This is Part II of three-part coverage of Dave Molinari, whose career covering the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League has been both lengthy and outstanding.
Molinari has covered the Penguins for two daily newspapers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, starting with the now-defunct Pittburgh Press prior to the 1983-84 season. He moved to his current employer — the Pittburgh Post-Gazette – in January 1993.
Molinari is a journalist member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. He was honored by his peers in the Professional Hockey Writers Association as the 2009 recipient of the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award.
This — Part II — is an article that delves into topics including Molinari’s career, the Ferguson Award and the Pittsburgh newspaper strike of 1992.
Part I is the introduction to the coverage, how I became aware of Molinari and why I initially decided to publish a Q&A with him on Associated Content (now associated content from YAHOO!). The link to the article is http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8313945/my_discovery_of_dave_molinaris_outstanding.html?cat=14.
The idea to simply publish a Q&A expanded.
And Part III is the Q&A with Molinari. The link to the article is http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8314691/dave_molinari_reflects_on_being_named.html?cat=14.
# # #
Dave Molinari never has been employed by the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL) in any capacity – player, coach, front office, scout, you name it.
But as a result of his work, Molinari is permanently linked with the Penguins. And that work has earned him a permanent place among the all-time greats in his profession.
Molinari’s career as a journalist, which began in 1977, is still going strong. He has spent the bulk of his career as the Penguins’ beat sportswriter for a daily newspaper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The upcoming 2011-12 season will be Molinari’s 28th covering the Penguins. For his work in the first 25 seasons, Molinari was the 2009 recipient of the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award from the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA), of which he is a member.
The award recognizes distinguished members of the newspaper profession whose words have brought honor to journalism and hockey. Winning the award earns the recipient induction in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Molinari was the 51st journalist to win the Ferguson Award and be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Two more recipients have since been inducted – one each in 2010 and 2011, upping to 53 the number of journalists in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Molinari was part of what is the norm for the Hockey Hall of Fame – an extremely strong class of inductees.
All of the other inductees are familiar names to hockey fans. The four players inducted were center Steve Yzerman, wings Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille and defenseman Brian Leetch.
Lou Lamoriello, the general manager of the New Jersey Devils, was the inductee in the Builder Category. Under Lamoriello’s leadership, the Devils have won three Stanley Cup championships.
And John Davidson was the inductee in the Broadcast Category – the winner of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award. He currently is the Director of Hockey Operations of the St. Louis Blues.
Prior to entering the Blues’ front office, Davidson was a long-time broadcaster following his playing career as a goaltender. The NHL teams for which he played were the Blues and the New York Rangers.
I became aware of Molinari winning the Ferguson Award in June 2009, during the Stanley Cup final series in which the Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings in seven games.
Molinari and Davidson were honored at a luncheon on Monday, November 9, 2009 at the Hockey Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony for Yzerman, Hull, Robitaille, Leetch and Lamoriello took place that evening.
The Professional Hockey Writers Association chose to name its award for journalists – the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award — after a true heavyweight of hockey journalism who was on the job at the founding of the NHL for the 1917-18 season.
The late Elmer Ferguson was a member of the first class of 17 journalists to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984.
After 1984, there were multiple recipients in the next five years – 1985 through 1989. Since 1990, there has been only one inductee each year with the exception of 1992, 1994 and 1996. In each of those years, no journalist was inducted.
Ferguson became Sports Editor of the Montreal Herald in 1913. After holding that position for 39 years, he continued to write columns for the newspaper until it folded in 1957.
Ferguson then moved to The Montreal Star, for which he wrote columns until shortly before his death in 1972.
On the list of recipients of the award for which he is the namesake, Montreal Herald/The Montreal Star is next to Ferguson’s name.
On that same list, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is next to Molinari’s name.
Molinari has been the Penguins’ beat sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since January 1993. He moved to his current employer after serving as the Penguins’ beat sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Press from the summer of 1983 through December 1992.
Molinari was among the editorial staffers — reporters, editors and photographers — who had worked for the Pittsburgh Press to be hired by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a result of the lengthy Pittsburgh newspaper strike of 1992.
Even though I’ve never lived in Pittsburgh, I clearly remember the newspaper strike of 1992. I was interested since I spent the first seven years of my career writing for newspapers in New Jersey. And as the Penguins’ were skating to a second straight Stanley Cup in the 1992 playoffs, the strike was in progress and was mentioned during television coverage.
Little did I know that while I was enjoying the Penguins’ march to the Stanley Cup, Molinari was wondering what path his career would take as the strike made like the Energizer Bunny.
The strike, which began on May 17, was called by Teamsters Local 211 on behalf of delivery truck drivers working for the Pittsburgh Press. In an effort to reduce operating costs, the Pittsburgh Press wanted to streamline its delivery system and, in the process, reduce the number of delivery truck drivers.
After five-plus months, Scripps-Howard Syndicate, the owner of the Pittsburgh Press, had had enough of the strike. The parent company announced the sale of the Pittsburgh Press, which meant a departure from the Pittsburgh market, in October 1992. The buyer was the Block family, the owner of the rival and much smaller daily newspaper in Pittsburgh – the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
After the sale was completed on December 31, 1992, the Block family folded the Pittsburgh Press, which had produced a newspaper six afternoons a week – Monday through Saturday – and for Sunday morning.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette became a true daily newspaper. A Sunday morning edition was added to the publishing schedule, which previously had been six mornings a week — Monday through Saturday.
Molinari was on board with his new employer as the Penguins’ beat sportswriter when the presses at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette rolled for the first time in almost eight months – on January 13, 1993.
Because it shared production, circulation and advertising sales functions with the Pittsburgh Press under the terms of a joint operating agreement that had been in place since the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also had been idle due to the strike.
Molinari initially joined the full-time sports editorial staff of the Pittsburgh Press in 1980 as a copy editor. His responsibilities included editing copy, designing pages and writing headlines for articles and captions for photos.
Little did Molinari know when he accepted the transfer to the reporting position for the Penguins in the summer of 1983 that he was beginning a journey that would earn him a permanent home at the Mount Olympus for hockey journalists.
Heading into the 1983-84 NHL season, the Penguins were in trouble both on the ice and financially.
They were coming off a last-place finish overall in 1982-83. And the average attendance had been 8,408 – just over half of the then capacity – 16,033 — of the old home of the Penguins, the Pittsburgh Civic Arena.
Thing got worse for the Penguins in Molinari’s first season on the beat. The Penguins again finished in last place. The point total fell to 38 from 45. Attendance plummeted to an average of 6,839, the second-worst mark in the history of the franchise, trailing only 6,008 in 1968-69, the Penguins’ second season.
(In both 1982-83 and 1983-84, the average attendance for a NHL regular-season game was north of 13,000.)
Late in the 1983-84 season, I paid good money to see the Penguins play the New York Rangers in next-to-last game of the season at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
I and a buddy sat in the lower level on a blue line, maybe 20 rows from the ice. The Penguins dropped a 6-4 decision to the Rangers on March 29, 1984. The fact that a practice puck bounced off a number of people to me before the game was a nice consolation prize.
At the time, I thought it was just another loss in an awful season for the Penguins. I had no clue that the loss that night was part of a conscious effort to finish in last place in order to secure the No. 1 draft choice in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft. More on this shortly.
The viability of the Penguins in Pittsburgh was in serious doubt. It was possible that the Penguins would re-locate.
Because the 1982-83 and 1983-84 Penguins were weak on the ice, they didn’t attract sources of revenue – the most important of which was fans in the seats at home game – that could be used to improve the on-ice product.
The 1983-84 season was arguably the lowest of lows that Molinari has covered in his lengthy career on the Penguins’ beat.
Molinari also has covered the Penguins achieving the highest of highs. At the top of that list is winning three Stanley Cup championships – 1990-91, 1991-92 and 2008-09.
Also on that list of highs was how one man saved the Penguins in Pittsburgh twice.
Keep in mind that Molinari grew up as a Penguins’ fan in Glassport, PA, a small borough approximately 10 miles from Pittsburgh. Obviously, Molinari traded in his subjectivity as a fan when it became his job to cover the Penguins. Any newspaper reporting job requires objectivity.
But since he was once a Penguins’ fan, it’s fair to assume that Molinari smiles if and when he thinks about what Mario Lemieux has done – keeping the team in Pittsburgh first through his efforts as a one of the greatest players in the history of the NHL starting in the 1984-85 season and then as the team’s majority owner starting on September 3, 1999.
To proceed to Part III – a Q&A with Molinari on being named the winner of the Ferguson Award and his upcoming induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, please click on the following link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8314691/dave_molinari_reflects_on_being_named.html?cat=14.
To proceed to Part I — the introduction which details how I became aware of Molinari and why I initially decided to publish a Q&A with him on Associated Content (now associated content from YAHOO!), please click on the following link — http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8313945/my_discovery_of_dave_molinaris_outstanding.html?cat=14.