West Virginia University students will have the opportunity to attend a pre-season Pittsburgh Penguins game for free, all while learning about job opportunities in the Pittsburgh area.

WVU’s Career Services Center is partnering with the Pittsburgh Penguins and ImaginePittsburgh.com to provide students with tickets for the Saturday, Sept. 25 game versus the Columbus Blue Jackets at the CONSOL Energy Center. The game will begin at 7 p.m.

The Penguins’ “Ultimate Home Game,” presented by ImaginePittsburgh.com, is designed to create a “sellout” crowd featuring young people under the age of 24 from colleges and universities from the tri-state area.

“The young people of this region are such an important part of our fan base – and such a key to our future – that we thought the perfect way to say thank you was to create a ‘free’ game for students,” Penguins CEO David Morehouse said. “We normally play two pre-season home games each season, but we added a third game this year just for this special promotion. For many of these young people, it will be their first chance to see the new arena.

“Thanks to Penguins ownership and ImaginePittsburgh.com, we’ll be able to provide all of these tickets for free. It will make for a unique atmosphere, and I think our players and coaches will enjoy it.”

ImaginePittsburgh.com will distribute more than 8,000 tickets with a specific focus on alerting students from participating post-secondary schools of the growing job opportunities in the Pittsburgh area. The website’s theme is “Pittsburgh: Imagine What You Can Do Here.”

“We want young people to imagine a bright future in our region. We’ve got jobs and more are on the way,” said Randy Dearth, president and chief executive officer of LANXESS Corporation and chair of the Workplace Committee of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which developed and manages ImaginePittsburgh.com. “Thanks to the Ultimate Home Game and our partnership with the Penguins and more than 50 colleges and universities across our region, we’ll be able to let them know that ImaginePittsburgh.com is their gateway to opportunity for exciting careers across our region.”

WVU has been allotted 300 tickets, to be awarded in pairs, meaning that the first 150 WVU students to log on to http://www.imaginepittsburgh.com/ and click on the hockey puck to complete the survey, will have a free pair of tickets mailed directly to them from the Pittsburgh Penguins Ticket Office.

Students wishing to receive a pair of tickets will need to complete the survey before midnight on Sunday, Sept. 12.

The Ultimate Home Game will launch a season-long partnership between ImaginePittsburgh.com and the Pittsburgh Penguins to make young people aware of emerging career opportunities in the region.

“It says a lot for the Pittsburgh region that the Allegheny Conference and so many local businesses stepped forward to participate in this one-of-a-kind event highlighting our young people,” Morehouse said.

The Sept. 25 game will be the second of the Penguins’ three home pre-season games at CONSOL Energy Center. The Pens open their home pre-season schedule on Wednesday, Sept. 22 against the Detroit Red Wings and then will host the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, Sept. 28.

-WVU-

09/03/10

CONTACT: David Durham, WVU Career Services Center
304-293-2221, david.durham@mail.wvu.edu