Mario Lemieux filed a notice in Commons Plea Court on
Friday that he "intended to sue" Penguins co-Owner Roger
Marino for "failure to make payments" on a $42M contract
signed in '92, according to Dejan Kovacevic of the
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE. Neither side revealed how much
Lemieux was "still owed," and Tom Reich, Lemieux's agent,
did not say how long the team had gone without paying
Lemieux, who retired in April '97. The Penguins have been
talking with Lemieux's reps recently about restructuring "a
contract that already has been reworked several times." The
"most recent version of the contract had the Penguins paying
Lemieux over the next eight to ten years." Marino: "My
response is that it's hit me kind of cold." Kovacevic added
that the "most unusual aspect of the action" was that Marino
was the "lone target," not the consortium Pittsburgh Hockey
Associates, which includes co-Owner Howard Baldwin and owns
the team. Reich, on why only Marino was mentioned: "This
guy's come into the picture and he's doing all the talking.
... He's clearly the man now" (POST-GAZETTE, 5/16).
