PITTSBURGH - The motto that starts, "Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night +" doesn't just apply to postal workers.

It's a part of life for hockey players, too.

With a season that goes from October to April, players deal with all sorts of conditions, especially in snow-belt cities.

The Pittsburgh Penguins get their share of that and have already had a couple of weather-related setbacks this winter.

Their flight to Montreal for a Dec. 10 game had to be changed by a day because of a heavy snowfall in Canada.

Things were even worse for the Dec. 29 trip to Buffalo. The team charter had to land in Niagara Falls and one of the buses taking the Penguins to Buffalo got stuck in the snow.

Staff members and some of the players got out and pushed the bus.

"It happens," winger Pascal Dupuis said. "You can't do anything about the weather, can't change it. I remember the first year I was here, we wound up bussing to Buffalo because we couldn't fly into there. That's why we have Frank, to make these little bumps easier to work with."

Frank Buonomo is the director of team services and travel arrangements are a big part of his job. He plans an itinerary for every trip, but he's always watching weather conditions to see if the team needs to call an audible on travel plans.

It's something players adapt to. Most of them are from snowy climates and some of them have played for teams in cities that get especially harsh weather.

Winger Bill Guerin played in Edmonton from 1997-2001.

"There are always weather issues there," he said. "We dealt with snow and ice, but fog was there, too. You always had to leave yourself enough time to get to the rink. Flights were delayed."

Dupuis played in Minnesota from 2000-06 and encountered the same problems. The first order of business is to get a vehicle with four-wheel drive.

"The guys who play in Los Angeles or Florida, they can get nice cars," Dupuis said.

The best story of enduring winter weather comes from defenseman Jay McKee, who spent most of his NHL career in Buffalo.

He was there in 2001, when a Christmas lake effect storm dropped 81.5 inches of snow (that's nearly seven feet) over five days and required a $10 million cleanup.

"It was like a bomb went off," he said. "Cars ran out of gas or couldn't move on the highway and that caused problems. It wasn't one or two, it was all over the place. You just couldn't get through the snow. People were abandoning their cars and were getting rescued by snowmobiles. That caused a problem for the plows, they couldn't weave through all the vehicles. It was a mess."

Nonetheless, the Sabres were required to be at practice.

"As players, if you're told to be at the rink at 10 in the morning, you're not feeling too good if you think you're not going to make it on time," McKee said. "Regardless of weather or traffic, you have a responsibility to be there on time. I had an old Hummer, one of the original ones, and it could get through anything.

"I went and got a coffee because I was going to get there on time. When I pulled out of the coffee shop, I came to an intersection. There were cars and snow and ice everywhere. I was behind a vehicle and I remember seeing (teammate) Chris Gratton. He was high stepping, like doing a run through the intersection. He had abandoned his car because he was worried he was going to get to the rink late and he was running to the rink.

"I was in tears laughing at what I was seeing. I gave him the horn and he kind of slid back, Kramer style, and then he turned around and high-stepped it to me. He was pretty relieved that I found him because he wouldn't have made it on time. He would have been 20 minutes walking from where he was. It was a comical moment."

Did McKee consider driving past Gratton?

"I thought about it," McKee said. "It would have been funny to lock my doors and pull away, to see what he would do. But he was a good guy and it was an entertaining moment for both us, because he knew he looked goofy running through the intersection. We had a good laugh."

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Do you have a hidden talent?

- Pascal Dupuis: "Not really. What you see is what you get."

- Jordan Staal: "No. I'm pretty basic."

- Mike Rupp: "I will not do it, but I have a great Elmo (Sesame Street) voice. Great, like I could probably get the part. It gets a little embarrassing. I don't know how I found out that I had it, but I did."

- Brooks Orpik: "Geez, I'm trying to think+.no, I have to pass on that one."

- Brent Johnson: "No, not really. I'm good at everything."

- Alex Goligoski: "Rubik's Cube."

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There will be a lot of changes when the Penguins move across the street to the Consol Energy Center next season.

One of them is likely to be game time.

The Penguins are leaning strongly to starting all games at 7:05 instead of the present 7:35.

They tried that several years ago, but a group of downtown restaurant operators complained they were losing pre-game dinner business with an earlier start. The city put pressure on the Penguins to go back to 7:35.

These days the Penguins have enough influence to do what they want, and they'll probably move games to 7:05.

It's no coincidence that the new arena will have a variety of dining options for those interested in a pre-game meal.