Home Forums Skybox Sports Bar Clearing the Zone Lemieux and Lindross news.......

Mario is planning on hitting the ice in a real game on December 27th vs Toronto.<P>This should be really interesting because here is a great player that hasnt played in game speed for 3 1/2 years. It will be a treat indeed.<P>Knowing Mario he will be ready, I believe this to be a spark for the Penguins and heck who knows, perhaps tagging with the current best player they may go a bit further in the playoffs this year.<P>News is that Lindross has a deal with another team, supposedly Toronto. The thing that is holding this up, is the Flyers. They need to work a trade out, and they want to make sure they get quality. Know seeing Lindross wanting to go to Toronto is rather ironic to me. However he needs to go to where he has a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup this year, and it sure won't be Philly.<P>The Hockey thread is for more than picks, it is for hockey talk, and I hope to see some talk. <P>FREAK

LEMIEUX WILL HELP THE NHL ALONG WITH PENQUINS. LOVE TO SEE LINDROSS SUIT OF FOR TORONO. HE GIVES A GREAT CHANCE TO GO FAR IN THE PLAYOFFS.

Mario comes back and it is like he didn't miss a beat. He certainly chose the right team to come back against. With Toronto's wide open style it gave him lots of ice to work with.<P>I would say that in a few weeks, we can reexamine what he has done, and see how he holds up. It should be interesting to say the least.<P>As for Lindross, nothing doing as of yet, and Philly is holding out for a bigger piece of the pie. <P>Trades are taking place but nothing major the last week or so.<P>

As I carry on my talking to myself thread....<P>mario's impact on the NHl will be far greater than just to Pittsuburgh, it will be felt around the NHL as a whole.<P>Consider this:<P>Mario Lemieux's return to the Pittsburgh Penguins doubled the audience ESPN usually gets for an NHL game. Wednesday night's game produced a 1.02 rating for ESPN and was seen in about 810,000 homes. Normally the audience is roughly 400,000 people which in itself really isn't a whole lot. What ESPN has done to capture the audience a tad more is lined up 3 to 4 more Pittsburgh games in January, and what that will mean to ESPN is a bigger audience and the commercials they show will bring them in cashola. Smart marketing I must say. Now if I could only do something like that with posts.....