Penguins' Fleury returning to top form at right time

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Matt Freed/Post-Gazette

Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

There was much screaming around here when Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury fished four pucks out of his net March 4 before being pulled against the New York Rangers in his first game after the Olympic break. More than a few people called for backup Brent Johnson. They always seem to call for No. 2 after Fleury has a bad game.

But now? With Fleury playing good hockey again? The way he always plays at this time of year with the playoffs approaching?

Silence.

Wonderful silence.

Maybe Pittsburgh -- all of Pittsburgh -- finally realizes what a special goaltender it has.

Or maybe not.

Really, this city can be brutal when it comes to its goaltender.

"I wouldn't know about that," Fleury said the other day, grinning as always. "When I first got here, I read all the papers. I wanted to know what people thought of me. Not now. I know what I do wrong. I know when I make a mistake. I don't need someone else to tell me. I don't read the papers or look at the television at all."

Generally, that's a good thing.

Remember that fabulous quote from Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt?

"Philadelphia is the only city where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day."

Beautiful.

But that's not so much the case when it comes to Fleury. It's not the media that get on his back. They realize his extraordinary value to a team that won the Stanley Cup last season and went to the final the season before. It's a significant portion of the fan base that gives him a hard time.

I can't figure it out.

I mean, I understand how it's just as easy to blame the goaltender for a couple of goals as it is to chastise the quarterback after a couple of interceptions. Many people don't see a Sidney Crosby turnover or a Sergei Gonchar defensive lapse. But everyone sees Fleury angrily retrieving the puck from the back of his net.

I also realize that Fleury's statistics aren't among the NHL leaders.

Going into the games Tuesday night, he ranked 17th among goaltenders with at least 40 starts in save percentage (.907) and 15th in goals-against average (2.65) despite going 3-1 in his past four starts and allowing just eight goals on 106 shots. Even he says of his numbers, "Oh, my god, I wish I could be up there higher."

But Fleury is smart enough to realize that his game is about more than mere statistics. He's still just 25, but he has grown a lot during his six seasons with the Penguins.

"A lot of playing goalie is in your head," Fleury said. "When I don't play well, I feel like I let my teammates down. It ticks me off, you know? But, when I can make the key saves to keep my team in the game, I'm happy."

That happened enough the past two springs that the Penguins were able to win seven of eight playoff series, prompting general manager Ray Shero to gush about Fleury, "You show me a young goaltender that's done what he's done at his age." It's hard to forget Fleury's great saves on the way to the Cup last season. The toe save on Philadelphia's Jeff Carter in the third period of Game 2. The save on a breakaway by Washington's Alex Ovechkin early in Game 7. The save in traffic to rob Carolina's Eric Staal late in Game 1. The sprawling save on Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom in the final seconds of Game 7.

Two things really stand out about Fleury during that Cup run:

• One, his unbreakable confidence after the Red Wings won the first two games of the final. "Nothing is over yet!" he said boldly and, as it turned out, quite profoundly.

• And two, his ability to bounce back quickly from a bad game. He was benched in the second period of the 5-0 loss to the Red Wings in Game 5 only to win Games 6 and 7 by 2-1 scores, stopping 48 of 50 shots.

That's why Fleury's awful performance against the Rangers 13 days ago -- he was beaten for the four goals on just 12 shots -- hardly seemed troubling despite the rather loud elevator music from his critics. As the third-string goaltender on Canada's gold medal-winning Olympic team, he didn't play and hardly practiced for 2 1/2 weeks. There was no question that one bad game wasn't going to get him down. He came back to do his part to beat Dallas, 6-3, two days later, then to beat Boston, 2-1, the day after that. He has been playing lights out since.

"Maybe for a night, I beat myself up after a bad one," Fleury said. "But the next day, I always try to come to the rink in a good mood. I work hard in practice, have fun with the guys and get ready for the next game."

Sounds like a plan to me.

Certainly, it has worked well for Fleury.

The elevator music no longer bothers him.

I'm thinking it should just stop.

Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com. Ron Cook can be heard on the "Vinnie and Cook" show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan. More articles by this author
First published on March 17, 2010 at 1:12 am

No rhyme or reason to NHL's 'discipline'

By Scott Burnside
ESPN.com
http://espn.go.com/nhl/
March 15, 2010

Ever see the movie "Memento"?

Its star, Guy Pearce, plays a man who has short-term memory loss, and as he hunts for his wife's killer, he must constantly remind himself what he's after and what he has done by writing himself notes or tattooing messages to himself on his body. He wakes up every day as if it's his first day on the case. He has no idea what he has done or what he's about to do, except for the notes he has scribbled to himself.

We imagine NHL head disciplinarian Colin Campbell in the same way, waking up every day and looking down at the information in front of him as though it's the first day he has encountered any of it, trying to make sense of it all.

AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

Alex Ovechkin was suspended Monday for his boarding hit on Hawks defenseman Brian Campbell. It was the Capitals captain's second suspension of the season.

"Suspend Alex Ovechkin, but not for too long," Monday's note must have said.

"Look for way to suspend Matt Cooke," another message might have read, although that one apparently blew out the door when Campbell picked up his morning paper.

"Ignore Steve Downie," another might read, given that that's what Campbell did in failing to suspend Downie after the Tampa Bay Lightning forward looked to deliberately bring down Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby from behind Sunday with a potentially devastating knee twist.

We laugh until we cry.

That's what the NHL has become when it comes to discipline.

The world of what is right and wrong in the NHL as it relates to on-ice behavior is in such a ragged state of affairs that whatever emerges is what we expected to emerge because there is no rhyme or reason to any of it. Not anymore.

Each new suspension -- or nonsuspension, as was the case with Cooke's hit on Marc Savard -- is like the first. Each incident is its own delicate snowflake unlike any of the other snowflakes in the blizzard of chaos that envelops the NHL. Precedent comes into it when it's convenient and is ignored when it's not. And there's always some mumbo jumbo about following the rulebook in rationalizing a suspension or a decision not to suspend, depending on the time of day.

Which is why we were not surprised when Campbell and the NHL handed Ovechkin a two-game suspension Monday for the Washington Capitals star's hit on Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brian Campbell.

If Ovechkin had been given 10 games, we would have been neither surprised nor shocked. If Colin Campbell had given Ovechkin a stern talking-to and a fine, we would have been equally surprised, or not surprised, as the case may be.

Look at the Downie check on Crosby and the Ovechkin push on Brian Campbell that gave the Caps star his second two-game suspension of the season, then tell us which was the more dangerous play.

Crosby was essentially wiped out from behind by Downie well away from the puck, and Campbell, who seems to stumble just as Ovechkin launches him into the end boards, is hit sort of from the side, sort of from behind. We're not excusing the Ovechkin hit, nor do we take umbrage with the call on the ice, which was a major for boarding and a game misconduct. We're just trying to figure out how we got from A to B.

For instance, is Ovechkin suspended and Downie not because it turns out Brian Campbell might be gone for the season and Crosby miraculously is not? If that's the case, the league should acknowledge that it is going to suspend players based on the severity of the injury incurred as a result of an incident.

We don't mind that, really. Of course, that's not the league's policy, though, is it?

If the league connected injury to discipline, it would hardly have allowed Mike Richards to skate after ruining David Booth's season with a blindside hit, would it? Richards was ejected from that game against the Florida Panthers in October, and the league could have hammered the Philadelphia Flyers forward, which is what it should have done. But it didn't. Then, the NHL couldn't very well suspend Cooke for ending Savard's season because that blindside hit didn't even draw a penalty. (At least that was the fine print on the league's decision to ignore the Cooke hit.)

The fact there was no penalty called on the play didn't stop Campbell from suspending Maxim Lapierre of the Montreal Canadiens for four games after he cross checked Scott Nichol of the San Jose Sharks into the boards a couple of weeks ago. Just in case you were trying to draw a line from A to B to C.

So, now you have Cooke not suspended for a hit 10 times more dangerous than Ovechkin's hit on Campbell and Ovechkin gone for two. Well, that pretty much makes everything OK.

"Look at us, we're suspending a star player. Look, we're not really paralyzed." All the Ovechkin suspension has done is reinforce the widely held perception -- within the league and beyond -- that the NHL has no idea what it's doing when it comes to handing out supplemental discipline.

DIRK SHADD/St Petersburg Times

Lightning wing Steve Downie hits Penguins center Sidney Crosby in the first period. Crosby was helped off the ice but returned.

Because here's the thing. If Colin Campbell really believed Ovechkin's hit was reckless, he should have thrown the book at him. Ovechkin is a repeat offender -- that was noted in the NHL's news release that accompanied the suspension Monday afternoon -- so why not 10 games? If it's about creating a deterrent to dangerous play, make it a deterrent.

The thing is, the earlier suspension seemed to do exactly what it was designed to do: modify Ovechkin's behavior. In the 23 games before Sunday's contest, Ovechkin had three minors for six minutes, none of which was for a hitting violation. In the 39 games since his suspension, Ovechkin had 11 minors, three of them coming in an altercation with Downie (hey, where did we hear his name?). One of the minors was for diving.

But this isn't about making a statement or taking a stand, it's about optics and public pressure and trying to do damage control in the wake of the Richards and Cooke fiascoes.

Too late. That ship has sailed friends.

At this stage, the NHL has zero credibility when it comes to handing out discipline. Which is why the Ovechkin suspension means nothing on almost every level except the $232,645.40 the suspension will mean to the players' emergency fund, which is the recipient of the lost pay that comes with these suspensions.

This will be so until the NHL has the gumption to make meaningful change to the way it does business, until it tears down the Star Chamber and replaces Colin Campbell with a more effective, more transparent form of justice, one the players and coaches and fans can understand and accept.

Start with standard levels of suspensions for certain acts. A boarding major such as the one Ovechkin was assessed Sunday would carry a sliding scale starting with five games and moving to 10 games for a second offense, and so on. Assess standard suspensions for repeat offenders. Let's start at 10 games for a second suspension and go from there.

Have a panel made up of GMs, players and league officials come up with the scale and stick to it. No hearings, no fine print. "If you do this, this is what will happen to you."

Want to know what will happen? Players will stop doing those things.

They don't stop now because they have no idea what will happen to them. No one does. Not even Colin Campbell.


Scott Burnside covers the NHL for ESPN.com.

Steelers re-sign linebacker Foote to three-year deal

Tuesday, March 16, 2010
By Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Larry Foote asked to be released last year because he didn't want to be a backup. And the Steelers obliged because Foote was scheduled to make $2,885,000 in 2009, a steep price for a backup.

Less than a year after their split, Foote has returned to the Steelers as a backup at inside linebacker and, in his words, to help "rejuvenate" his friend James Farrior. But he is also coming back at a price not far below what he would have made last season if he had stayed.

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Steelers linebacker Larry Foote.

Foote, 29, signed a three-year, $9.3 million contract Monday that included a $1.8 million signing bonus. He is the fifth unrestricted free agent to be signed by the Steelers in eight days. Coupled with his base salary, Foote will earn $3.9 million in 2010, though he would count only $2.7 million in salary in an uncapped year.

Foote would have counted $3,932,500 against the salary cap in 2009 if he had not been released in May. He signed a one-year contract with his hometown Detroit Lions.

"In my heart I'm a Steeler and, when I left last year, they told me I'd always be one," Foote said. "I just didn't think I was going to be back here."

Foote visited two other teams last week -- the Washington Redskins and Arizona Cardinals -- but in each instance he was allowed to leave without signing a contract. That did not happen with the Steelers, who signed him shortly after he passed a physical in the morning.

Foote also turned down a one-year, $3 million offer to return to the Lions.

"It's all about winning in this league and having fun," said Foote, who played against his former team last season when the Steelers beat the Lions, 28-20, Oct. 11 in Detroit. "I know the coaches here and the guys here that I love and the community and town. Seeing the [Terrible] Towels and the black and gold ... it was a weird feeling being on that [opposite] sideline and seeing those towels."

Foote's return comes one week after the Steelers signed former receiver Antwaan Randle El to a three-year, $7 million contract. But, like all the other unrestricted free agents signed since last Monday, Foote is not projected to be a starter and was told he will back up Timmons at his old spot.

However, the Steelers are looking at Foote as insurance in case Farrior, who turned 35 in January, continues to show more signs of decline in training camp.

"Don't start wasting your paper about me replacing Farrior," Foote said. "I'm here to rejuvenate him. If I'm here I want him to be here, no doubt about it. Him being here was a big reason why I wanted to come back. I'm just here to give depth and help us win somehow, someway.

"I'm quite sure I'm going to play. The amount I don't know. Right now Timmons and Farrior are the starters. I'm glad to be back and the football part will take care of itself."

Director of football operations Kevin Colbert said Foote's contract "fit within our structure" and that the coaches will decide if he is a starter or backup.

"Larry has been here before; he knows what to do," Colbert said. "He'll provide great competition."

Foote started 16 games for five consecutive seasons with the Steelers and the first 14 games last season with the Lions. He missed the final two games with a foot injury, ending his consecutive start steak at 94 games.

After playing in three AFC championship games and winning two Super Bowls with the Steelers, Foote said it was harder than he expected to play on a losing team such as the Lions, who won two games in 2009 just one season after becoming the first winless team in 32 years in the National Football League.

"You can't really explain it until you go through it," Foote said. "You talk about dog days, especially being a competitive person and losing. But I made some good relationships over there also. It was good going home and playing there. I just thank God I'm back and I didn't sign a longer deal [with Detroit]."


Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com.

Spring training: Starling in the making

Pirates rave about 5-tool Class A outfielder Marte, but caution advised

Sunday, March 14, 2010
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Baseball scouting is never an exact science.
Except when it is.

Show the most cynical of scouts a prospect with all five coveted tools -- one with the ability to excel at hitting for average, hitting for power, running, fielding and throwing --and that scout is likely to rave. Passionately. In the form of poetry.

This player, this will be the one.

Then, the scout catches himself. And he remembers all the five-tool talents who ended up working at five-and-dimes.

So it is with Starling Marte, a Class A center fielder in the Pirates' system.

Peter Diana / Post-Gazette

Even the Pirates' brass has a hard time not using scout-speak when it comes to 21-year-old Dominican outfielder Starling Marte. He is shown here working out on the fields at Pirate City Wednesday morning.

He is built in the mold of Darryl Strawberry, a sleek, athletic 6 feet 2, 179 pounds. He has the speed and grace of an Omar Moreno, the kind seldom seen with that size. He already can cover as much of center field -- maybe even more -- than Andrew McCutchen. And his arm, already the Pirates' best at any level among outfielders ... well, no need to go there.

All that, and he is 21 years old with an adult's approach and childlike passion for the sport.

"The tools, the love of the game, the way he goes about it ... those are all really exciting. And, defensively, he's an accomplished outfielder right now," general manager Neal Huntington said. "There are a lot of things to like."

But ...

"One thing we're always going to temper is expectations. While the tools may be there, there have been a lot of guys with tools and can't-miss labels, and they don't hit. We're excited about the player, the person, the package. But it's a little early to start calling him the next guy."

Early, but not unthinkable, apparently.

Rising and falling stars

Huntington, as his words and actions have shown, is anything but the type to hype a prospect. He is sensitive to any buildup -- "We don't want our players to read their press clippings and think they're set," as he put it -- and he stresses that to his staff.

With Marte, though, the Pirates' baseball people -- yes, including Huntington -- have a hard time holding back the scout inside them ...

Kyle Stark, director of player development: "Anytime the tools are that obvious, sure, you get excited. You can start dreaming about what a guy can be. Defensively, he's already very impressive. Offensively, all the ingredients are there."

Jeff Banister, minor league field coordinator: "He's absolutely exciting. You look at the body type, the running style, the arm, the flair for the dramatic. ... Yeah, if I'm a scout sitting in the stands, this player would excite me every time he took the field."

Gary Green, Marte's manager with low Class A West Virginia last season: "His skill set is extremely good. He's a tremendous runner, a plus-plus runner. He has bat speed, too. The ball jumps off his bat. He has good instincts in the outfield, and he tracks anything. And he has a great awareness of the game, a really bright kid."

Never mind when he gets to Pittsburgh, right?

Sounds like the only remaining issue is where to put that fifth statue.

Well, to fully understand Huntington's cautious position, it is necessary to skip past the glowing assessments or even Marte's fine offensive numbers last season, his first out of his native Dominican Republic: In 57 games, he batted .309 with three home runs, nine doubles, five triples, 35 RBIs and 24 steals.

It is necessary, first, to consider that, even though five-tool talents are rare, those who make it are even rarer.

With this franchise alone, there was Charles Peterson, the two-sport star and 1993 first-round draft pick who never ascended past Class AAA. There was Chad Hermansen, the 1995 top pick who could "walk on water" as per his rookie-ball coach, but could not hit a major league fastball. There was J.J. Davis, too, perhaps the premier specimen of the group. He was the 1997 top pick, and he struck an imposing figure from the moment he stepped on deck but seldom threatened after that.

Banister was working in the Pirates' system through all of them.

"Believe me, it's about more than the tools," he said. "You can get by at the lower levels on the tools alone. What's important is how you put them together."

That brings the other area of caution: Marte has plenty of work ahead, mostly with the bat. Evaluators do not see any negative traits in the swing itself, but they want him to be far more selective than what he showed last season.

"He's had some trouble with breaking balls and controlling his approach at the plate," Green said. "He gets a little anxious at times."

"It's about knowing your strike zone, not the strike zone," Banister said. "You want him to stay aggressive but to lay off that 1-2 slider that's going to bounce at you."

That said ...

"The bat's definitely there," Green said.

"A matter of polishing it off," Banister said.

The defense is a step ahead.

"The first 10 days we had him at West Virginia, I saw him make plays that were tough for big-leaguers to make," Green said. "The jumps that he got on line drives were incredible. They absolutely shocked me. He does need to get better at coming in and going back, but that comes with time."

"This guy can be an outstanding, dynamic outfielder," Banister said. "But he's young. Here's a guy who thinks he can catch everything right now. He's got to learn game situations, when to play it a little safer."

The stars were aligned

Marte could benefit from staying humble, too, but that would not figure to be a problem.

He has heard and read some of the assessments, and he is aware that Baseball America ranked him the Pirates' No. 6 prospect after he previously had not been on anyone's radar. He also, as Banister indicated, plays the game with a tangible I-can-do-it-all confidence.

At the same time, he is soft-spoken and easygoing, the son of a former meat-store worker in Santo Domingo.

"I always know where I come from," Marte said. "My family used to be poor."

With the past tense, Marte meant that they were poor until Jan. 4, 2007, the day Rene Gayo, the Pirates' Latin American scouting director, signed him as an international free agent for $85,000.

Gayo had gotten a mixed review on Marte from another of his scouts after one tryout, but he decided to take a look for himself and arranged another.

"It's not just that I liked the way he ran on my stopwatch. It's that the way he ran was beautiful, like the way you think of Bo Jackson or Gale Sayers," Gayo said. "Then, I see him track down fly balls. And throw it. We do that, and I'm ready to sign him right there. Then, he comes in and starts hitting the ball. What else do you want?"

And one other thing ...

"I wasn't nervous," Marte said.

That is no small issue, given the imposing figure Gayo can strike with his booming voice, blunt assessments and, ultimately, the life-changing checkbook he carries.

Gayo pulled out that checkbook on the spot.

"There are things you learn in baseball, and there are things that God gives you," Gayo said.

"My best day," Marte said. "Where I come from, it's very, very big if you sign with a major league team. My friends and family, they threw a surprise party for me. Everybody came, from our whole street."

Marte played for the Pirates' Dominican Summer League for two years, then got his chance in North America last year.

Just before the latter, and just as important to hear Marte tell it, his first taste of the continent came with a stint in the Florida Instructional League in the fall of 2008. It was there that he met Pedro Alvarez, the Pirates' top prospect, and the two hit it off immediately. And the dream of reaching the majors, still distant while in the Dominican, took on reality.

"It was good to get along with someone like Pedro," Marte said. "I felt like I was a member of the Pirates."

No one in the Pirates' system hears -- or deserves -- more raves than Alvarez. But count him, too, among those impressed by Marte.

"Really good kid and ... man, he has that body for baseball," Alvarez said. "Looks like someone who can do it all."

Marte will open this season a step up, with high Class A Bradenton, and his stated goals are set no higher than that.

"I feel great when I hear all those nice things, but I don't listen to that," Marte said. "I just want to do my work and make it to the big leagues. I hope God gives me another year like last year."

Sounds like exactly how Huntington and his staff would script it.

For now.

Dejan Kovacevic: dkovacevic@post-gazette.com. Find more at PBC Blog.

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First published on March 14, 2010 at 12:00 am

NHL welcomes violence, so look out Sid!

Sunday, March 14, 2010
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Only in the NHL, where gratuitous violence among the players not only is legal but encouraged, is it not the least bit preposterous to suggest that a coach hold his star players out of a game for fear of retaliation by the opponents.

Really, what other team sport is so barbaric? What other sport has so little regard for the welfare of its players?

Boston Bruins' Patrice Bergeron, top, talks to teammate Marc Savard as he is taken from the ice on a stretcher in the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh, Sunday, March 7, 2010. Savard was carried off the ice with a concussion after being leveled by Pittsburgh forward Matt Cooke's blindside hit with 5:37 remaining in Sunday's game. The Penguins won 2-1. (AP)

There's virtually no chance that Penguins coach Dan Bylsma will sit Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin when the team plays in Boston Thursday night. But maybe he should. Could you blame the angry Bruins if they seek a little vigilante justice for the hit by the Penguins' Matt Cooke on their Marc Savard a week ago, a shoulder-to-head blow that knocked Savard momentarily unconscious, left him with a severe concussion and probably ended his season and his team's playoff hopes along with it?

Heck, the NHL almost seems to be pushing for it. The more blood on the ice, the better, right?

In a decision that surprised even the Penguins -- many of whom thought the hit on Savard was over the top -- Cooke was not suspended despite having a history of being a head-hunter. The league's justification was twofold: 1. As bad as the hit looked, it was not against the rules as they are currently written; and 2. Other players have delivered similar brutal hits and not been suspended, including the Philadelphia Flyers' Mike Richards, who drilled Florida's David Booth in October.

You have to hand it to the NHL suits in at least one sense: A player might die on the ice, but no one will be able to say they weren't consistent with their discipline.

They will be so proud.

Of course, the league officials say that isn't fair. They insist they have wanted to do something about hits to the head for a long time. Sorry, but that's hard to believe. If the league really wanted to eliminate head shots, all it would have to do is punish any perpetrator with a suspension and fine.

But that's not how the NHL works. It seems to welcome the violence. It was only after Cooke's hit on Savard that it, finally, put in a wordy and vague rule saying that certain hits to the head next season will result in a penalty and possible additional discipline from the league office.

I repeat, next season.

That doesn't figure to help Cooke, Crosby and Malkin in Boston Thursday night. Apparently, their heads will be fair game for the Bruins, who are livid about losing their best player, then watching the man who hit him skate away unpunished.

I wonder how NHL officials will feel if Crosby ends up on the ice unconscious, his face -- and the league's face, for that matter -- battered and bruised.

They probably would applaud, then climb back into their hole.

The nonsense has to stop. No less than the NHL players want that. Did you happen to read quotes from Penguins veteran winger Bill Guerin on these pages Thursday?

Apparently, those quotes didn't find their way to NHL headquarters.

Too bad.

"If a guy gets hurt like that with a shot to the head, there's got to be something [in terms of punishment]," Guerin said of Cooke's hit on Savard. "Guys don't mean to hurt each other, but they do. You've got to pay a price for that."

Guerin added, "We're all playing in the same league. We all want the same safety. We all want to be looked after the same way."

For the life of me, I can't figure out why those NHL suits can't hear that cry for help. Or why they have been so slow to try to create a better work environment for their high-priced employees.

Know this: The environment in Boston Thursday night is going to be nightmarish for the Penguins.

Maybe it will be enough for the Bruins if they get retribution with Cooke. It's easy to imagine, say, tough-guy winger Shawn Thornton challenging him to a fight early in the game. Cooke has been known to avoid such confrontations, but he likely would be willing to drop the gloves and take a beating if it means Crosby and Malkin won't be targeted.

But what if a little of Cooke's blood isn't enough for the Boston players? Is it really so hard to imagine the vigilante justice escalating into another Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore situation?

In the 2004 season, a hit from Moore, then playing for the Colorado Avalanche, left Vancouver captain Markus Naslund with a concussion. The play didn't draw a penalty in the game or a suspension. When the teams played again later that season, the Canucks decided to get even. Cooke, of all people, was playing for Vancouver at the time and got into a fight with Moore early in the game. Later, the Canucks' Bertuzzi, after failing to goad Moore into another fight, skated behind him and punched him in the back of the head, driving his face into the ice and fracturing three vertebrae in his neck. The incident ended Moore's career.

What if one of the Bruins does that to Cooke? Or even Crosby or Malkin? Savard is Boston's best player, after all. Why should the Bruins settle for going after Cooke, a role player?

Ridiculous, you say?

You don't know the NHL.

After Cooke's hit on Savard, Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli said he was "disappointed" that his players didn't react to it, presumably meaning that they should have gone after Cooke right then, even though it was late in a one-goal game and the Bruins need every point they can get to make the playoffs. Who's to say Thornton, for instance, won't try to score big points with his boss and teammates Thursday night? So what if he gets suspended for the rest of the season, as Bertuzzi was in '04? He might think it's worth it if he can take out Cooke or Crosby or Malkin.

It is worth repeating:

Only in the NHL.

Ron Cook can be heard on the "Vinnie and Cook" show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan. rcook@post-gazette.com.

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.

First published on March 14, 2010 at 12:00 am

Kovalchuk, Devils more difficult to handle

Saturday, March 13, 2010
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/



Al Bello/Getty Images

Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk shoots the puck against Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury during the second period of Friday's game at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

NEWARK, N.J. -- It was 4:56 p.m. when game-day personnel at Prudential Center conducted a formal test of the New Jersey Devils' ear-splitter.

"This is a test of the Devils goal horn," came a faceless voice preceding a deafening fog horn in a near-empty building. "This is only a test."

Uh-huh. Had this been an actual goal, there probably would have been players on the ice, although the presence in a Devils uniform of Ilya Kovalchuk hardly seemed to augment that probability.

In the first post-trade deadline collision of the top two teams in the Atlantic Division, the Penguins attempted to invert the working karma of the rivalry via the unusual gambit of putting the puck in the net. Sidney Crosby's first-period goal ended 170 minutes and 52 seconds of Penguins-Devils hockey that was completely devoid of a Penguins goal, the previous one coming off the stick of Ruslan Fedotenko two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Before landing the trading period's biggest fish in Kovalchuk Feb. 4, the Devils owned the Penguins, thumping them four times by a combined 14-2. But if you thought the Devils were difficult then ...

"He's a dangerous player," said Penguins defenseman Mark Eaton in the minutes after Kovalchuk led a third-period assault in a 3-1 Devils victory. "When you have him out there he's creating things, but basically, New Jersey's been playing the same kind of game for many years."

Until Wednesday then, when the Penguins return to the Devils' workshop for one final meeting, it merely has been re-established that a Penguins-Devils playoff series might lack, um -- what's the term -- competitiveness?
"We know what we can do," Eaton said confidently, "but when we've met them lately, they've played their game better than we've played ours."

In reality, not a lot has gone right for New Jersey since this estimable Russian pulled on a red sweater, and the Devils came into critical matchup Friday with only seven wins in their previous 21 games. With Kovalchuk adding his elaborate offensive skill set to their highly systemized style, they lost six of the first 10, with Kovalchuk contributing a highly ordinary three goals and five assists.

It was not really what was envisioned when Kovalchuk brought 31 goals with him from Atlanta, the most by a player acquired by the Devils' franchise, or seven more than Peter Stastny brought from the late great Quebec Nordiques 20 years ago.

Against goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and a Penguins team operating on no rest, this former Thrashers player managed only to thrash about the Newark pond for most of two periods despite plenty of opportunities including a second-period penalty shot.

Kris Letang hooked him on a breakaway, and Kovalchuk broke confidently toward the left circle as he sized up Fleury for a shot that could have broken a 1-1 tie, but his low wrister merely thumped into Fleury's left pad. Before that, Kovalchuk fanned on Patrick Elias' pretty crossing pass and watched Fleury stop his best slapper while the Penguins' superb penalty-killers were thwarting a five-minute power play called against Craig Adams for charging former Penguins defenseman Martin Skoula.

But in the final period, which started with the same 1-1 knot in place, Kovalchuk became the very kind of ominous presence that made him attractive to New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello, who evidently had no square-peg-round-hole compunctions.

"I think there's a certain dynamic when you have a goal-scorer like that on the ice," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said after his club's second loss in 24 hours. "I think, especially when it's five one five, or he's on the power play, he's the kind of player that with one puck, he can change the game. When you add that to a team like New Jersey, that's certainly something we've got to pay attention to."

Two minutes into the third, a Kovalchuk blast from the left half-boards came off Fleury so hard it caromed to Andy Green beyond the circles, and Green buried it to make it 2-1 at 2:06. Less than eight minutes later, Kovalchuk got free in the high slot and whistled his 35th goal of the year past Fleury.

Fleury protested pretty viciously that Devils center Travis Zajac brushed his glove while crossing the intersection of Fleury and Puck, but such plays are not reviewable in the current NHL. Bylsma mentioned that sometimes things happen too fast to be judged correctly on the ice, but what's happening between the Penguins and Devils has unfolded slowly, agonizingly, with a locked focus.

It would appear that a successful defense of the Penguins' Stanley Cup championship will require that someone take care of the Devils for them. As a do-it-yourself project, it's not looking real viable.

Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.

First published on March 13, 2010 at 12:15 am

Authors explore Art Rooney's roots, life

By Rege Behe, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/
Friday, March 12, 2010

Art Rooney is remembered as the congenial owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. His profile -- a thatch of white hair offset by thick eyeglasses, an ever-present cigar in his mouth -- is cherished by many sports fans.

Lost in time is the image of Rooney in his youth: solidly built with whippet-like speed, a multi-sport athlete whose talents emerged at an early age. As a teenager in the late 1910s, Rooney was akin to Terrelle Pryor, the talented athlete from Jeannette High School who currently plays quarterback at Ohio State. When he was only 16, Rooney played for sandlot baseball teams against the Homestead Grays, the Kansas City Monarchs and the House of David. Rooney was one of the best football players whenever he took the field, either for Duquesne University's prep team or the Hope Harveys, a semi-pro club composed of older men. Rooney's boxing skills made him a near lock to make the U.S. Olympic team in 1920, but he failed to attend the trials, worried that payments he received from semi-pro teams would have disqualified him.

"For his time, he was a prodigy," says Rob Ruck, one of the authors of "Rooney: A Sporting Life." "He just wasn't a six-foot-six prodigy."

Co-written by Maggie Jones Patterson, who is married to Ruck, and Michael P. Weber (who died during the writing of the book), "Rooney" traces the life of the Steelers' patriarch who shepherded the team into the NFL in 1933. The research and writing of the biography took 10 years and was done with the help of the Rooney family. Ruck and Patterson searched through family archives and historical documents, and conducted countless interviews.

When asked what they found most surprising, Patterson says, "That would be more of a list." She does allow that the tenor of Rooney's character emerged unexpectedly.

"As a reporter, having done many stories on many people, I've never done research on anyone who got better and better the more we dug," says Patterson, an associate professor of journalism at Duquesne University. "There's a lot of kindness in this man that people don't know about. It was done without any fanfare. I think he just really liked people."

Rob Ruck and Maggie Patterson, of Squirrel Hill, recently finished a biography on Art Rooney. "Rooney: A Sporting Life" traces the life of the Steelers' patriarch who shepherded the team into the NFL in 1933. The research and writing of the biography took 10 years and was done with the help of the Rooney family.
Philip G. Pavely Tribune-Review

Art Rooney was born Jan. 27, 1901, in Coultersville, east of Pittsburgh. His family would move to Monaca and Crescent Township in Beaver Country, and the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, before settling in the North Side. His father opened Daniel Rooney's Cafe and Bar on General Robinson Street, where the tone of Art Rooney's life was set.

Daniel Rooney "is a mediator, he's brokering all sorts of things, and Art is exposed to that at an early age," says Ruck, a lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of "The Tropic of Baseball." "He has eight brothers and sisters and he's just part of that world. I think he picks up those attributes."

As he gets older, Art Rooney befriends two politicians who also shape his life: James J. Coyne, a state legislator from Oakland, and David Lawrence, who becomes the mayor of Pittsburgh, then governor of Pennsylvania. Rooney was enlisted to run in the Republican primary for the office of registrar of wills as a favor to Coyne in 1939. But his heart was not in the campaign, which he lost.

HELPING HAND

"I think he really liked it when he was active in ward politics because that was a way to help people out," Ruck says. "People would come to the ward chair or the lieutenants to get kids out of trouble, to get a load of coal, to bail them out of a jam, and Art was great at that."

That spirit of generosity, the willingness to help, would be part of Art Rooney's character his entire life. Rooney would hold court at the Steelers' offices at the Fort Pitt Hotel, where he also promoted boxing matches in the 1930s and 1940s.

Art Rooney was one of the nation’s top amateur welterweights in 1920. Rooney's boxing skills made him a near lock to make the U.S. Olympic team in 1920, but he failed to attend the trials, worried that payments he received from semi-pro teams would have disqualified him.
Pittsburgh Steelers Collection

He also was known for being loyal, which partially explains why the Steelers were mired in mediocrity for most of their first 40 years. Instead of a hard-nosed, winning-at-all costs attitude, Rooney stuck by friends such as Walt Kiesling, who he continually brought back to coach the team despite poor results.

Rooney also had more than his share of bad luck. The team was on the verge of a breakthrough when World War II began, and the Steelers lost almost their entire roster when the men joined the military, forcing temporary mergers with the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Cardinals. After World War II, Rooney hired Jock Sutherland, who coached the University of Pittsburgh to five national championships. Sutherland, however, died after coaching the Steelers for only two seasons.

Rooney also wasn't inclined to invest exorbitantly in the team.

"He's willing to lose money, but he's not willing to lose big," Ruck says. "He's got a problem in the '30s, '40s,'50s: This is a big college football town. There aren't many cities where there are three (Pitt, Duquesne and Carnegie Tech) nationally competitive teams, and (the Steelers) are not drawing well."

Whatever misfortune dogged the Steelers was counterbalanced by Rooney's success in betting the horses at racetracks. Rooney had two incredible hot streaks: During the summer of 1937, on what came to be known as Rooney's Ride, it's estimated he cleared at least $200,000. In the first couple of months of 1947, he is presumed to have won nearly $1 million betting on a horse he owned, Westminster, in two races.

His gambling exploits were celebrated across the country, but not because he was the owner of the Steelers. Patterson points out that in the 1930s and 1940s, the NFL was not nearly the glamorous league it is now, and the Steelers often went begging for fans.

"We went to a Steelers game and I thought so much of Art, the contrast to these desperate years when he's trying so hard to get anybody to come to a game," Patterson says. "All these different ways of giving away tickets, and now this big empire that he built. Back then, the NFL wasn't getting much attention."

A loyal friend and family man, Art Rooney spent his life helping others. He came from a tight knit family and then created his own. Pictured in this undated photo are Art, his wife Kass, and their five boys (left-right), twins John and Pat, Art Jr., Dan and Tim.

Pittsburgh Steelers Collection

Ruck thinks that until the team started to win championships in the 1970s, Rooney supported the team with his ventures in racetracks, notably ownership of Yonkers Raceway in New York and the Palm Beach Kennel Club, a dogtrack, in Florida.

Winning Super Bowls did not change Rooney. Even if he had remained a lovable loser -- a term he always despised -- Rooney's patterns would have stayed the same. He was defined by his daily habits: saying the rosary, attending Mass at St. Peter's Catholic Church in the North Side, then walking to work, helping folks who wandered into his office at the Fort Pitt Hotel or on the streets of the North Side.

That's who Art Rooney truly was, Ruck and Patterson agree.

"We tend to think of the American ethic of individualism," Ruck says. "You climb the ladder of success on your own. But Rooney's coming out of a background of mutualism where these ironworkers (his ancestors from Wales) stuck together. They shared work, they shared information about where there was work. There was a strong union consciousness in the family, a strong sense of you stick together and help each other work."

"Certainly his heritage was to maintain a very close tie with the church," Patterson adds. "I kept thinking of the Corporal Works of Mercy (the seven practices of charity toward neighbors). I really think he lived them. He went to funerals, he visited the sick. I think those were his connections."

At the groundbreaking ceremony for Three Rivers Stadium, April 1968, Art Rooney gets ready to kick a football while son Dan Rooney holds. The father-son working partnership guided the Steelers to quite a few victories in the old stadium.

Pittsburgh Steelers Collection

Rooney stories

Anecdotes about Art Rooney from "Rooney: A Sporting Life"

• Art Rooney was nicknamed the Chief because of his resemblance to Perry White, the editor in chief of the Daily Planet in Superman comics.

• To cash in on the popularity of baseball, Rooney first named the Steelers the Pittsburgh Pirates Football Club when he formed the team in 1933. Forrest "Jap" Douds was the first coach (he also played), and the first training camp was Newell's Grove near Greensburg. The team became the Steelers in 1940. Other names that were considered included the Vulcans, Tubers, Ingots and Puddlers.

• In the 1930s through the 1950s, Rooney, along with partner Jack McGinley, promoted boxing matches. Fighters, including Billy Conn, Fritzie Zivic, Jake LaMotta, Sugar Ray Robinson and Ezzard Charles, fought at Forbes Field, Duquesne Gardens, Hickey Park in Millvale and Heidelberg Raceway. Pittsburgh was considered just a notch below New York City as a boxing mecca.

• Rooney would often visit St. Anne de Beaupre, a shrine in Quebec City, where he would collect holy oils and waters to rub on the legs of his racehorses.

• Rooney actually sold the Steelers in 1940 to Alex Thompson, the son of a Boston industrialist who wanted to move the team to Massachusetts. Rooney then bought half an interest in the Philadelphia Eagles, with plans to rename the team the Keystoners and split games between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. When the NFL nixed the idea of having a team in two cities, Rooney persuaded Thompson to swap franchises and move his team to Philadelphia, allowing Rooney to run his new team in Pittsburgh with Bert Bell. But, for four years, because Rooney never got around to changing names, the club operated as the Philadelphia Eagles Pro Football Club, Inc.

• In the late 1960s, the Steelers tried to hire Penn State's Joe Paterno as coach. When talk turned to faith, Rooney told Paterno about a brother who was a Franciscan monk. Paterno mentioned his mother, who prayed daily to the Infant of Prague. After Penn State staged a last minute rally to beat Kansas in the 1969 Orange Bowl, Rooney sent Paterno the following telegram: WILL TRADE MY BROTHER AND TWO SISTERS FOR YOUR MOTHER.

The Straight Edge: Campbell needed to step up and punish Cooke

By Ryan Kennedy
http://www.thehockeynews.com/
2010-03-12 13:10:00


The date has already been circled on many a New England calendar, but NHL chief disciplinarian Colin Campbell better get his red marker out, too.

March 18, 2010, is the day something very horrible may go down in Boston. And Campbell is to blame if it does.

He won’t be the only one, of course. Campbell surely solicited opinions from the game’s powerbrokers at the GM meetings and used those discussions to build his verdict. But there must be no quarter given to the NHL’s senior executive vice president of hockey operations should malice mar the game between the hometown Bruins and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins as the buck ultimately stops with him.

Matt Cooke avoided suspension following his hit on Marc Savard that knocked the Bruins center out for the rest of the year. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Matt Cooke’s blindside knockout of Bruins ace Marc Savard the last time these two teams met is naturally the backdrop here. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli has rightly voiced his dismay that Pittsburgh’s Cooke was not suspended for his head shot on Savard and the Boston media has been frothing at the fact no Bruins went after Cooke post-incident.

And, in a bit of cosmic irony/poor timing, the tilt against Pittsburgh will also be “Big, Bad Bruins Night” at TD Garden. Boston will honor some of its greatest players, all of whom won the 1970 Stanley Cup – legends such as Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and Johnny Bucyk – and the expectation is the current members of the Black and Gold better not play like a bunch of hippies in front of them.

Boston Herald columnist Steve Buckley put it thusly: “How could the B’s let Cooke off the hook on a night when the real Big, Bad Bruins are in the house? Think about that. If the B’s play 60 minutes of hockey against the Penguins and Cooke isn’t cooked, how is that going to sit with (Derek) Sanderson? (Johnny) McKenzie? Bucyk?

“If a five o’clock visit with the 1969-70 Bruins isn’t enough to inspire the current Bruins to take their game to a higher, tougher level, then ownership should just shut down what’s left of the season.”

Earlier in the week, suggestions out of the Herald ran the gamut from the Bruins fighting Cooke every shift he took, to zeroing in on Penguins stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Both sentiments I can understand Boston fans echoing in these passionate days.

Bruins coach Claude Julien will be the first line of defense in protecting hockey from another black eye – and I am talking about an incident Bertuzzi-esque in its vulgarity – and he is certainly a capable man of doing so. The Bruins themselves can also limit their revenge to punches to the front of Cooke’s face, not the back, and hits that he can see coming (and will no doubt be expecting).

But all this could have been prevented by Campbell. An old-school player if there ever was one during his days as an NHLer in the 1970s and ‘80s, Campbell has, unfortunately, become afraid to drop the gloves, so to speak.

In a Toronto radio interview, Campbell defended his non-action by claiming: “you can’t do the easy thing…you have to do the right thing.”

Well, the right thing would have been to suspend Cooke for at least five games, thus removing him from the upcoming game against Boston.

Even if Boston vengeance comes in the widely accepted traditional form of Milan Lucic or Shawn Thornton grabbing Cooke by the scruff of the neck and tossing fist-bombs, what if Crosby slips on a stick during the fracas, or Sergei Gonchar wrenches his back trying to pull someone off a teammate? What if Lucic breaks his hand on Cooke’s helmet? I know fights happen in almost every NHL game, but when it’s almost guaranteed and the forecast calls for a high-pressure system with chances of chaos, the NHL is entitled to do what it can to defuse the situation before it boils over.

Cooke has been suspended numerous times in his NHL career and is therefore considered a repeat offender, plus the ambiguity of the NHL’s own rule book, specifically Rule 29 (the Commissioner may, at his discretion, investigate any incident…and may assess additional fines and/or suspensions for any offense committed during the course of a game or any aftermath thereof by a player…whether or not such offense has been penalized by the Referee) gave the league an easy out to suspend him and not be subject to very much criticism from the Penguins organization.

There is a good chance this Boston-Pittsburgh showdown won’t reach “Welcome to the Terrordome” levels. These games rarely live up to the premeditative hype assigned to them anymore. Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma could simply scratch Cooke from the game and deny Boston its revenge – it’s not like the Pens are desperate for his offensive contributions.

But both Boston and Pittsburgh have their own agendas. They will not put themselves at a perceived competitive disadvantage during the drive towards the playoffs by promising not to kill Cooke, or conversely, pulling Cooke out of the game.

The man who needed to stand up is Colin Campbell – and he didn’t.

- Ryan Kennedy is a writer and copy editor for The Hockey News magazine, the co-author of the book Hockey's Young Guns and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog appears Monday and Wednesday, his column - The Straight Edge - every Friday, and his prospect feature, The Hot List appears Tuesdays.

Steelers' image in tatters

By Joe Starkey, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/
Thursday, March 11, 2010

It's easy to find the face of the Steelers' storied franchise. Just click on TMZ.com.

There you will see Ben Roethlisberger clad in a black Satan T-shirt — that's Satan, not satin — apparently posing for photos with co-eds the night he was accused of sexual assault in a small Georgia college town.

I'm guessing none of the shots will make the cover of the Steelers' media guide.

Though bar-hopper Ben might well be innocent, team president Art Rooney II must be more than a little alarmed that his $102 million quarterback has as many sexual assault allegations as Super Bowl rings.

But let's be honest: The Steelers' carefully cultivated image isn't resting on Roethlisberger's innocence.

That image has long since crumbled.

The so-called Steeler Way is dead.

Don't get me wrong. The Steelers do most things better than nearly everybody. They draft better players, hire better coaches, win more championships.

But could we please stop pretending that they do so from elevated moral ground?

Rooney is not granting interviews, so there is no way to gauge his feelings on this latest legal headache. One wonders if he is ashamed of the Steelers' deteriorating image under his watch. Does he know that his players' off-field antics have made the franchise every bit as much a punch line as the Cincinnati Bengals?

Some people still buy the myth. That was obvious when rumors surfaced last summer of the Steelers having interest in disgraced quarterback Michael Vick.

The Steelers? They would never bring in a guy like that. That's not the Steeler Way.

At face value, such assertions were valid. The Steelers had no history of signing troubled, high-profile free agents and weren't going to sign Vick. But the implication that they only employ players of the strongest moral fiber should have insulted any reasonable person's intelligence.

Let's consider just some of the trouble we've seen since Super Bowl XL.

Where would you like to start — offense, defense or special teams?

Let's go with receiver Santonio Holmes, who was arrested twice within 25 days of the Steelers drafting him. A disorderly conduct charge out of Miami was dropped. Holmes later was charged with domestic violence and assault against the mother of one of his children.

In a police affidavit, the woman alleged that Holmes was "choking (her), throwing her to the ground ... and slamming her into a door." Charges were dismissed when Holmes' lawyers assured a Ohio judge that Holmes was participating in counseling through the NFL.

This past year, Holmes escaped a misdemeanor drug charge when his attorney successfully argued that a traffic stop violated the player's rights.

Another receiver, Cedrick Wilson, allegedly walked into a bar two years ago and punched his ex-girlfriend in the face. The Steelers, upon cutting Wilson, released a sanctimonious statement saying they hoped the roster move would "send a message that we will not tolerate this type of conduct."

That was before star linebacker James Harrison, who was arrested for striking the mother of his son around the same time as the Wilson incident, was signed to a $51.5 million contract. Charges were dropped, but Harrison had to undergo anger-management counseling — and in his autobiography, it was verified that Harrison struck the woman in the face.

We could go on. We could talk about the kicker's run-ins with a towel dispenser and policemen, the offensive line coach who accidentally forwarded a pornographic e-mail to league offices, the tight end who allegedly urinated in a parking lot near Heinz Field and even one of the team mascots who was arrested for DUI.

No need.

Let's just be truthful: All NFL franchises deal with trouble. All have been known to sacrifice ethics for the sake of winning. That's the point. The Steelers are no different than the rest, though they're having a pretty rough run at the moment.

You can read all about it on TMZ.com.

Crosby defends saying no to Letterman

Thursday, March 11, 2010
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Responding to a topic that has grown legs on the Internet, Penguins center Sidney Crosby talked about his decision to decline an invitation last week to present the Top Ten List on the "Late Show with David Letterman."

He pointed to a packed schedule that week coming off his golden moment at the Olympics in Vancouver, including March 3, when the Penguins flew to New York for a game the next night against the Rangers and where Letterman tapes his show.


Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby.

"I do my best. That's all I can do," Crosby said Wednesday after the Penguins practiced at Southpointe. "It's not the first year I've dealt with balancing everything. I've had that responsibility for a long time, and I think anybody who knows me well knows I take that seriously. I do my best with it.

"Everyone's not always going to be happy, but I do my best, and I do what I think is right, and I'll continue to do that. There's really nothing I can do if people disagree with that."

Crosby, considered the face of the NHL, has received some criticism for declining, and the New York Post reported that the NHL was "miffed" at the lost chance for publicity for the league. An NHL spokesman has disputed that, praising Crosby's cooperation in media and promotional endeavors.

"Before anybody should weigh criticism, I would ask them to walk a week in his shoes and see how many times they say 'yes' and they say 'no' to what he does," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.

"The demands on his time -- inside our [locker] room and our organization, to our city, to outside our city when we go other places -- is extraordinary."

The Penguins will be back in the New York area twice in the coming week for games against the New Jersey Devils, but Crosby has a good reason for not rescheduling a Letterman appearance then.

"I haven't been asked," he said.

Guerin ready for return

Winger Bill Guerin, who missed the past three games because of back spasms, practiced and sounded as if he fully expects to play tonight at Carolina.

"I feel great. I'm good to go," he said. "It's one of those things with spasms, it's a muscular situation and it just needs a couple of days to settle down."

Crosby's equipment found

The missing equipment Crosby used to score Canada's overtime goal in the Olympic gold-medal game is on its way back to him after it apparently was mispacked, not stolen.

One of his gloves was found by Boston's Patrice Bergeron after it apparently was mistakenly packed with Bruins equipment. The other glove and his stick were found among a shipment of equipment in Toronto that was headed to the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in Russia.

Crosby had said he wanted the items returned. Reebok Canada had offered a $10,000 reward for them.

"I'm grateful to everyone who took the time and effort to get my equipment back for me," Crosby said in a statement. "These items are irreplaceable, and I'm happy to have them back."

It will be up to Crosby to decide what he will do with them. He said he might donate some or all of the pieces to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Tip-ins

Winger Eric Godard again skated before practice. His groin was seriously injured Jan. 25, and he has missed 12 games. ... Carolina winger Erik Cole was scratched for the Hurricanes' game Wednesday night at Washington. There was no indication about his status for tonight.


Shelly Anderson: shanderson@post-gazette.com.

THN.com Blog: Suspending Cooke not the right move

By Ken Campbell
http://www.thehockeynews.com/
2010-03-10 09:19:00


Regardless of what the GMs decide to recommend when it comes to head shots, it would be a knee-jerk reaction of the highest order if the NHL decided to suspend Matt Cooke for his head shot on Marc Savard Sunday. In fact, it would be almost as ridiculous as suspending Sean Avery for having a potty mouth last season.

You might be surprised this corner would advocate a non-suspension for an act as despicable as Cooke's, but the fact of the matter is if Mike Richards' hit on David Booth earlier this season did not warrant a suspension, neither does Cooke's hit on Savard.


Matt Cooke has 12 goals and 25 points in 64 games for the Pens this season. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Was the hit dirty? Of course it was. Was it a blatant head shot? Absolutely. Is Cooke known for this kind of thing and is he a repeat offender when it comes to supplemental discipline by the NHL? No question, but what exactly was his offense? He was finishing his check the way his coach, Dan Bylsma, and 29 other coaches around the NHL would insist he do and the last time we checked, a shoulder hit to the head wasn't an illegal act as of yet.

That kind of hit, if there's any sanity in the relationship between the NHL and its players, will be punishable with a hefty suspension by the time the puck drops next season, but when Cooke applied the hit, he wasn't doing anything that hasn't been done and gone unpunished a number of times in the past.

To be sure, players have been suspended for applying blows to the head, but show me where a player in the NHL has been suspended for a shoulder hit to the head on a perceived hockey play. There have been players suspended for head shots after getting their elbows up, for boarding, charging and late hits, but never has a player been sent to the sidelines for a shoulder hit.

(And just so you know, the Cooke hit shouldn't be ruled a late hit if past precedents are applied. If you watch the tape, you'll see Savard takes a wrist shot from the high slot and the hit by Cooke is applied before the puck even reaches the Pittsburgh net.)

Just because this hit is now Exhibit A when it comes to the kinds of hits everyone in the game wants to eliminate does not mean Cooke deserves to be suspended for having incredibly bad timing.

A lot of people have made mention of the fact Cooke is a repeat offender, which he is. But here is the most important distinction to be made when it comes to taking his past into account: In the legal system, and the NHL's system of justice, being a repeat offender only carries credence when you're applying the sentence, not when you're trying to determine guilt or innocence. The fact Cooke has been suspended for everything from elbows to the head to knee-on-knee collisions should have absolutely no bearing on deciding whether or not his hit on Savard was legal or illegal. The NHL must make a decision on the evidence it has provided by video replay and that alone.

And this is where NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell must walk a fine line. If he suspends Cooke for his hit on Savard, what can he say to Booth, whose concussion was much more severe and almost certainly cost him a spot on the U.S. Olympic team? (For the record, Campbell was not involved in the decision on the Richards hit because Booth plays for the Florida Panthers, the same team that employs Campbell's son Gregory.)

If the NHL wants to blame anyone for what happened to Savard, nobody is more culpable than the league itself. That's because it is the NHL that has fostered this culture of violence and, until now, done absolutely nothing to curtail it. That may change and we all hope it does soon, but Cooke should not be made a sacrificial lamb just because his hit came the day before the GM meetings.

- Ken Campbell, author of the book Habs Heroes, is a senior writer for The Hockey News and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog will appear Wednesdays and Fridays and his column, Campbell's Cuts, appears Mondays.

At best, Big Ben's image is shot

By Mark Kriegel
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl
Updated Mar 9, 2010 7:45 PM ET

Eighty-eight yards from the end zone, with two and a half minutes remaining in Super Bowl XLIII, Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers on one of the great, game-winning drives in football history.

Of course, he had more than a little help from his receiver, Santonio Holmes, who accounted, quite acrobatically, for 73 of those yards. But in a larger sense, the game conferred a special -- potentially immortal -- status on a quarterback who had grown up idolizing John Elway. If Roethlisberger, who wears No. 7 in Elway's honor, was big, occasionally reckless, prone to both improvisational magnificence and mishaps, he was also, undoubtedly, a winner.

It's worth noting that Elway didn't win a Super Bowl until his fourth try, when he was 36. Roethlisberger, on the other hand, was 23 when he won his first, the youngest starting quarterback to win one. By 27, he added a game-winning drive to his Super Bowl resume.

But now, just a week removed from his 28th birthday, you are again reminded that all the winning bestows no special status beyond the white lines. The ability to maintain composure in those final, frantic seconds of a ballgame is, unfortunately, no harbinger of one's dignity as a man. With a civil lawsuit for sexual assault already pending, Roethlisberger finds himself the subject of a criminal investigation for the same alleged offense.

And the best thing you can say here is that Big Ben's a big dope, a jackass who has jeopardized his precious beef-jerky endorsement.

Next best? His conduct deserves the strictest scrutiny under commissioner Goodell's "zero-tolerance" policy.

But there's another possible outcome: indictment. Criminal charges might finally settle the debate as to whether white quarterbacks and black quarterbacks are held to different standards by the press and the public. (Hey, if there was evidence to believe Michael Vick was a thug -- even before the dog-fighting charges -- there's enough to consider Roethlisberger a lout).

Then again, it won't get to that point, at least not according to the assurances issued Monday by his lawyer, the inestimable Ed Garland. "No sexual assault occurred," said Garland. " . . . The truth of the events should cause this investigation to end without a criminal charge."

The NFL has been very good to Garland. His clients have included Ray Lewis (whose murder charge was busted down to a misdemeanor after he ratted out his friends), Jamal Lewis (who did a mere four months for his role in a major-weight federal drug case), and Pacman Jones (who received a suspended sentence and 200 hours of community service after being charged with two felonies for a strip-club altercation that left a man paralyzed).

That's good news for Roethlisberger, the defendant. But what of the Super Bowl hero?

I think that guy's done. Again, let's take the best-case scenario. I'm not saying Roethlisberger is a rapist. I just know that, at some level, he suffers from the same malady that affected Garland's other clients: a star ballplayer's sense of entitlement.

To this point, the most damning testimony to Roethlisberger's image has come from Amber Hanley, a 21-year-old student at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga. She had the privilege of meeting him in the VIP area of Capital City, a local club, last Thursday night.

From the AP: "She said she asked the quarterback to take a photo with her friend, who was a fan, but he seemed disappointed that's all she wanted. Hanley said she rolled her eyes, and Roethlisberger called her an expletive and walked away. Later, Roethlisberger was aggressively hitting on another girl, Hanley said."

Doesn't take much to imagine what that expletive was. The story has a ring of truth, no?

Later still, a 20-year-old sophomore claimed she was assaulted by Roethlisberger, who had been to at least one other bar that night, in a bathroom at the club.

Again, as it's not my job to indict the guy, I'll assume the very best. So here's a guy who has been a full-blown celebrity for at least five years. The period of his fame coincides with the age of cell-phone cameras and the like.

But it seems to serve no warning. In fact, by now you may be acquainted with the candid shot of Roethlisberger with a T-shirt that reads: "DRINK LIKE A CHAMPION." The hottie next to him is smiling, but Big Ben can barely open his eyes. His is the unmistakable look of a slob.

Two Super Bowl rings. A $102 million contract. And he's still doing shots with college kids. Way to go, champ.


- Mark Kriegel is the national columnist for FOXSports.com. He is the author of two New York Times best sellers, Namath: A Biography and Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich, which Sports Illustrated called "the best sports biography of the year."

Steelers welcome back Randle El

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/


Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette

Steelers wide receiver Antwaan Randle El speaks to the media during a press conference at the Steelers' South Side training facility Tuesday.

Not long after wide receiver Limas Sweed was walking out of the Steelers office, Antwaan Randle El came strolling in, wearing a straw fedora and the look of a man happy to be back home again.

Four years after he left to sign a seven-year, $31 million contract with the Washington Redskins, Randle El officially rejoined the team he helped lead to victory in Super Bowl XL Tuesday -- a move that creates a logjam at wide receiver and brings into question the future of Sweed, who, like Randle El, was once a No. 2 draft choice.

After signing a three-year, $7 million contract that included a $900,000 signing bonus, Randle El pronounced himself thrilled to rejoin former teammates such as Hines Ward and Casey Hampton, players with whom he exchanged phone calls and text messages the past couple days.

"The bottom line is, it came down to coming home to a more comfortable situation for me and, certainly, [having] some history here," said Randle El, one of 10 players released Thursday by the Redskins. "It was one of the things that got me back here. I totally enjoyed playing before here and I know I will enjoy it now."

He also said he was brought in to be a wide receiver and not a punt-returner -- a role he performed with great success in his first stint with the Steelers from 2002-05. Randle El holds the club record for career punt returns for touchdowns (4), including two during his final season with the team.

"We haven't delved into the return; we just talked about being a No. 3 [receiver] and, if Hines or Santonio [Holmes] go down, then, of course, being outside," Randle El said. "The focus is being the No. 3 receiver right now. That's what I want to come in and do. And be productive at it. Punt returns, that's lying in the woods. It's not something I want [to do]."

Before anyone thinks Randle El (5 feet 10, 185 pounds) will replace rookie sensation Mike Wallace as the team's No. 3 receiver, understand this: The Steelers have several offensive packages in which the third receiver can be either Wallace or another player, depending on the formation. It was that way last season and it will continue to be that way next season with Randle El.

Randle El's signing comes one day after the Steelers signed free-agent wide receiver Arnaz Battle from the San Francisco 49ers to a three-year, $3.9 million contract. The addition of Randle El and Battle gives the Steelers seven receivers, including Sweed and Tyler Grisham -- two more than they kept on their 53-man roster last season.

The Steelers also signed offensive tackle Jonathan Scott, who started eight games last season with the Buffalo Bills. Scott, who signed a one-year, $545,000 contract, could be used as a backup for Willie Colon and Max Starks.

"We had other teams [who were interested], but we told [the Steelers], hey, you know, I'd like to be there, so let's get some things worked out." Randle El said. "It happened pretty quickly. I'm glad I'm here."

While he was gone

Antwaan Randle El's numbers in four seasons with Washington:

Category No.

Games 63

Games started 48

Receptions 186

Yards receiving 2,202

Yards per reception 11.8

Total touchdowns 9


Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com.

Roethlisberger, not free agents, is the key for Steelers

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Four points need to made after the Steelers had a busy Monday, re-signing safety Ryan Clark to quarterback their secondary, bringing back Super Bowl XL star Antwaan Randle El as a fourth wide receiver and likely punt-return specialist, and bringing in wide receiver Arnaz Battle, safety Will Allen and offensive tackle Jonathan Scott to provide depth and special-teams help:

One, none of it will matter unless quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is cleared of all wrongdoing in his sexual assault case in Georgia, gets his head right again and plays the same terrific football he played last season when he threw for 4,328 yards and in 2008 when he led the Steelers to their second Super Bowl in four years.


Peter Diana / Post-Gazette

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw for 4,328 yards last season.

Two, the Clark signing is terrific, by far the best of the bunch.

Three, it's a lot harder to get excited about the other four moves, although the Steelers strengthened their depth.
And four, selecting wide receiver Limas Sweed in the second round of the '08 NFL draft almost certainly will go down as a franchise draft bust.

That first observation is self-explanatory. The Steelers always will be a Super Bowl contender as long as they have Roethlisberger, who is facing his second sexual assault allegation in eight months, this one from a 20-year-old college student as the result of an alleged incident in Milledgeville, Ga., early Friday morning. They will be also-rans without him or even with him if he's at less than his best. He is the classic definition of a franchise quarterback.

The second point also should be obvious. Clark would have left a big hole in the Steelers' defense if he had left as a free agent for Miami or some other NFL destination. He's a proven player. He knows the defense. He loves playing with safety Troy Polamalu, and Polamalu loves playing with him. This is where he belongs.

No. 3 is a more debatable point, at least by those who are more devoted fans of Randle El. But this is 2010, not 2005. Randle El will be 31 in August and averaged just 6.0 yards per punt return for the Washington Redskins last season. He has talked of coming back to the Steelers as the No. 3 receiver, but that's hard to imagine. You would put him ahead of Hines Ward? Santonio Holmes? Mike Wallace? Of course, not.

Finally, the fourth point about Sweed should not be overlooked, no matter how hard it is to see in the dark shadows cast by the Roethlisberger situation. It also deserves a little more attention.

The Steelers drafted Sweed two picks ahead of Rutgers running back Ray Rice, who has become a star with the Baltimore Ravens. Now, two years later, after the additions of Randle El and Battle, there doesn't appear to be a roster spot for him.

Definitely a bust so far.

Maybe not on the same level as some of the Steelers' No. 1 picks from the past 25 years -- Jermaine Stephens, Huey Richardson, Tom Ricketts, Aaron Jones and Darryl Sims. But right there with the team's recent second-round flops -- Alonzo Jackson, Scott Shields and Jeremy Staat.

NFL coaches value productivity and reliability above all else. Sweed gave neither to Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. He dropped what should have been a touchdown pass in the AFC championship game against the Ravens after the '08 season, then compounded that by faking an injury and forcing the team to use a timeout. He had another big drop that would have been a touchdown in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in September.

It was after that game in Cincinnati that Tomlin tried to get to Sweed by publicly calling him out. He talked of how it might be a long time before Sweed got back in the lineup, "if" he did. It was after that same game, you might remember, that Tomlin also had harsh public words for running back Rashard Mendenhall, the team's No. 1 pick in '08. He told the world that Mendenhall was benched on offense that day because "he wasn't on the details" that week in practice.

Well, Mendenhall responded in the best possible way. He ran for 165 yards the next week against the San Diego Chargers and finished the season as one of the Steelers' top offensive players. Sweed? Not so much. He didn't have a catch the rest of the season and left the team in December with what Tomlin described as "personal issues." Management still hasn't elaborated, leading to much speculation that Sweed was battling severe depression.

If that's true, maybe a fresh start with another team is just what Sweed needs.

Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com. Ron Cook can be heard on the "Vinnie and Cook" show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.

Steelers re-sign safety Clark to four-year deal

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

For a team that historically has tiptoed into free agency, the Steelers dived headfirst and unleashed a flurry of activity that began with the quick signing of two unrestricted free agents and ended Monday with a new four-year, $14 million contract for free safety Ryan Clark and a three-year agreement to bring receiver Antwaan Randle El back to his former team.


Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Steelers safety Ryan Clark.

Randle El, one of their Super Bowl XL heroes who played for the Steelers from 2002-05, is expected to visit the Steelers today to sign his contract. He was released four days ago by the Washington Redskins despite being their second-leading receiver in '09.

But that's not all.

After signing Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Will Allen and San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Arnaz Battle to three-year contracts Monday, the Steelers will sign another unrestricted free agent today with whom they already have reached contract agreement -- former Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Jonathan Scott.

But, in what was probably the busiest free-agent day in franchise history, the most important transaction was reaching contract agreement with Clark, who, after meeting with the Miami Dolphins Monday, decided he didn't want to leave Pittsburgh or the Steelers organization.

Clark's deal, which averages $3.5 million, came just hours after the team signed Allen, 27, to a three-year, $4.4 million contract that included a $975,000 signing bonus.

"In the end, he went somewhere and saw for him and his family that he'd rather be in Pittsburgh," said Joel Turner, Clark's agent. "They want to be a fixture in that community. They're wonderful people. They're glad to be in Pittsburgh for four more years and beyond."

Instead of having a chance to possibly replace Clark, Allen is expected to replace veteran Tyrone Carter as a backup safety and be used on special teams.

Allen and Battle, who played seven seasons in San Francisco, each signed with the Steelers just hours after making their first visit to the team's South Side practice facility. Battle's three-year deal is worth $3.9 million with a $975,000 signing bonus.

"I thought it was a great fit; I thought it was a great move," said Allen, who was with the Buccaneers when Mike Tomlin was their secondary coach. "It was time for a change, time for a new fresh look. What better place than to be in Pittsburgh -- with a championship team and vying for a world championship every year and playing with a great group of guys and great coaches. I'm just excited about that right now."

A former special teams captain for the Buccaneers, Allen played in only eight games last season after being placed on injured reserve with a thumb injury. He was a fourth-round draft choice out of Ohio State in '04 who has four interceptions in 84 career games.

Battle, 30, had 178 catches for 2,150 yards and 11 touchdowns in seven seasons with the 49ers, but his production declined sharply the past two seasons, especially in '09 when he had only five catches for 40 yards.


Antwaan Randle El

Battle will be used as a possible fourth wide receiver with the Steelers and, like Allen, is considered a special teams standout. He will be reunited with the Steelers with new special teams coach Al Everest, who coached in San Francisco last season.

"I think they were making a change as far as their direction," Battle said of the 49ers. "Isaac Bruce and myself were one of the two veterans and we were given different roles. They wanted to go with the younger receivers, Josh Morgan, Brandon Jones from Tennessee and they had [No. 1 pickMichael] Crabtree so it was just kind of going in a different direction."

Scott (6 feet 6, 318 pounds), who started two games at right tackle and six games at left tackle for the Bills last season, will visit Steelers offices today and is expected to sign a multiyear contract, a move that will reunite him with Sean Kugler, his position coach in Buffalo.

A former fifth-round draft choice of the Detroit Lions in 2006, Scott was a restricted free agent who did not receive a contract tender from the Bills, making him an unrestricted free agent.


Gerry Dulac: gdulace@post-gazette.com.