Ownership has its prerogatives, we suppose. And maybe that even includes the right to prioritize an Olympic gold medal ahead of the good of the company. Perhaps it even includes at least giving the impression -- and impressions can be as important as reality, right? -- that the company's consumers aren't important.

But how bad does this look?

	Mario Lemieux scored six points in six games for Team Canada.

Mario Lemieux seems to have brought his gold medal back to Pittsburgh, accepted congratulations, then acquiesced in the doctors' recommendation that he sit out the rest of the season because of his ailing hip.

Yes, that's the same ailing hip that limited his availability to the Penguins this season, and partially because Lemieux was being careful to maximize his chances of playing for Canada at the Salt Lake City Winter Games.

That isn't Enron stupid. But it sure isn't something they teach at either McGill University or Harvard, is it?

This is largely uncharted territory, of course, since Lemieux owns the Penguins. But when the bankruptcy court dictated that Lemieux must hold on to the team once he took over, and the NHL saw nothing wrong with him later becoming a playing owner, these sorts of conflicts of interest seemed inevitable.

The fact in this matter seems obvious: If the Penguins were owned by anyone but Lemieux, the ownership and front office would have insisted that his first loyalties should be to the Penguins. (Oh, you say that if Lemieux didn't own the Penguins, he wouldn't be playing? How does that gibe with the company line that he came back for the love of the game?)

This is almost as if Lemieux put his gold medal on display in the lobby of Mellon Arena, along with a picture of him sticking out his tongue.

Yes, we suppose there are going to be thousands of Pittsburgh fans coming to his defense on this one, saying they understand, they don't hold it against Mario, they remain loyal. They will believe that the hip injury must have gotten worse at Salt Lake, or even in the Wednesday night game he played against the Kings after the break.

It must be fun to be that naïve and malleable.

For weeks now, it has been obvious that Lemieux has been prioritizing gold ahead of common sense, business sense and even common courtesy to his own consumers.

Just last Sunday in West Valley City, Utah, Lemieux was wearing his medal and wrapping himself in the Canadian flag. We also all were assuming that once the gold-medal celebration was over, he would he back to work with the Penguins. If he had carefully nursed that hip long enough to play for Canada, wouldn't he be able to suit up on at least most game nights for the Penguins the rest of the season?

And after the gold-medal game Sunday, Lemieux didn't seem to get the point of a news conference question about whether he considered it a great hockey day for North America -- not just Canada.

The question was a softball.

Or a drop pass, if you will.

For heaven's sake, here was a man who has added U.S. citizenship to his Canadian, who spent much of his time in Pittsburgh for years and now OWNS the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Even more so than that Canadian superpatriot Wayne Gretzky, who continues to live in the Southern Canadian province of California, and apparently wouldn't have moved his American wife and children to Canada even if he hadn't taken the reins of the Phoenix Coyotes, Lemieux has reached the point where he is worthy of a hyphen, as in "Canadian-American."

This bears repeating: The fans in Western Pennsylvania are Lemieux's CONSUMERS.

But that afternoon in Utah, Lemieux merely talked about how he had learned to play hockey in Canada, and that's where his hockey roots and loyalties stretch deep.

Fine. Great. We all understand that. We all respect that loyalty. But why stop there? Why not take the opportunity to say that he appreciated the understanding and tolerance most of the Penguins' fans have shown during what he was honest enough to admit all along was his priority this season -- to be well enough to play for Canada at the Olympics? He didn't do that. He didn't say it was a terrific day for North American hockey.

He again at least gave the impression that it was about Mario, about Mario and gold and Canada, and everything else was secondary. It is absolutely mind-boggling. Isn't that a curious attitude for an OWNER of the Pittsburgh Penguins to take?

The impressions he has created add up to bad business. It all defies common sense. Even before the Olympics, his "I'll-play-when-I-feel-like-it-because-I-gotta-be-ready-for-Salt-Lake" policy was insulting to the Pittsburgh fans ... And it underscored the hypocrisy of the NHL's refusal to allow players to miss league games to play for nations in the Olympic preliminary round before the shutdown.

Gretzky's antics during the Games were galling enough, and never mind the issue of how Canadians would have reacted if the tables were turned. (If Brian Burke, the U.S. born general manager of the Canucks, had been the head of the American team that won the gold medal, and talked about "Canadian propaganda" and about everyone hates the USA hockey program, he would have been run out of Vancouver in about 12 minutes.) But Gretzky isn't as deep into ownership as Lemieux is.

Now we are the first to admit that the NHL has had con men and morons as owners in the past, and that has been one of the league's problems. It was so bad at times, it made you shudder for the future of the North American economy. Because if these guys could get rich ...

But Mario Lemieux, who has been about such grace and dignity and courage and, above all, of that ineffable quality called "class," was supposed to be different. The grand experiment: The ex-player becomes an owner because of all the money the bankrupt franchise owes him, and he also invests some of his own capital. He rolls up his white sleeves and gets to work, by all accounts with incredible energy and savvy. And then he even comes back to play.

Yet this is tarnishing his image. The impressions he has created add up to bad business. It all defies common sense. Even before the Olympics, his "I'll-play-when-I-feel-like-it-because-I-gotta-be-ready-for-Salt-Lake" policy was insulting to the Pittsburgh fans who bought season tickets and sponsors who bought air time and anything else. And it underscored the hypocrisy of the NHL's refusal to allow players to miss league games to play for nations in the Olympic preliminary round before the shutdown.

We won't pretend to have seen the X-rays -- or even be able to read them if we could see them. We are not doctors, nor have we ever played one on "All My Children." We can't know for sure the magnitude of Lemieux's pain this season or at Salt Lake, where he was taking pain-killling injections to be able to play. We won't scoff too loudly at the news that "new" information was discovered in tests and evaluations this week. We won't be stupid enough to doubt his courage, not after what he has been through. We won't challenge his love for the game.

The absolutely inexplicable part is that he is acting as if he doesn't much care about the team he OWNS -- and the fans who support it. He should have prioritized the Penguins ahead of Canada this season. He shouldn't have played in the Olympics -- or at least not made it his first priority. He isn't a Slovak player asking to miss one or two NHL games because of his love of his country. He is a team owner guilty of high-sticking his own product, and unsportsmanlike conduct toward his own consumers.

The perception is as important as reality.

And that's right out of Business 101.

Terry Frei of The Denver Post is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His feedback address for e-mail signed with names and hometowns is ChipHilton23@hotmail.com.