With Mario at center and Murphy and McGuinn on the wings, the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins have netted a cool $18 million by selling naming rights to the Civic Arena to Mellon Financial Corp.

"Pittsburgh wouldn't be complete without the Penguins," Mellon Chairman Martin G. McGuinn said yesterday while appearing with Mayor Murphy and team owner Mario Lemieux to announce a 10-year deal to rename the facility the Mellon Arena.

If the name change is approved by the city-county Sports and Exhibition Authority, which owns the building, green signs reading "Mellon Arena" will go up within six weeks above each gate on the outside of the facility.

Mellon also will get signs inside the arena, a logo at center ice, and its name on the large marquee outside the building and at parking lot entrances. How the agreement will affect the NLL's CrosseFire is unknown, but the addition of a Mellon logo to the arena's lacrosse playing surface should be expected.

Even if a new hockey arena is built in Pittsburgh before Mellon's right to name the arena expires in 10 years, officials said the Mellon name likely would be on the new facility. Lemieux is hoping a new arena could be ready by 2004.

The deal with Mellon -- which gives all $18 million to the Penguins -- is in stark contrast to what happened when the former owners of the Penguins tried to conclude a naming-rights deal in November 1997 with Maryland-based Allegheny Energy.

That deal, $5 million over six years, was negotiated by then team owner Roger Marino without input from city and county officials. Murphy, who had a rocky relationship with Marino, was angry that the naming rights were sold without the knowledge of local officials.

The deal with Allegheny Energy was put on hold and eventually died as did Allegheny Energy's merger with DQE, the parent of Duquesne Light.

The Mellon deal tracks a national trend in which companies, especially banks, airlines and high-tech firms, have tried to raise their public profiles by linking their names to sports venues.

Stephen Leeper, executive director of the sports authority, said he was happy to contribute to the financial stability of the Penguins, who filed for bankruptcy in October 1998; the judge overseeing the case did not declare the matter closed until last month.

He and Murphy said they didn't have a problem giving the money from the naming rights to the team. Leeper said the Pirates and Steelers were getting all the money from their naming-rights deals.

"We want to ensure that the Penguins have a firm financial footing and are anchored in Pittsburgh," said Murphy, who went through a year of worrying about losing the team while it was in bankruptcy.

"The arena succeeds because the Penguins are here," Murphy said. "They generate the value for this building. The building would be costing us a significant [amount] of revenue if it weren't being used."

Murphy said that under the previous owners two years ago, "the Penguins had a recipe for disaster in how they were being operated financially. We didn't want to give up these revenues at that time. We feared there was an unhealthy financial situation with the team. But now we have confidence in the Penguins' leadership."

Lemieux said the naming-rights revenue "is an important part of making this franchise viable. Every team needs that revenue. We've worked very hard the last three months to make this a solid business."

Leeper said Mellon would benefit from the deal by having its name mentioned frequently on local and national television and radio and in newspapers in regard to National Hockey League games.

McGuinn said the name recognition "will reinforce our brand identification" wherever Mellon does business.

Penguins Chief Operating Officer Tom Rooney said there were "several other companies" -- not including Allegheny Energy -- interested in buying the arena naming rights. He declined to name the others but said Mellon was the most eager.

McGuinn said the arena was a "natural extension" of the Grant Street complex of Mellon buildings, lying just a few hundred yards up the hill from the new Mellon operations center, under construction.

Rooney said naming rights talks began in late September, just three weeks after the Penguins emerged from bankruptcy and Lemieux took over the team. Serious talks were held on the day before Thanksgiving, culminating in yesterday's announcement.

Rooney said he expected additional benefits for Mellon employees from a growing relationship with the Penguins, such as the ability to order tickets online at reduced prices.

In other CrosseFire news, the team recently released on its web site two images of how the playing surface will look. A large devil's head and a league logo are enclosed in the center faceoff circle. To view the images, visit the official CrosseFire web site.

The Outsider's Guide contributed to this article.