This past Friday, various Pittsburgh-centric bloggers were given the chance to take a tour of the Penguins’ 2010-11 home, the Consol Energy Center. Still in the construction process, the arena is the successor to the near-50-years-old Mellon Arena. Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (one of the invitees) wrote this in his great Empty Netters blog.
“We’ll admit it. We’re a little upset at the prospect of having to leave Mellon Arena. It feels like a second home to anyone who spends a significant amount of time there. Granted, that second home has rats, asbestos, leaks and distinctive odors in every nook and cranny. But they’re our rats, asbestos, leaks and distinctive odors dangit.”
Finally, I’ll leave you with this take from SBN Penguins blog Pensburgh.
In a nutshell, the Consol Energy Center is everything it’s cracked up to be. It’s going to be state-of-the-art, provide excellent views from actual comfortable seats, it’ll have televisions everywhere for replays, concourses with sufficient room to walk, enough open space to not feel cramped. The Pens will be able to offer fans a better game experience with the big jumbotron. The Penguins did their research and from everything I could see, they got it right. We’ll all miss the Igloo when she’s gone, and it won’t be the same, but in so many ways things are about to be a lot better.