It’s not really the end of an era - indeed, his era ended long ago - but the retirement of Mario Lemieux is part of a larger symbolic whole taking place in the National Hockey League right now… A change of the guard, if you will.
The process started well before the season did - both the lockout and the new changes to the rulebook - and was spurred along by a series of retirements (Mark Messier‘s, Vincent Damphousse’s and Scott Stephens’ among them) and now, with the retirement of what is arguably the best hockey player of all time, the process is almost complete.
It’s like the NFL of a few years ago - when such legendary players as Dan Marino, Steve Young, John Elway and Barry Sanders all retired in a short time span. The quality of play didn’t drop, because there was a new wave of players ready to take the helm of the league (Tiki Barber, Payton Manning, Terrell Owens, for example) and replace them in the collective conscience.
The same thing is happening in the NHL - for every superstar to retire this year, there is either a replacement already playing or one that will be playing soon: players like Jack Johnson, Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby all are posed to usher in the next great wave of players for the NHL as the league moves on from Messier, Lemieux, Stephens, et al.
So don’t call it a sad loss for the league now that Mario has moved on - instead of a bittersweet ending, this comes as more of a sloppy end to a career that has been heading downhill for quite some time now, down from the greatness it once had. Remember, the Lemieux that has been playing this year is not the same one that scored five goals in five different ways against New Jersey, the same Lemieux that obliterated the North Stars in the 1991 Stanley Cup finals and was most definitely not the same Mario Lemieux that scored in sudden death overtime in the 1987 Canada Cup. He hasn’t been that Mario in quite some time, not since he retired for the first time.
Still, one question remains for Mario: Will he still remain with the Penguins as an owner? And will they still remain in Pittsburgh if someone else takes the helm? For a city with such a bright future for it’s NFL team and a moderately decent future for it’s baseball team, it’s lone winter sports franchise has a dark uncertain and possibly short future ahead of it. It plays for smaller crowds then almost any other team and plays in one of, if not the, oldest arena in the NFL - the Mellon Centre (Which, unlike other old arenas, retains almost no charm whatsoever) and has been dogged by rumours of it’s relocation for some time now.
So should we look into his retirement as a sign of the near demise of the Pittsburgh Penguins? After all, his 2000 comeback was spurred, at least in part, by his purchase of the team… and with so many rumors about the team moving away, to Houston, to Winnipeg, to Kansas City flying about, his retirement comes at a suspicious time. It would surely overshadow any news of the team being sold to anyone - like to a Las Vegas based Columbian Drug Cartel (for example).
But perhaps it’s too easy to read too much into this retirement - he’s had a hard career, from his bout with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma to his bad back and now, most recently, his heart troubles - he’s had a blood-stained career, much like that other tragic hero Jim McMahon. Or perhaps he’s just another example of an athlete staying years past his prime and to the end of his welcome, when even he can no longer rely on past glories to succeed (See Jerry Rice, Reggie Miller, Cal Ripkin Jr.) or to compete.
One thing about his retirement is sure, however - for better or for worse, we won’t start missing him as a player. Maybe if he had years before, but he was no longer a factor for the Penguins, just a liability and a person on the Injured Reserve. The Mario that we all cheered for retired many years ago.
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