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'Super Mario' says goodbye Jan. 24: An emotional Mario Lemieux announces his retirement and has some advice for NHL players. |
PITTSBURGH - Unlike many aging superstars, Mario Lemieux’s problem wasn’t that his heart was no longer in the game. Rather, his heart no longer allowed him play the game the way he had always played it.
The Lemieux way — with greatness and grace, with dominating skills but also with a quiet dignity — may prove very difficult for future generations of hockey players to rival.
Lemieux, his Hall of Fame talent eroded by an ongoing heart problem, retired from the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second time Tuesday in a long, productive yet star-crossed career, but this time was different.
This was the last retirement, and the tears in his eyes and the quiver in his voice said so. So did the proud but sad looks on the faces of wife Nathalie, their four children and the Penguins players who gathered to say goodbye, even though it visibly pained all to do so.
“This is it,” Lemieux said, “and it hurts.”
The 40-year-old Penguins owner-player learned in early December he has atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can cause his pulse to flutter wildly and must be controlled by medication. He returned Dec. 16 against Buffalo, but the problem flared up again in the third period and he has not played since.
Lemieux, the NHL’s seventh-leading career scorer with 1,723 points, practiced the last several weeks with the intent of playing again. But after several repeat episodes of an irregular pulse, he decided his health should be his primary consideration, especially with a raft of new stars turning the NHL into a faster, younger man’s game.
Lemieux is also experiencing side effects with his medication, and he may undergo surgery to correct the problem. He spoke Tuesday to Toronto coach Pat Quinn, who told Lemieux he had the same operation and has felt much better since he did.
“I don’t want to take pills the rest of my life,” Lemieux said. “It’s not something I want to go through.”
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“I don’t feel great when I wake up. Even to this day I am not feeling 100 percent, and it’s frustrating to me,” he said.
Still, the 13-time All-Star returned so many times from injuries and operations, setbacks and layoffs, personal crises and even cancer, this decision came as a surprise. After all, this was a man who missed a month of the 1992-93 season with Hodgkin’s disease, or cancer of the lymph nodes, yet easily won the scoring title.
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At least No. 66 has someone to pass the mantle to — 18-year-old Sidney Crosby, the Penguins’ rookie superstar in waiting who was briefly Lemieux’s linemate and remains his housemate. The two were on the same line when Lemieux had three assists Nov. 3 against the Islanders, one of Lemieux’s six multipoint games this season.
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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