During his days as one of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ primary owners, Mario Lemieux routinely turned up in and around the locker room after games at PPG Paints Arena.
While there’s no indication that he was actively involved in day-to-day decision-making about personnel and other hockey matters — although he was willing to share opinions and ideas when asked — his frequent presence at ice level was hard to miss.
But Lemieux’s public profile has plunged since he and Ron Burkle reached an agreement to sell controlling interest to Fenway Sports Group in November, 2021. Never mind that in a press release issued to announce the sale, Lemieux said he would “continue to be as active and engaged with the team as I always have been.”
Well, perhaps that really was the plan 14 or 15 months ago.
The reality has turned out to be decidedly different, however.
A casual survey recently of media members who cover the Pittsburgh Penguins did not turn up anyone who recalled seeing Lemieux — who, like Burkle, retained a sliver of ownership as part of the sales agreement — much, if at all, in 2022-23.
Brian Burke, the Penguins’ president of hockey operations, confirmed that Lemieux “hasn’t been around much at all,” but offered a pretty good explanation for why public sightings of Lemieux lately seem to be mostly on golf courses in south Florida.
“I attribute that to his schedule and the fact that he’s in a different financial circumstance now,” Burke said.
He made it clear that Lemieux’s absence does not reflect any sort of falling out with the organization or its current owners, and that team officials would be pleased if Lemieux — without question, the most important and popular figure in franchise history — were to spend more time at PPG Paints Arena.
“Mario knows he’s welcome here 24/7, and the more he’s around, the better, as far as we’re concerned,” Burke said. “But he has not been around that much. Hopefully, that will change.”
Lemieux has been cited as the individual who proposed hiring Burke at the same time the Penguins were bringing in Ron Hextall as GM after Jim Rutherford’s abrupt resignation in January, 2021.
Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League, is based in Boston, and none of its executives are nearly as recognizable as Lemieux here.
It is possible, then, for them to visit here largely undetected.
But even if they rarely, if ever, are in town, Burke said they are well aware of everything going on with the franchise.
“They’re clearly involved and informed,” he said. “We keep them involved. Even during games, I will text them if something major happens, letting them know what happened with an injury, or whatever.”
He described FSG as “great” and “very supportive so far.”
Although FSG officials are not likely to suggest ways for Mike Sullivan to reconfigure his third line or to advise Hextall on a crease-clearing defenseman that he should try to acquire, Burke said they are sufficiently versed in what’s happening to offer meaningful opinions.
“They’re kept informed enough that they have whatever input they want,” he said. “If they want to offer an opinion on something, that’s available to them, certainly.”
Kind of like it was for one of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ previous owners, before he voluntarily stepped out of the spotlight.
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