Penguins, UPMC Team Up to Build World-Class Practice Facility

By Chuck Finder and Tim Betler

Mario Lemieux’s name, family and foundation dot the UPMC landscape already. There are Austin’s Playrooms in seven spots around the system, from McKeesportto Mageeto Mercyto Children’s, where there also stands a Lemieux Sibling Center. There are the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh and the Lemieux Family Center plus the Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers opened last December. And more.

So when the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins and UPMC joined together to build in Cranberry a practice facility and Sports Medicine clinic like nowhere else in North America, there was no other name to attach to it: The UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

UPMC President and CEO Jeffrey A. Romoff and Executive Vice President Elizabeth B. Concordia stood alongside Lemieux, the Penguins’ co-owner and Hall of Famer, on Oct. 2 for the groundbreaking celebration – sticking engraved shovels bearing Lemieux stick-handles into the soil. Also digging it were: Penguins CEO David Morehouse, COO Travis Williams, General Manager Ray Shero and coach Dan Bylsma; UPMC Vice President of Operations Presbyterian Shadyside Albert Wright; developer Gary Sippel; and Cranberry Manager Jerry Andreeand Board of Supervisors chairman Bruce Mazzoni.