The Penguins yesterday unveiled their '17 Stanley Cup championship ring plans, and the design has a "number of subtle details that make it special, like the number '5' replacing the eye of the penguin in the logo, and the team motto 'Play The Right Way' engraved on the interior of the band," according to Taylor Haase of DKPITTSBURGHSPORTS.com. The design was unveiled "ahead of their ring ceremony" last night at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The "elaborate design features nearly 400 hand-set diamonds which total over 9 carats and is set in 14-karat white and yellow gold" (DKPITTSBURGHSPORTS.com, 10/2). In Pittsburgh, Jonathan Bombulie noted the ring is "covered with 199 diamonds to create a dome." The triangle background of the skating penguin logo is "made of 10 yellow diamonds." The bird "has a .75-carat pear-shaped diamond on his chest and a tapered baguette on the blade of his hockey stick." One side "features the player's name and number and the phrase 'Back 2 Back.'” The other "features the year, five white-gold Stanley Cups and 23 more diamonds" (TRIBLIVE.com, 10/2).
WRONG MESSAGE? In N.Y., Larry Brooks wrote it is "impossible to know how much input the Penguins players had into the organization’s decision" to keep its commitment ito visit the White House. If ownership was "solely responsible for the decision, then it is on ownership to say so." Brooks: "Why hide it? Why the cone of silence?" (N.Y. POST, 9/30). The GLOBE & MAIL's Cathal Kelly wondered why the Penguins announced, "unprompted, they were going to the White House." Kelly: "Why did the league allow itself to become Trump's clearest win in all of this? ... Why was hockey's most bankable star allowed to tangle himself in a media thicket without any apparent clue how to handle it? Did no one think to sit down with Sidney Crosby for five minutes?" What put the NHL in "such a poor light was not its stand ... but the lack of nuance and coherence in its approach." NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is trying to find a "collection of words that have the least chance of coming back to bite him in the ass." The NHL had a chance to "stand out" and, at the very least, "stand alongside the NFL and NBA looking just as polished and prepared." Instead, the NHL "did what it usually does in these crucial moments" (GLOBE & MAIL, 9/30). The GLOBE & MAIL's David Shoalts wrote the Penguins by going to the White House are "committing not only a political act, but an egregiously stupid one." They will be "willing dupes of Trump and aligning themselves with him." For "too long, the NHL has turned away from the major social issues in the guise of not being political" (GLOBE & MAIL, 10/1).
