There's a really good piece today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that gets into the Penguins' ownership structure with Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle and just how the two made some of the financial decisions that led to the team winning the Cup this year.

As it turns out, a five-year plan was executed in four, long before the new building was ready:

"To right the ship economically, we needed a new collective bargaining agreement and we needed a new arena, which we got," said team president David Morehouse. "But, under the original plan, we weren't going to have revenues to play to the cap until next season or more likely our first year in the new arena."

Co-owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, however, anted up when the stars aligned. They opened the purse strings to reach the cap of $56.7 million, which allowed the Penguins to acquire the talent that produced a title.

It's interesting that Burkle's even still involved, as the Beverley Hills billionaire was never seen as much of a hockey fan. He got onboard during desperate times a decade ago — when the Penguins were in bankruptcy for a second time and Lemieux got his piece of the ownership pie — investing $20-million in a team that had done nothing but lost money in recent years.

Even if he's quiet and often absentee, Burkle's the sort of owner the NHL needs, as he's one of the 100 wealthiest people in the U.S. and began to take more of an interest in the club when Sidney Crosby joined the Pens. Now he's doing things like offering his private jet to scoot trade deadline pickups to the team's next game and boosting the Pens' payroll well beyond what they'd planned.

Sure, a lot of it's chump change for him, but that's a good thing. This team is now about as far from underfunded as you can get, and it's worked wonders over the past few years.

It also very well could be that, after some initial uncertainty, the Penguins have turned out to be another of Burkle's many investment gambles gone good, and he's now happily along for the ride. Once the new building's doors open, I imagine he'll see a hefty return on his modest investment, something few in NHL ownership are getting these days.