Archive: Lemieux was a player for the ages

By Larry Wigge
NHL.com columnist
Jan. 25, 2006

Michael Jordan had it. So did Babe Ruth and Joe Montana, Jim Brown, Wayne Gretzky, Magic Johnson, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell and Mario Lemieux.

From his first shift in the NHL in October, 1984 against the Boston Bruins when he beat Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque for a breakaway goal, Mario Lemieux showed us the "it" that makes certain athletes that once-in-a-lifetime player.

Le Magnifique? Super Mario? In either French or English, Mario Lemieux had "it". He was special, not just being great individually, but also because he had the innate ability to make players around him better.

And what separates Lemieux from the rest of the true superstars in sports is that he continually was able to achieve those heights while trying to overcome pain in his back and hip that was so intense that he couldn't bend over to tie his skate laces, not to mention the ordeal of beating cancer.

Each time, Super Mario came back to write another glorious story for all of us to follow. I'll never forget driving into Pittsburgh in September, 1995 to do a story about Mario's comeback after a year away from the game after complications from Hodgkin's disease.

"I'm not coming back to be an average player," he told me, emphasizing each word with meaning. "There are scoring titles and Stanley Cups to be won. I won't settle for being anything less than what Mario Lemieux was before he retired for a year."

It wasn't a boast. Or a threat. Or a warning. Just a simple statement of purpose.

Lemieux's 69 goals, 92 assists and 161 points in just 70 games after one year off were all League-leading totals. He went on to win two more scoring titles, but no Stanley Cups.

Even if Lemieux's numbers this season showed him with only seven goals and 22 points in 26 games before he was sidelined by heart palpitations in late November, he still wasn't an average player before he announced his retirement on January 24, citing health problems once again and a feeling that he no longer could be the same Super Mario that we all expected to see on the ice during his 17-year career.

Nothing is worse than the sight of a person agonizing over the easiest tasks in life, like tying shoelaces. But that was the case with Lemieux, this star of stars who revolutionized the game, but often couldn't skate many days in his career without first having a clubhouse boy tie his laces. He often had to order a special mattress on the road or face waking up so stiff that he couldn't straighten up. But he played nonetheless.

Think about it for a moment, five times in his 17-year career Lemieux played in less than 30 games. Five more times he played in less than 65 games. Only four times did he play in as many as 75 games. And yet here we are comparing this hobbled great with among the best in sports.

In the end, his 690 goals in just 915 games were eighth all-time, his 1,033 assists were 10th and his 1,723 points were seventh. His 1.88 points per game was second only to Gretzky's 1.92 (it was better than 2.00 points per game for much of his career).

I remember asking Mario the what-if questions we all had back in 1995 like: What stratosphere his statistics would be in if he had had a career without health concerns? I wondered, since his mind had fought his body for so long, if he would make a trade of body parts, would he? There was no hesitation.

"God gave me a lot of talent and skill. I think my record shows it has not been all bad," he said, looking me square in the eyes. "(Former Baltimore Orioles star) Cal Ripken is getting a lot of acclaim for playing in more than 2,000 consecutive games, but I wouldn't trade this body just to be in the lineup every night.

"We're put on this world with certain gifts, certain flaws. I'll forever be grateful for the skill and talent and family and friends I've got. I wouldn't change my life at all."

Joie de vivre. Lemieux had that incredibly keen enjoyment of life ... and everything hockey.

Time stood still for a player like Lemieux from 1984 until just the other day, even if some questioned this quiet French Canadian's passion and willingness to pay the price to win early in his career.

Super Mario had a career-high of 85 goals, 114 assists and 199 points in the 1988-89 season, numbers only surpassed by Gretzky. Lemieux led the Pittsburgh Penguins to Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992. And he kept coming back for more. He kept coming back to treat us more. Like in December of 2000, when Lemieux returned after 3 1/2 years of retirement, getting one goal and two assists -- dramatically setting up a Penguins goal on his first shift back just 33 seconds into game against Toronto.

"From the get-go he looked like John Elway or Joe Montana, a quarterback coming out of the huddle, surveying the defense and then picking it apart with play after play," then-Maple Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph told reporters afterward. "There are players out there in all sports who make great plays, but not many who can dominate a game like that ... and do it after being retired for more than three years."

And, as always, Lemieux did it with an exclamation point.

Je ne sais quoi. A certain flair and style.

Like Elway leading a fourth-quarter drive. Or Jordan waiting and waiting, then popping a 25-footer at the buzzer to win the game.

"The vision is still there. The hands are still there," Lemieux said at his press conference after that 2000 game. "I didn't have any problems finding players and making good decisions. A lot of times I didn't see things developing, but I felt them."

Like a chessmaster running the board, thinking three and four moves ahead of everyone else. And it always came after we got to watch the long, elegant stride of a 6-foot-4, 228-pound star who was able to make the moves that were usually designed for smaller men, and yet he had the size to bull through players like Jim Brown trying to tackle him.

"You'd have to have been living on a Russian space station not to understand how important Mario's return is to our game," then-Toronto backup goalie Glenn Healy told reporters.

It's a fact that everyone's a sucker for comeback stories -- and Lemieux never seemed to get tired of making us happy. We're talking about an athlete who missed six weeks of the 1992-93 season while undergoing radiation treatments for Hodgkin's disease only to return and win the scoring title. We're talking about an athlete who took a one-year sabbatical in 1994-95 to try to recover from his assorted ailments, then returned to win back-to-back scoring crowns.

Gordie Howe and Guy Lafleur weren't the same after they returned from shorter layoffs, but neither of them averaged 2.005 points per game as Lemieux did, an average surpassed by no one, not even Gretzky during Super Mario's first decade and a half in the NHL.

His first game back after 3 1/2 years in retirement had the instant impact we expected. It was the kind of storybook performances stars like Lemieux learn how to write when they are kids and never forget how to produce.

Failing was never in Lemieux's vocabulary.

"I haven't thought that way in 35 years," Lemieux said halfway through the 2000-01 season, when others were already in midseason form. "I have a lot of confidence in my ability to come back and play at a high level and be at the top of my game by the playoffs. I didn't come back to be ordinary."

Like Orr and Gretzky before him, he truly defied the common theory that no one player can dominate a game today.

Magnifique mystique. The predatory instincts that made Lemieux an unstoppable force, no matter how long dormant. He defied conformity, defied the shackles the game put upon him. And defined time itself.

Mario Lemieux never came back to be an average player -- and no one will ever think of him that way.

Mario was Super ... Le Magnifique.


Larry Wigge has covered the NHL since 1969. The longtime NHL columnist for The Sporting News, Wigge is now an NHL.com columnist and a frequent contributor to the website.