Mario Hangs It Up For Good
All We'll Have
By Guy Junker

The look on his face was one of pure bewilderment. A stunned man who couldn't believe or understand what was happening to him. Sixteen winters ago this month, Mario Lemieux sat and stared on the bench at Madison Square Garden. He had scored points in 46 straight games and was closing in on Wayne Gretzky's NHL record of 51. The holiday streak: it started on Halloween and ended on Valentine's Day. But because he had so much back pain, he couldn't skate another shift. End of streak. And in many ways, the end of the question posed on the cover of Sports Illustrated in February 1989, "As Great As Gretzky?" We never got the chance to find out.

If Lemieux and Gretzky were both healthy and 25 years old, I believe most NHL general managers would pick 66 over 99. His size was something Gretzky could never duplicate. But Mario could never duplicate Gretzky's health. A bad back, Hodgkins' disease, hip problems, heart trouble-they never attacked Gretzky.

It took Lemieux 23 years to play parts of 17 seasons for the Penguins. He averaged just 54 games a season over that stretch. Gretzky played in 80 or more games nine times. Mario never hit that number. In all, Gretzky played in 572 more games than Lemieux. Had he played the same amount of games, he would have had nearly the same point total considering his 1.88 points per game average for his career.

It doesn't really matter though. Both were magnificent Hall-of-Famers that were absolute treats to watch. But when Lemieux announced last month that he was retiring again, I was glad to hear him say that he occasionally has wondered "what if" he had been healthier. Because we all have. And we'll never know.

Hey, it would have been great to see him participate in the Olympics again this month, and lead the Penguins to some playoff thrills in the spring before bowing out. But it's not to be, and it's not nearly as sad this time around as it was when he quit the first time after the playoffs in 1997. Then, selfishly, it felt as though we had been robbed of something. Now, it really is time.

But while the end of Lemieux's playing career was inevitable, the end of his tenure as owner was not. As he prepares to step down there as well, ironically the franchise is in much the same state that it was the day he first arrived, a last place team threatening to move elsewhere. If that happens, forget the comparisons to Gretzky and the thoughts of what might have been.

Nothing can take away what happened in between. In fact, thank God for it. Because for hockey fans, it's all we'll have.

Guy Junker co-hosts the "Junker & Crow Show" weekdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on ESPN Radio 1250.