We doubt that even the harshest critics of using public money to help finance facilities for pro sports teams really would want to have been reading headlines lately such as these:

• "Kansas City sweeps Ottawa"

• "As playoff party goes on in KC, Mellon Arena sits empty, dark"

• "With NHL team gone, Hill redevelopment at standstill"

Amid the ever-growing fan frenzy over the Penguins' run in the NHL playoffs, it's easy to forget that just a little more than 14 months ago, the scenario reflected in those imaginary headlines was all too close to becoming reality.

The Pens used an attractive offer to move to a new arena in Kansas City as leverage to get the best possible deal they could here -- a deal that secured the team's long-term future in a new arena and included state revenue from slots and some other public money.

This spring's Penguins mania does throw into sharp relief just what Pittsburgh came all too close to losing last spring, but the playoffs' extra excitement and commercial and tax revenue are "gravy." Most of the team's economic importance derives from its 41 regular-season home games.

The region got a taste of what not having the Pens and those 41 home games in Pittsburgh would be like a few years ago, when a labor dispute wiped out an entire NHL season, and it wasn't a pretty picture for the city or for businesses that depend on fans flocking to those games.

If the Pens had left, no new arena, which will host many events and activities besides hockey, would be going up, and prospects for redevelopment of the Mellon Arena site and further revitalization of the lower Hill District would be much dimmer.

Without the Pens in Pittsburgh, the suburban rinks that sprang up in response to the youth-hockey boom sparked by Mario Lemieux probably wouldn't thrive for long, either.

And imagine the hit that Pittsburgh's image -- and its people's spirits -- would be taking right now if coverage of the playoffs were reminding people everywhere, day in and day out, that the Pens had left for Kansas City.

We love to cheer, "Let's go, Pens!" But nobody here would be cheering if the Pens had gone elsewhere -- and rightly so, because dollars and cents, public or private, don't fully measure the team's value to the region.