T_Totler
01-10-2006, 07:24 PM
This is one great hockey player that was awesome to watch.
Enjoy your retirement "Mess" - you've earned it, and thanks for all the great hockey memories :)
___________________________________
(CP) - For most Canadian hockey fans, Mark Messier will forever be an Oiler, helping Wayne Gretzky turn Edmonton into the City of Champions.
But Gretzky says people cannot underestimate what the Moose brought to Broadway. That's why Madison Square Garden is expected to rock Thursday night when the New York Rangers retire Messier's No. 11 prior to a game against the visiting Oilers.
"It's going to be over the top," Gretzky said Tuesday. "It's probably going to be similar to Montreal retiring a Jean Beliveau or a Maurice Richard sweater. That's how big this is going to be. It's going to be pretty special."
Messier, who turns 45 on Jan. 18, won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton. But his championship in New York is what sets him apart in hockey's modern era.
"New York is a tough place to play, it's a lot of pressure and a lot of focus, and he relished that," said Gretzky, who retired a Ranger "If you look at history, you look at what Babe Ruth did for the Yankees, you look at what Willis Reed did in the '70s for the Knicks, and then you look at what Joe Namath did in the '60s for the New York Jets, that's what Mark Messier brought to the New York Rangers in the 1990s.
"He'll be forever remembered as the hockey version of those guys. Bringing a championship to the town was all that it was about."
Sadly the game is not available to most Canadians. In Alberta it's on pay-per-view while fans in the rest of the country will need the NHL's special digital cable package to watch it.
John Davidson, former Rangers goalie and longtime club broadcaster, also says Messier is "on par" with all the great New York athletes of years past.
"He's very much admired for what he did as an athlete and for what he did as a person here," said Davidson, who will host Thursday's festivities. "He has given a ton of time without the world knowing about it towards all kinds of charities. Hours and hours and hours and a lot of money, too."
Messier embraced his Broadway role, once even dating Madonna, doing the talk shows and fitting right in.
New Yorkers love the man.
And to think, then-Rangers GM Neil Smith was worried about the trade that brought Messier to New York in October 1991.
"I was nervous as hell when I did finally trade for him," recalls Smith.
Smith pointed to the fact Messier had suffered a knee injury the season before, played through pain in the September '91 Canada Cup and then sat out training camp in Edmonton while awaiting a trade. And as Smith says, 30 was considered old in the NHL back then, much like 35 is today.
"This guy was a high-mileage Ferrari," said Smith. "Was it a Ferrari that could still win a race?
"So there was a lot of people that thought this was just a typical Rangers move of getting another Blaine Stoughton, another Marcel Dionne, another guy past his prime playing on his last legs," Smith added. "And I actually remember taking a lot of criticism for dealing prospects for Mark. And the guy came in and he was more than you could have wished for, right off the bat."
The trade, on Oct. 4, 1991, now looks like a steal. The Oilers got Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, tough guy Louie DeBrusk, and some cash.
Well worth it.
"He was way more than I could have ever hoped for," said Smith, now an analyst for OLN's NHL telecasts.
In New York, Messier took a franchise that had long lost its way and showed it how to win again. It was his team.
"He literally grabbed the team by the collar and just dragged it up in the standings," said Smith.
Said Gretzky: "He changed the mindset for the whole organization, that nothing less than winning is important."
And he wasn't worried about the curse. The Rangers had not won the Cup in five decades.
"He had no fear about staring down the 1940 taunts," said Davidson. "Whereas (for) everybody else, it seemed to be a gigantic anchor. He stared down that adversity. He tried to knock it off and he did."
Hall of Famer Mike Gartner first met and played with Messier when they were both teenagers with the WHA's Cincinnati Stingers in 1978-79, but later also witnessed Messier's magic in New York.
"I was there before Mark came and I was there after he came, and he did make a huge impact on the team," said Gartner. "It was more than just the on-ice product. There aren't very many players that you can say you've played with or have seen that can actually make their team better just by being there. But Mark was one of those players.
"Only Gretzky and Lemieux I would classify in that same category that just by their presence alone they made other players better, they made you feel like you were better."
Alexei Kovalev broke into the NHL with Messier's Rangers of the early '90s, and says he wouldn't be the player he is today without the Moose's influence.
"He's one of the great people I've met, outside and inside hockey. He's a great leader," said the Montreal Canadiens star. "That's one of the reasons the Rangers won the Stanley Cup because of the way he led the team all through the season and the playoffs.
"He's a person you can learn a lot from."
The 54-year Rangers drought ended in June 1994 with Messier hoisting the Stanley Cup before a rabid crowd at Madison Square Garden.
"As the clock counts down, there is a famous shot on television of him throwing his gloves and stick into the stands," recalled former Oilers teammate Kevin Lowe, also a member of the '94 Rangers. "His parents were sitting in that corner.
"And then him being in tears afterwards, so overjoyed with winning."
It was perhaps the pinnacle of the NHL's popularity in the United States.
"He made hockey a sport that was thought of along with the other big ones here, like baseball and football in particular," said Davidson. "The Rangers were right on top of this city for a long period of time."
The Cup in '94, including what many consider one of the best modern-day finals against Vancouver, was also highlighted by a spirited series comeback in the Eastern Conference final against New Jersey.
The Devils were up three games to two when Messier grabbed the media spotlight on the eve of Game 6.
"We're going to go in there and win Game 6," Messier said at the time. "We've responded all year. We've won games we've had to win. We know we're going in there to win Game 6 and bringing it back for Game 7. We feel we can win it and we feel we are going to win it."
Messier then left the practice rink with Lowe, who hadn't heard yet what the captain had told reporters.
"When we got in the car he said 'I might have done it this time,"' said Lowe. "I said 'What did you do?' He said 'I guaranteed we would win tomorrow.' So I knew we were in for a big game."
Said Smith: "Here was a guy that was taking on all the pressure of the situation and I felt a relief. And if I felt a relief, imagine how the other players felt. He was basically saying, 'We've got an elephant on our backs, and I'm going to carry it for you."'
The Rangers actually fell behind 2-0 in Game 6, but a late goal in the second period by Kovalev got things going. Then Messier produced one for the ages, a third-period hat trick that propelled the Rangers to victory.
"When he scored the third goal, his hat trick goal into the open net, I just shook my head, almost in disbelief," said Lowe.
Messier now spends his days in Hilton Head, S.C., his full focus on fatherhood.
His 2 1/2-year-old son, Douglas and five-month-old daughter, Jacqueline Jean, keep him busy. And he's set to soon marry girlfriend Kim Clark, whom he met in 1998 while playing in Vancouver.
Messier also has an 18-year-old son, Lyon Messier, who's a pretty good junior player in Texas.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/NYRangers/2006/01/10/1387790-cp.html
Enjoy your retirement "Mess" - you've earned it, and thanks for all the great hockey memories :)
___________________________________
(CP) - For most Canadian hockey fans, Mark Messier will forever be an Oiler, helping Wayne Gretzky turn Edmonton into the City of Champions.
But Gretzky says people cannot underestimate what the Moose brought to Broadway. That's why Madison Square Garden is expected to rock Thursday night when the New York Rangers retire Messier's No. 11 prior to a game against the visiting Oilers.
"It's going to be over the top," Gretzky said Tuesday. "It's probably going to be similar to Montreal retiring a Jean Beliveau or a Maurice Richard sweater. That's how big this is going to be. It's going to be pretty special."
Messier, who turns 45 on Jan. 18, won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton. But his championship in New York is what sets him apart in hockey's modern era.
"New York is a tough place to play, it's a lot of pressure and a lot of focus, and he relished that," said Gretzky, who retired a Ranger "If you look at history, you look at what Babe Ruth did for the Yankees, you look at what Willis Reed did in the '70s for the Knicks, and then you look at what Joe Namath did in the '60s for the New York Jets, that's what Mark Messier brought to the New York Rangers in the 1990s.
"He'll be forever remembered as the hockey version of those guys. Bringing a championship to the town was all that it was about."
Sadly the game is not available to most Canadians. In Alberta it's on pay-per-view while fans in the rest of the country will need the NHL's special digital cable package to watch it.
John Davidson, former Rangers goalie and longtime club broadcaster, also says Messier is "on par" with all the great New York athletes of years past.
"He's very much admired for what he did as an athlete and for what he did as a person here," said Davidson, who will host Thursday's festivities. "He has given a ton of time without the world knowing about it towards all kinds of charities. Hours and hours and hours and a lot of money, too."
Messier embraced his Broadway role, once even dating Madonna, doing the talk shows and fitting right in.
New Yorkers love the man.
And to think, then-Rangers GM Neil Smith was worried about the trade that brought Messier to New York in October 1991.
"I was nervous as hell when I did finally trade for him," recalls Smith.
Smith pointed to the fact Messier had suffered a knee injury the season before, played through pain in the September '91 Canada Cup and then sat out training camp in Edmonton while awaiting a trade. And as Smith says, 30 was considered old in the NHL back then, much like 35 is today.
"This guy was a high-mileage Ferrari," said Smith. "Was it a Ferrari that could still win a race?
"So there was a lot of people that thought this was just a typical Rangers move of getting another Blaine Stoughton, another Marcel Dionne, another guy past his prime playing on his last legs," Smith added. "And I actually remember taking a lot of criticism for dealing prospects for Mark. And the guy came in and he was more than you could have wished for, right off the bat."
The trade, on Oct. 4, 1991, now looks like a steal. The Oilers got Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, tough guy Louie DeBrusk, and some cash.
Well worth it.
"He was way more than I could have ever hoped for," said Smith, now an analyst for OLN's NHL telecasts.
In New York, Messier took a franchise that had long lost its way and showed it how to win again. It was his team.
"He literally grabbed the team by the collar and just dragged it up in the standings," said Smith.
Said Gretzky: "He changed the mindset for the whole organization, that nothing less than winning is important."
And he wasn't worried about the curse. The Rangers had not won the Cup in five decades.
"He had no fear about staring down the 1940 taunts," said Davidson. "Whereas (for) everybody else, it seemed to be a gigantic anchor. He stared down that adversity. He tried to knock it off and he did."
Hall of Famer Mike Gartner first met and played with Messier when they were both teenagers with the WHA's Cincinnati Stingers in 1978-79, but later also witnessed Messier's magic in New York.
"I was there before Mark came and I was there after he came, and he did make a huge impact on the team," said Gartner. "It was more than just the on-ice product. There aren't very many players that you can say you've played with or have seen that can actually make their team better just by being there. But Mark was one of those players.
"Only Gretzky and Lemieux I would classify in that same category that just by their presence alone they made other players better, they made you feel like you were better."
Alexei Kovalev broke into the NHL with Messier's Rangers of the early '90s, and says he wouldn't be the player he is today without the Moose's influence.
"He's one of the great people I've met, outside and inside hockey. He's a great leader," said the Montreal Canadiens star. "That's one of the reasons the Rangers won the Stanley Cup because of the way he led the team all through the season and the playoffs.
"He's a person you can learn a lot from."
The 54-year Rangers drought ended in June 1994 with Messier hoisting the Stanley Cup before a rabid crowd at Madison Square Garden.
"As the clock counts down, there is a famous shot on television of him throwing his gloves and stick into the stands," recalled former Oilers teammate Kevin Lowe, also a member of the '94 Rangers. "His parents were sitting in that corner.
"And then him being in tears afterwards, so overjoyed with winning."
It was perhaps the pinnacle of the NHL's popularity in the United States.
"He made hockey a sport that was thought of along with the other big ones here, like baseball and football in particular," said Davidson. "The Rangers were right on top of this city for a long period of time."
The Cup in '94, including what many consider one of the best modern-day finals against Vancouver, was also highlighted by a spirited series comeback in the Eastern Conference final against New Jersey.
The Devils were up three games to two when Messier grabbed the media spotlight on the eve of Game 6.
"We're going to go in there and win Game 6," Messier said at the time. "We've responded all year. We've won games we've had to win. We know we're going in there to win Game 6 and bringing it back for Game 7. We feel we can win it and we feel we are going to win it."
Messier then left the practice rink with Lowe, who hadn't heard yet what the captain had told reporters.
"When we got in the car he said 'I might have done it this time,"' said Lowe. "I said 'What did you do?' He said 'I guaranteed we would win tomorrow.' So I knew we were in for a big game."
Said Smith: "Here was a guy that was taking on all the pressure of the situation and I felt a relief. And if I felt a relief, imagine how the other players felt. He was basically saying, 'We've got an elephant on our backs, and I'm going to carry it for you."'
The Rangers actually fell behind 2-0 in Game 6, but a late goal in the second period by Kovalev got things going. Then Messier produced one for the ages, a third-period hat trick that propelled the Rangers to victory.
"When he scored the third goal, his hat trick goal into the open net, I just shook my head, almost in disbelief," said Lowe.
Messier now spends his days in Hilton Head, S.C., his full focus on fatherhood.
His 2 1/2-year-old son, Douglas and five-month-old daughter, Jacqueline Jean, keep him busy. And he's set to soon marry girlfriend Kim Clark, whom he met in 1998 while playing in Vancouver.
Messier also has an 18-year-old son, Lyon Messier, who's a pretty good junior player in Texas.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/NYRangers/2006/01/10/1387790-cp.html