With nothing left to prove, Mark Messier has retired after 25 years in the NHL highlighted by six Stanley Cup championships.
Back in 2002, I said Messier should play for as long as he wanted to. A little more than a year later, it looked like Messier was leveraging his sainthood in Manhattan into more playing time than he actually deserved -- in many cases logging more ice time than ex-Ranger Bobby Holik.
Hockeybird, which has been tough on the team when it comes to handling Messier, has a tribute to their favorite Rangers captain.
For me, my dominant memory of Messier will always be seeing him named MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 1984, the year the Oilers finally dethroned the Islanders for their first of five Stanley Cups (and Messier won the last of those five after Gretzky was traded to the Kings). At the time, Messier's younger sister was going to college at Adelphi in Garden City, and I still remember reading a short feature in Newsday's sports section on her glee at seeing the Oilers leave Long Island with a split after the first two games of the finals.
It was a painful loss, but over time, even when he showed up on Broadway, I came to appreciate Messier for what he was -- perhaps the greatest on-ice leader in the history of the game. Thanks for the memories, Mark.
For more on Messier, check out Google News.
The recent retirement of Scott Stevens brought a lot of Flyer fans out of the woodwork long enough for them to actually say some nice things about him for once. I guess it’s now time for this Devil fan to do the same for Messier. His “We Will Win Tonight” guarantee before game 6 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals against the Devils was really something else. I wasn’t happy with how it turned out at the time, but I was impressed with his ability to deliver the win (almost all on his own).