8th January: Lemieux's been there, already!
8th January: Lemieux's been there, already!
 It seems every
comment made about Mario Lemieux's performance upon his return from retirement has some
nuance of surprise or holds some prediction of eventual downfall. On January 3rd,
faceoff.com columnists asserted that the Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators treated Lemieux
like "rare crystal" but that other teams would soon be swarming him. The next
day, after he survived against the very physical Washington Capitals, they opined that
"what (Lemieux) still hasn't seen is a defense that works", implying, of course,
that the minute he did, he might just crumble. That isn't exactly what happened on the 5th of January... As we saw in the game against Montreal, when the Habs effectively held off the Pens 4-3 with a trap-laden defence, Number 66 still managed to get three points despite his team's loss (largely due to superior goaltending by Jose Theodore, who withstood 32 shots on goal compared to 21 against Snow). Meanwhile, sportscasters on January 3rd were musing that so far he's only played at home and just wait until he's on the road... Someone forgot to tell all these guys that Lemieux's been there before, thank you very much - with or without his full leg strength. The reflexes are coming back and will likely not let him down. Whether or not existing hockey players are faster and stronger than they were, on the whole, three and a half years ago, Lemieux stands tall and has a lot of weight to throw around in addition to his talent. It's very unlikely he will be fazed by "being on the road" more than he is at home in Pittsburgh. Mario Lemieux is no rookie. What's with these mainstream sports reporters? He isn't Rip Van Winkle quite yet. Sure, it's been three and a half years - but it hasn't exactly been 20 or 100. Lemieux has the advantage of over a decade of NHL hockey behind him as well as a long rest. He's only 35: a veteran in better condition, by his own admission, than he was when he first started in 1984. In comparison, for example, Mark Messier is 40 and still one of the best in the league: tied for 12th place and ahead of younger star players such as Bure, Forsberg and Yashin, all of this with no time off. It's time the mainstream sports media stopped waiting for the
first stumble and just accepted the fact that "Le Magnifique" is back... |
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