Who Has the Power?

Not the Pittsburgh Power Arena Football League team, apparently. Certainly not their players.

I made my first visit to the Consol Energy Center Friday night to see the Power with friends who are season ticket holders. More on them later . . .

There are many reasons to dislike, if not loathe, the management of this team. In order of increasing importance:

• Their annoyingly unnavigable website.
• Their offensive advertising: They plastered the school where I teach with posters that read, "Before you waste money on books . . . Get student-section season tickets." Waste money on books? Ouch.
• Their ruthless, take-no-prisoners labor practices.

That, of course, is the sticking point. To review information available on several sports news websites:  In anticipation of a strike, owner Matt Shiner fired the entire team - 24 members -- during dinner at an Olive Garden restaurant in the Orlando area before the season opener. Some players gave up their union membership and played - the rest of the positions were played by what the team called "replacement players" and what anyone else in the City of Pittsburgh would call scabs. Players who did not repent were left to find their own way back to the 'Burgh, where they found themselves evicted from player housing.

In the meantime, the team has hired back many of those players, with the significant exception of quarterback Kyle Rowley, now doing very well in Spokane, Washington.

Not coincidentally, the team has suffered in both performance and attendance. According to Adam Gretz of  the "Steelers Lounge" blog (really, guys? no apostrophe?), the Power averaged 9,480 last season, and set an AFL record with 13,904 at last season's opener.

Friday night? 4,000.

Note to Matt Shiner, and his co-owners Lance Shiner and Lynn Swann: Pittsburgh is a labor-friendly city built by union steelworkers. Also, we love football. So if you are going to break a union, and that union is made up of football players playing for the love of the game instead of the potential to become obscenely wealthy, chances are your fan base is going to shrink.

And if your team keeps losing, it is going to shrink even more.

But enough about that. The game.  OMG, the game. OMG, MSG, PTL, USB, the game. Fast, furious, and fascinating. All passing - there were fewer than half a dozen run plays, and only one of them was successful (a quarterback sneak for the Iowa Barnstormers). Go for it on fourth down every time - the field's too short to make punting a reasonable option. Extra point? The crossbar is only nine feet wide.

The Power was ahead by one point at the half (the Iowa kicker missed an extra point), but in the second half the game took on the unmistakeable air of a Steeler game - the officials turned against the home team and called penalties on nonexistent violations and refused to see blatant acts of roughing the passer and pass interference against the Power.

Things went rapidly downhill, and the game ended with a 55-42 Power loss, their third in a row.

Still. It was great fun. Bubba, the Power announcer, is fabulous - He was able to say "Hines completes the pass to Hymes" without fumbling. Wide receiver P.J. Berry is both talented and popular, and his mother is an amazing cheerleader in the stands. And the dancing girls . . .  oh, never mind - another time.

Back to my friends, Lance and Wendy. It's their second season as subscribers to the Power (they had already bought the tickets before the labor disaster). They are also known as the dynamite theater team behind Thoreau, NM - A Production Company. Please check out their theater reviews at http://iheartpgh.com/2012/03/29/monster-ink/