Mario Lemieux was adamant about retirement.
“I gauge myself against myself and not against other players,” he said. “What I’ve accomplished in the past. The way I’ve played in the past compared to now. I’ve always said that if I’m not able to go on the ice and play the way I want to play, it’s time to get to something else.
“Maybe I’m not playing the way I used to in the past, and it’s been frustrating for me the last couple of years, even though I won the scoring title last year and am pretty close to it this year. But I’m not the player I was three or four years ago and that’s something I can’t accept, and it makes it difficult to go on. I think I’m making the right decision. It’s time to do something else with my life.”
Yes, there are some hints there.
That wasn’t Lemieux talking last week, announcing his retirement as a player at age 40.
That was Lemieux after a Penguins practice at the old University of Denver Arena – on March 13, 1997. He was making it clear that while he hadn’t made it official, forestalling a farewell tour, he was planning on retiring after the 1996-97 season.
That day, Lemieux was visibly in pain at practice. General manager Craig Patrick, the former DU player and athletic director who had brought the Penguins to the DU Arena in the final days before its destruction, talked that day of Lemieux’s courage, of grimacing when he put on his skates.
The amazing part is even in that season – the one Lemieux felt was far below his standards – he scored 50 goals. Fifty. And that was after all he had been through, including his battle with Hodgkin’s disease and missing nearly two full seasons before returning to the ice in the 1995-96 season – coincidentally, the Avalanche’s first in Denver. It’s another negative of Denver’s NHL dark period – from 1982-95 – that Colorado didn’t get to see more of him.
There are many side issues this time, of course.
The owner, who was one of the major creditors who helped save the team for Pittsburgh and then stepped back on the ice in December 2000, has had his eye on protecting his investment. And there’s nothing wrong with that. When able to play, he has ranged from good to so-so and worse, especially when measured against those Lemieux standards. And a heart issue of late complicated matters.
Now, with the team for sale, and with it highly possible the Penguins won’t get the slot machine license that at this point seems to be the only way the necessary new arena could be built, the Penguins’ future is as up in the air as ever.
He didn’t tarnish his legacy by coming back.
He added to it.
And he always is going to be one of those athletes who had, still have, and probably always will have, that ineffable “it.”
Gretzky exemption
The rule should be the rule. An instigator call in the final five minutes of a game leads to an automatic one-game suspension for a first-time offender and a $10,000 fine for his coach. But the NHL and vice principal Colin Campbell fouled up by setting the precedent for discretionary and selective enforcement and waving off the call for Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky – maybe that’s the power of “it” as well – and Shane Doan in November.
Everything Campbell said about Doan’s instigator incident was true: It wasn’t a textbook example of the old-school, message- sending in the final minutes of already- decided games the league was trying to get rid of. Doan is neither a slug nor a thug.
But now, in effect, it’s Campbell’s subjective call and evaluation of intent.
Under that standard, it’s hard to object to the league’s passing on fining either Flames goalie Phil Sauve or coach Darryl Sutter after Sauve’s ridiculous misadventure in the final minute of Colorado’s 7-4 victory in Denver on Tuesday. Spotting David Aebischer shoving a bit in a semi-scrum that probably could have gotten everyone on the ice called for loitering, Sauve skated the length of the ice and wrestled with Aebischer, his former teammate.
Sutter is the champion of the absurd “send-a-message” mentality that inspired the alleged rule in the first place. (Among current coaches, Atlanta’s Bob Hartley – a great guy, but a Neanderthal about some issues nonetheless – is a close second.) Sauve knows his coach and was misguided, obviously hoping his dash and “team” display would deflect attention from his awful play on one of Miikka Kiprusoff’s nights off. So while Sutter wasn’t blameless, it’s not as if he called Sauve over to the bench and said, something like, “Go, kid … and I don’t mean to dance.”
But it would be a lot simpler if the rule wasn’t a guideline. Everyone would know it and there would be no exceptions, no extenuating circumstances, no exemptions. What, like Gretzky couldn’t have afforded 10 grand?
Sauve II
Though Sauve has been decent as the seldom-used backup, going 3-3 with five of the starts on the road, Sutter unloaded on him, after the game and the next day. The Flames also put him through waivers Wednesday, but he cleared them and stuck around.
It sounded as if Sutter was trying to jolt Sauve into working harder, more than anything else.
“When you have a clear-cut No. 1 goalie, then your backup gets 15 starts, you expect him to win 10 of them,” Sutter told the Calgary Herald. “If he can’t do that, you try somebody else. … If he’s not the guy, then there’s two guys in Omaha and 20 guys in the NHL who can do it.”
The two goalies for the Flames’ AHL affiliate at Omaha, Brent Krahn and former Colorado College star Curtis McElhinney, have a combined zero games of NHL experience.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
