So some Penguins walk out of arena negotiations…

The Pittsburgh Penguins are staying in Pittsburgh. After years of debate, the Pennsylvania government agreed to open up a bunch of casinos and use the revenue to keep the best young collection of hockey players anywhere on Earth right squarely in the Iron City.

While this is great news for the Penguins and all of their fans, it is terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad news for the Washington Capitals, who currently possess the world’s second-best group of talented young hockey players. The Penguins came within two cherries and a lemon of moving out to Kansas City, which would have made them a Western Conference team, and would have limited regular season and early playoff matchups.

Capitals-Penguins is one of hockey’s biggest rivalries, and this is the rivalry that is expected to carry the league through the next decade. Even with the Caps playing badly this year, these two teams’ games have been televised all across America twice this year and all across Canada something like four times.

If the Penguins had accepted a better lease arrangement (free rent plus half of arena revenues) on an already completed arena, the two teams would have played each other twice every three years, outside of the Stanley Cup Finals. For Caps fans, this would be great, because the Penguins have knocked the Caps out of the playoffs every single time the Caps have had a good team. Ever.

Now they get to keep doing it.