Hockey Card of the Day: Mark Messier

1980-81 O-Pee-Chee Mark Messier RC

1994 Vancouver Canucks: What A Mess!

The following is an excerpt from my unreleased book: Remembering The 1994 Vancouver Canucks. Please see below for the full table of contents.

While I firmly believe Brian Leetch and Mike Richter deserve more of the credit for the New York Rangers Stanley Cup championship in 1994, even Canucks fans have to give Mark Messier his due.

With his guarantees and scary stare, he was the rare hockey player who transcended New York. He truly was Manhattan’s Messiah!

Messier was hockey’s ultimate warrior. Universally hailed for his leadership and his take no prisoners approach to the game, Messier’s legacy is unquestioned. He is undoubtedly one of the top  players to ever play the game of hockey.

What a Mess!

Unfortunately, a few years later Vancouver fans would learn just how big of a mess Mark Messier could really make.

And I still can't stand this image:

June 11th/14th, 1994 - The Highs, The Lows

Bure-ing The Flames
- The Russian Rocket
- Captain Kirk

Shooting Down The Stars
- The Elbow
- The Mighty Pat Quinn
- Cliff Ronning: The Little Man That Could

Be-Leaf It Or Not!
- Forever A Canuck: Trevor Linden
- Greg Adams! Greg Adams!

New York: All The World Is A Stage
- The Penalty Shot
- Nathan Lafayette And That Damn Goal Post
- What A Mess!
- Doug Lidster: The Lone Ranger
- It Was A Riot!

June 15th, 2011: Looking Back At 1994

Great Moments In Hockey History: Mark Messier's Guarantee

May 25th, 1994 - With his team down 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in the 1994 Eastern Conference final, captain Mark Messier guaranteed New York fans that the Rangers would win Game 6 and return home for the seventh and deciding contest. The Rangers not only won the game 4-2, but Messier backed up his bold prediction by scoring a hat trick.

Hockey History Photo of the Day

Mark Messier really did not like that off-side call.

Sunday Funnies: What A Mess!

I found this crazy Stan Fischler story in a 1993 issue of The Hockey News.

What A Mess - Journalistic objectivity took a beating recently when the New York paper Newsday printed the summary from a New York Rangers/New York Islanders game with the the words Messier Sucks next to the scoring listing. More than 100,000 copies of the paper were distributed before the deletion was made.

How did it happen? A non-hockey writer was called in on the previoius night because of an intense Northeast storm and the staffer brought his son - an Islanders fan - with him. Unknown to the reporter, the youth punched in the obscenity on the computer and didn't inform his dad until the car trip home. By the time the correction was phoned in, the early edition was en route to newsstands.

Newsday later apologized on radio station WFAN.

Hockey History Photo of the Day: What A Mess

Mark Messier with hair! And white pants!

Hockey History Photo of the Day: Gretzky And Messier

Wayne Gretzky learns to celebrate a goal without Mark Messier

Mark Messier's Guarantee

From Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail:

It seemed, at first, like an empty promise and one that would embarrass and haunt Messier forever. The Devils, playing at the top of their game, went ahead 1-0 off a fluke deflection, then up 2-0 on a long Scott Niedermayer shot from the point. Neither goal was what could be called a “good” goal and the Rangers left the ice at the end of the first to the derisive chants of “19-40! 19-40! 19-40!” a sarcastic New Jersey reference to the last time the Rangers had won the Cup.

But then, slowly, Messier’s prediction began to heat up. Young Alexei Kovalev – back in the days when he cared – scored off a nifty Messier drop pass. In the third period, Messier scored on a nice pass from Kovalev to tie the game 2-2, scored again when he swept a Kovalev rebound past Brodeur – and completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal to seal the comeback win.

The Rangers went on to win Game 7, then on to defeat the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup, and Messier’s “guarantee” became part of hockey lore.

Full Story

Erasing Memories of Messier

The Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins share at least one thing in common - unwanted memories of Mark Messier.

You see, when both of these teams last appeared in the Stanley Cup final, they ended in very similar fashion.

The Bruins were last in the final in 1990, losing to the Wayne Gretzky-less Edmonton Oilers. Here is how that ended:

The Canucks were last in the Stanley Cup final in 1994, facing the New York Rangers, who had acquired Mr. Messier a couple of years prior. Of course, the final image of 1994 looked a lot like this:

The resulting image has been burned into the psyche of fans of both the Bruins and the Canucks ever since.

Now both teams are entangled in the 2011 Stanley Cup final, and Mark Messier is nowhere to be found. Whoever ultimately wins in 2011 will erase the image of defeat in Messier's humongous grin.

Who will it be? I predict whoever wins game 5 will win the Stanley Cup. And I am going to pick Vancouver to win game 5. But there will be a game 7.

This Date In Stanley Cup History

May 8, 1973 • The Chicago Black Hawks and Montreal Canadiens combined to set an NHL record with 15 goals in one Final game. Led by Stan Mikita’s two-goal, two-assist performance, the Black Hawks edged the Canadiens 8-7 in Game Five at the Montreal Forum. Montreal went on to win the series four games to two.

May 8, 1982 • The Vancouver Canucks became the first team since the 1922 Vancouver Millionaires of
the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) to represent that city in the Stanley Cup Final. The Canucks lost the opening game 6-5 in overtime to the New York Islanders, who went on to take the series in four straight games.

May 8, 1995 • New York Rangers center Mark Messier scored the 100th goal of his playoff career in an 8-3 win over the Quebec Nordiques in Game Two of their Eastern Conference Quarter-final. He became just the third player in NHL history to reach the milestone, joining former Oiler teammates Wayne Gretzky (110) and Jari Kurri (102).

May 8, 2003 • The Minnesota Wild became the first team in NHL history to bounce back from a three games-to-one deficit twice in one playoff year when they defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4–2 in Game Seven of their Western Conference Semifinal. In beating the Colorado Avalanche in the first round and the Canucks in the second, the Wild had needed to win both games five and seven on the road.

Big Brother: Paul Messier

Despite 13 professional seasons of hockey in North America and Europe, Paul's claim to fame is simple. He's Mark Messier's older brother. (Mitch, Joby and Eric Messier are not related to Mark and Paul).

You can see the familiar Messier stare in this photo to the right. By the way, I love those Binghamton Whalers jerseys. They were of course the farm team of the Hartford Whalers at the time. By simply flipping the Whalers' "HW" logo, they ended up with a "B" logo. Great stuff!

Paul, who was actually born in Nottingham, England in 1958, played for the University of Denver from 1976 through 1978. The NHL's Colorado Rockies wanted to capitalize on the rare opportunity to draft a prospect with ties to the Denver area. The Rockies drafted Paul 41st overall in 1978. By comparison Mark, who was drafted the following year by Edmonton, was chosen 48th overall.

Paul, like Mark, was a great skater but wasn't nearly as big. He also didn't have that physical edge or nastiness in his game. As a result, Paul only played 9 NHL games, all in his rookie pro season of 1978-79 with the Rockies. He would end up spending much of the next 4 years bouncing around with 6 minor pro teams in 2 different leagues. Paul struggled immensely in the CHL but when he was moved up to the AHL he began to find his game, scoring at a point-per-game rate for 2 seasons.

In 1983 Paul decided to leave North America and signed with Isserlohn of the German league. The following season he jumped to ERC Mannheim, also of the German league, for the next 6 years. He became a dominant scoring force while playing in Germany, scoring 198 goals and 397 points in 281 games.

Shoebox Memories: Mark Messier

Check this out: It is card #289 of the 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee hockey card set, better known as Mark Messier's rookie card. A mint condition card is worth upwards of $400!

I was recently talking with a former employee of the Edmonton Oilers during this time period. He told me that off the ice Messier was a holy terror, constantly getting himself into mischief in search of the good life.

"Glen Sather spent a lot of time getting Mess out of scrapes, and making sure the media never found about it," he told me. He never gave any examples of trouble Messier would find himself in.

Of course Messier went on to become one of the game's all time greats. But it may have been with some luck that Messier (and so many young players then and now) did not end up a wreck like a Don Murdoch or a Bob Probert.

Here is the back of the card:

Messing With Team Canada

Count me as one of the apparently few that are skeptical about the appointment of Mark Messier as Team Canada's general manager for the 2010 World Championships.

I'm not really all that concerned about the result in Mannheim, Germany. The IIHF World Championships have never really registered on the hockey consciousness here in Canada, not like it probably should anyways. Expectations are low, especially in an Olympic year where many top candidates may sit this one out after a long and arduous season.

That alone might be why Canada is giving Mess the reign this year. Who would dare say no to him? And that's all fine and dandy, probably even a good move by Hockey Canada.

But I am far more concerned about the long term implications of Messier's inclusion with Hockey Canada.

2010 Is Fine

The world's GM job is generally considered to be an entry level job with Hockey Canada. Much like the players chosen, success and loyalty here can lead to bigger and better things, namely the Olympics. Past managers include Doug Armstrong (2009), Steve Yzerman (2008 and 2007), Ken Holland (2006). These three, along with 2002 and 2006 Olympic assistant executive director Kevin Lowe, are heading up Canada's 2010 Olympic team.

It is a fairly safe position. The manager ultimately has little impact, other than selecting the coach and staff, and working with them to pick the players. I'm making that sound a whole lot simpler than it really is, but ultimately team success at worlds really lies with the players and coaches. And Hockey Canada's Bob Nicholson will provide a very steady guiding hand.

Beyond 2010, I'm Worried

But if the choice of Messier indicates Hockey Canada sees potentially bigger roles for him in the future, I'm not completely comfortable with that.

What little management experience Messier does have he's learned from Glen Sather, and his awful record in the past 15 years or so speaks for itself. That's not exactly the mentor I'd choose if I were an aspiring GM. He's politically savvy, but his hockey savvy can very much be questioned since 1995 or so.

There is no doubt Messier is politically calculating too. Messier's other management experience dates back to his playing days with the Vancouver Canucks. That's when hockey's so called greatest leader was said to be in cahoots with owner John McCaw in bringing in Mike Keenan and many on ice acquisitions, and tearing apart the Canucks heart and soul by getting rid of people like Pat Quinn, Trevor Linden and Martin Gelinas. The result speaks for itself - zero playoff games during what is now bitterly remembered in Vancouver as the dark Messier Error Era.

Messier represents the old boys network. Like Sather, he is too loyal to his friends. Such cronyism did in Wayne Gretzky at the 2006 Olympics. Messier's not so subtle hinting that Gretzky could very well be the 2010 Olympics coach is fine, but certainly suggests the era of cronyism will be back.

I'd rather see Canada continually rewarding the best of the best, and rotating new ideas on a regular basis.

Messier as GM of the 2010 World Championship team is fine in itself. His job will essentially be to recruit more so than manage. But the bigger picture scares me.

Stanley Cup Legends: The Messiah, Mark Messier

Like Patrick Roy, Mark Messier's playoff legacy is divided into two eras with two teams.

He started with his hometown Edmonton Oilers, winning five Stanley Cups in seven seasons between 1984 and 1990. Though the Oilers were Wayne Gretzky's team, Messier was Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP in the Oilers first championship in 1984. And it was definitely Mark Messier's Oilers that won the 1990 Stanley Cup, just 2 seasons after trading the Great One.

Messier took his five Stanley Cup rings and a bunch of former Oilers teammates with him to Manhattan where he became captain of the New York Rangers. In 1994 Messier became "the Messiah" in New York, leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup championship since 1940.

Messier's signature contribution in those 1994 playoffs came with his team down 3 games to 2 to the New Jersey Devils in the 1994 Eastern Conference final. Messier guaranteed New York fans that the Rangers would win Game 6 and return home for the seventh and deciding contest. The Rangers not only won the game 4-2, but Messier backed up his bold prediction by scoring a hat trick.

Full Mark Messier Biography

Shoebox Memories: Wayne Gretzky And Mark Messier

This 1983-84 O Pee Chee hockey card honours Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier, the two offensive leaders of the Edmonton Oilers.

The Oilers scored a NHL record 424 goals in the 1982-83 season, with Gretzky leading the way with 71 goals and 196 points. Mark Messier added 48 goals and 106 points.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but what I find interesting is that even though OPC honored this record breaking performance with a special card, they did not do the same the next season when Gretzky and Messier led the Oilers to a 446 goal season, a NHL record that still stands today.

Greatest Photos In Hockey History #7 Mark Messier's Guarantee

With his team down 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in the 1994 Eastern Conference final, captain Mark Messier guaranteed New York fans that the Rangers would win Game 6 and return home for the seventh and deciding contest. The Rangers not only won the game 4-2, but Messier backed up his bold prediction by scoring a hat trick.

Of course, the Rangers would go on to win game seven, setting up the classic 1994 Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks, leading to another famous picture of Mark Messier in a New York Rangers sweater.

Read The Full Mark Messier Biography

1994: NY Rangers End 54 Year Cup Drought

The year is 1994. In one of the most thrilling Stanley Cup finals ever, the New York Rangers narrowly edge out the Vancouver Canucks for the championship title. It is the first Stanley Cup championship for Manhattan in 54 years.

The last time the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup, there was no such thing as television. But by 1994 everyone was watching to see if the Rangers could end more than 5 decades of futility. Despite victory plans following game 4 of the finals, the Rangers would have to wait until game 7 to see if they could pull it off.

They did, but it certainly was not easy. The Vancouver Canucks, led by Trevor Linden, Pavel Bure and the spectacular goaltending of Kirk McLean, offered dramatic and stressful competition. If it was not for a Nathan Lafayette goal post, perhaps the Ranger fans would still be waiting for a Cup championship.

The Rangers were of course led by Mark Messier and a cast of ex-Edmonton Oilers - Glenn Anderson, Kevin Lowe, Esa Tikkanen, Adam Graves, Jeff Beukeboom and Craig MacTavish. Every bit as important was defensemen Sergei Zubov and Brian Leetch (who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP) and sensational goaltender Mike Richter.

The famous "1940!" chants by New York Islanders fans finally came to an end.

With the championship - and with the famous guaranteed victory against the Devils in round 3 - Mark Messier became "The Messiah" in Manhattan. He remains as one of the most important sporting figures in New York City's grand history.

1990: Edmonton Wins Cup Without Gretzky

The year is 1990. Wayne Gretzky left Edmonton two years prior. Many people believed that when he left town, so had the Stanley Cup.

But the Oilers remained a strong team, with holdovers like Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson, Esa Tikkanen and Kevin Lowe. But new heroes emerged, namely Craig Simpson, Joe Murphy, Adam Graves, Martin Gelinas and especially goaltender Bill Ranford.

Ranford, who came over two years earlier in the Andy Moog trade, would win the Conn Smythe trophy as he and the Oilers bested Moog and the Boston Bruins for the second time in three years. With spectacular play, Ranford established himself as perhaps the best goalie in the world in the early 1990s.

Esa Tikkanen also deserves special mention, as he emerged as arguably the top defensive forward in the world after his masterful shut down jobs on Wayne Gretzky, Denis Savard and a spooked Craig Janney.

Make no mistake though, this was now Mark Messier's team. The hometown hero was named captain after Gretzky left, and 1990 was his greatest year in Edmonton. He finished with a career best 129 points, was named as the Hart Trophy winner and led the Oilers to their most unexpected Stanley Cup championship of their dynasty.

Messier's Guarantee

May 25, 1994. The New Jersey Devils are leading the conference finals series 3-2 against the New York Rangers.

The Rangers haven’t won Lord Stanley’s Cup since the 1939-40 season.

The Devils have never won the Cup.

Before the game at the Meadowlands Arena, Rangers team captain Mark Messier publicly guarantees they will win Game Six.

“We know we have to win it. We can win it and we are going to win it,” he says confidently.

New Jersey has a 2-0 lead after two periods. Rangers' fans are holding their breath, hoping for the promised win.

It all starts with Messier’s set-up pass for Alexei Kovalev, who buries it.

1-2...

Kovalev takes possession of the puck and snaps off a pass to Messier. He skates ahead with the puck and beats Devils goalie Martin Brodeur under the left pad.

2-2...

Messier wins the face-off. Seconds later, he buries a rebound from a hard shot from Kovalev.

3-2...

Jacques Lemaire, normally a very conservative coach, pulls Brodeur for the extra attacker.

The play is in the Rangers’ zone.

The Devils' John MacLean throws a sloppy pass to the front of the net, where Messier intercepts it and dumps it down the ice straight into the Devils’ empty net.

4-2...

Messier has delivered the win as promised, and game seven is won at home in front of the Madison Square faithful.

The Rangers go on to defeat Vancouver in seven games, making Messier the first player to captain two different teams to Stanley Cup victories.

- article by Jennifer Conway

Meat Loaf on Messier

Mark Messier is Meat Loaf's favorite hockey player. In fact, I've been told Messier is the fan favorite among most meat products. It must be all that MSG flavor enhancer.

Meat Loaf recently summed up Messier's career quite nicely:

Joe - "Mr. Loaf, tell me about Mark Messier."

Meat - "Ah yes, It's All Coming Back To Me Now. When he first arrived in Edmonton, he was like a Bat Out Of Hell. Yet for all his success in Edmonton, New York city was his Paradise By The Dashboard Light. Especially after 1994, when the city really fell in love with Mark Messier.

Joe - He was known as a player who would do what ever it took?

Meat - He Would Do Anything For Love (But He Won't Do That).

Joe - What about the move to Vancouver? That was a real Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Meat - Well, Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad.

Joe - I'm not so sure about that. But all was forgotten when he returned to New York.

Meat - Not A Dry Eye In The House.

Joe - Especially Messier's.

Meat - You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth. I Couldn't Have Said It Better.

Joe - Tell me your favorite story of hanging out with Mark Messier

Meat - There was one very special night. It was like Midnight At The Lost And Found. It was myself, Mess, and this Hot Patootie named Madonna. Let me tell you about Madonna. Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere).

Joe - Are you telling me the truth?

Meat - Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through. I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth).

Fine Print: This account is completely fictional. I have no affiliation with Meat Loaf or Mark Messier. Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.