How Mario Lemieux saved the Penguins and cashed out huge.

There's little doubt that Mario Lemieux is one of the most well respected and most revered figures in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and for good reason. The man was a legendary hockey player during his career long tenure with the city's local franchise, the Pittsburgh Penguins, but in spite of how amazing his career was on the ice it is what he has done since then that has truly made him a hero for the entire city.

In 1998 the Penguins were forced to declare bankruptcy and one of the people who were left in a very uncomfortable position as a result of that bankruptcy was Lemieux himself. The star forward was owed a whopping $26 million in deferred salary, and the best that many felt he could hope for was to recover pennies on the dollar in bankruptcy court.

Lemieux however did not go down that route and just as he had so often used his creativity on the ice to become a star, he once again put his creative mind to work on a radically different solution. Lemieux turned the majority of his deferred salary into equity with the team, offering to buy the team with an investment group. That initial investment of $20 million would earn him a 25% equity stake in the team, but it was a big risk at the time and not one that many would have been willing to take.

After buying the team Lemieux and the team's new owners got to work, and as we all know now that work paid off in spades. They took the team from a meager revenue of $55 million per season to a whopping $185 million per season, secured a new arena for the Penguins, captured 3 Stanley Cups during his tenure as an owner, and sold out an impressive 633 consecutive games before that streak recently came to an end.

So where does that leave Lemieux's initial investment of $20 million today? According to Joe Pompliano of the Joe Pomp Show, Lemieux has managed to turn that initial gamble into a staggering $360 million following the recent sale of the Penguins to the Fenway Sports Group, an incredible accomplishment to say the least.

If there's anyone who deserves it however, it's definitely 66.