kind of working together to make it work as best we can,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
That includes Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who on Tuesday issued this statement: “The city supports the NHL getting back to business safely. Our focus is on resuming activities in a way that is safe for fans, players, residents and all personnel.”
Gov. Tom Wolf announced Wednesday that any professional sports team in a Pennsylvania county that is at the yellow or green phase of reopening can begin practicing and playing games once their respective leagues come up with a safe way to resume games.
Now, the city and team officials await word.
“We’ve got great support from the business community and our political leaders, and, obviously, we think Pittsburgh’s the best hockey town in the country,” Mr. Morehouse said. “We’re honored to be a finalist, and we’d love to be chosen as one of the hub cities.”