The Penguins defeated the Los Angeles Kings in a meaningless exhibition game last night. Those are the basics. What makes the game stand out is that it was played in Kansas City, MO., a city that was once very actively courting the Penguins for relocation.
That obviously didn't happen.
Kansas City, ever the hard-worker, is still hoping to show its viability as an NHL city, thus, exhibition contests like yesterday's. The question then becomes: who were they trying to impress? The game was available in exactly zero television markets. Not Pittsburgh, not Los Angeles and not even Kansas City.
The game was announced as a sell-out, and kudos to them for selling 17,000-plus tickets. But the Trib's Josh Yohe, who was at the game, tweeted that, while it was a late arriving crowd, there were still a heaping portion of empty seats at the venue.
If Phoenix, or whoever else is the relocation flavor of the month, wanted to play in a market that featured anonymity and poor television coverage, why bother moving all the way to Kansas City?