This summer, Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle put the Pittsburgh Penguins up for sale, and the price is steep: $750 million, which would be more than double the league record set in 2013. But there’s lots going for the Pens: they have a brand new arena (Consol Energy Center), a dedicated (and trashy) fan base, and three of the best players in the league: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel.

Over the weekend, one group established itself as a front runner to buy the team: Flyers fans!

Via the Orange and Black Pack‘s GoFundMe page:

Please help us purchase the worst franchise in the NHL so we can try to make it better by doing things like:

• Painting the entire inside of the arena Orange and Black
• Putting a giant photo of Claude Giroux on the outside of the building, facing the highway.
• Repainting the parking lots stripes orange, with a Flyers logo in each spot
• Using colored thread to impose a beach ball in the net behind Fleury
• Make a wall of fame in the concourse with photos of our top donators

This video accompanied the donation page.

So in summary: Pens fans’ bitter cross-state rivals are trying to buy the team and ruin them. This is amazing, though I’d go a bit further.

I’d release every Penguins player on the roster except Sidney Crosby and make him play 60 minutes every game. If the NHL’s golden boy is so great, let’s see him take on five new fresh players every 45 seconds and see how sick unbelievable he is then. (He’d probably still beat the Oilers by himself.)

Also at the conclusion of every intermission, I’d have a group of 20 penguins, like the actual animals, waddle into the stands with a t-shirt gun that I’d train them to use. But instead of firing souvenir t-shirts, the gun would be stocked with a magazine of beer-filled plastic cups. Let’s see how many people can catch a beer when it’s traveling at their heads going 35 MPH. Then Pens fans would learn not to throw things at Ovi.

Also, I’d give them a new logo.

So far, Flyers fans have raised $1,500, which is only $749,008,500 $749,998,500 away from their $750,000,000 goal, but I think this thing has legs.

If you’d like to support the Orange and Black Pack, you can donate here. And know if they don’t reach their goal, all the money is going to charity.

Great job, guys.

Thanks to Puck Daddy for first posting.