Ken Sawyer Quotes (20 Quotes)

This thing smells wrong. They should be making sure that there's no hint whatsoever of any political inside deal, any relationship with campaign contributions.

And ticket sales, which sagged in recent years in the league's oldest and least fan-friendly arena, soared after Pittsburgh won the No. 1 pick Friday in the NHL draft lottery. The Penguins sold scores of season-ticket packages Friday night to fans from 10 states and Canada, even though ticket-buyers had to wait 45 minutes on hold just to get an operator. We're on Cloud 9, ... This has probably been the (team's) greatest 24-hour period since 1984.

We started again -- we have an alternate source of power -- but then Duquesne Light flipped the switch for whatever reason a second time, and that blew the first source, and that's what caused the problem. At the same time, probably a surge here caused a little fire in an electrical panel. That's been entirely taken care of.

This was a difficult decision we did not take lightly. But we all agreed it was time to make a change and move forward.

It's not the first time we've had this problem with Duquesne Light. I don't know if it's the supply coming into the building or a problem with the building itself. I want to find out what's the problem.

We have done this in the backdrop of knowing and hearing that no one has any money from the public sector for an arena. That is no small challenge. But we have come up with a way to pay for the entire cost of building a new arena with not a nickel of taxpayer money.

It's pretty obvious that there was a pent-up demand for winning hockey.

This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly. It involved all the members of our board and after much discussion we all came to the same conclusion it was time to make a change and move forward with the next generation team under new leadership.

We've been making payments steadily whether there was a work stoppage or not or whether we made money or not. That's just the way we do business. There's absolutely a sense of pride.

It would be pretty hard to question 'Why not do this It's a great opportunity to get a new arena. ... We don't need state money. They can put the state money to other uses. We're offering to build the arena at no cost.

I hope none of you expected Mario to own this team forever. He's done more than he should ... and he's teed this up perfectly for the community to jump at a great opportunity for this team to stay here.

I think the Super Bowl actually helps people understand what a sports team can do for a community in terms of coalescing that community. We hope to be back in your championship in a very short time. So, I think it's helpful.

My first thought was that we need a new arena.

We've been saying that for a long time and we have a plan that's tied to gaming. But it will be an unbelievable plan, the best in the history of Pennsylvania for the public sector. So we think it's a no-brainer. But it will take at least a year to find out if our gaming partner wins the license. We're not leaving Pittsburgh until June 2007 at the earliest.

We have tremendous respect for Craig and are very grateful for his many contributions to this organization over the past 17 years. However, I and our board have decided that it is time for a change.

Having local ownership is a great asset, and we would look very favorably on that. All things equal and if it's a coin toss, we encourage local people to step up and be a part of this.

If anyone looks at this at all, they'll see this is about an illegal activity and not a legalized slots parlor. And the NHL's position is very clear. The league is against gambling on hockey. A slots parlor is about a gaming operation involving slots.

I want to create an organization that suits the times.

It was a very difficult decision. But we both stood back and did what's best for the team.

We wanted (the sculpture) to have a link to skiing, but we also wanted to make it spiritual.