Mess's messes

This year, the NHL hopes to turn over a new leaf, and the boys of winter will do it without longtime Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers captain Mark Messier. The hockey icon who skated professionally for a quarter century announced his retirement Sept. 12-less than a month before the NHL's regular season kicks off Oct. 5.

Rangers and Oilers fans-for whom Mr. Messier helped win six Stanley Cup Championships, including four with Wayne Gretzky in Edmonton-will no doubt remember the stoic center for his dazzling stick and tough reputation. He retires second on the all-time points list behind Mr. Gretzky. Many fans will miss him.

Dallas Stars center Mike Modano won't. In 1993, Mr. Messier, skating for New York, leveled the 23-year-old rising star by throwing his right shoulder into Mr. Modano's jaw. The Stars center left the arena tied down to a stretcher fading in and out of consciousness before recovering in the hospital. Last week, he said the hit was a good lesson about skating with his head down. But while characterizing the hit as legal, he regarded it as a cheap shot.

Cheaper still was what Mr. Messier did to Thomas Gradin and Rich Sutter. In 1984, playing with Edmonton, Mr. Messier whacked Vancouver's Mr. Gradin in the head with a two-handed slash. If Mr. Gradin had not been wearing a helmet, commentators said he could have died from the vicious hit. Mr. Messier was suspended for six games. The Canucks' Mr. Sutter, too, had a run-in with the burly center. During a 1988 game, Mr. Sutter skated deep into Oilers ice when Mr. Messier brought his stick up and clotheslined him in the face as he went by. Mr. Sutter lost several teeth, and a team official said Mr. Sutter even had hockey tape from Mr. Messier's stick in his mouth.

Perhaps Martin Strbak will be relieved Mr. Messier no longer prowls the NHL. Near the beginning of the 2003-04 season, Mr. Messier used his stick like a bayonet and speared Mr. Strbak, with Pittsburgh, in the groin during a power play. The Rangers captain's coach at the time, Tom Renney, could only shrug his shoulders. "That's an old, wily veteran taking a young guy to task," he said. "That's the way it is."

And that's how hockey has always been-a sport unwilling to change until forced. But in part, that's what the lockout was about. Clutch and grab, hook and hold, and sometimes, outright thuggery doesn't televise well, and that's bad sports economics. The hockey that returns from the yearlong hiatus that wiped out the 2004-05 season should be different than the sport struggling not only with finances, but also with competition from other professional leagues.

It's somehow fitting as hockey tries to remake its image that it sheds one of its biggest dinosaurs. Mr. Messier was perhaps one of the game's great scorers, but also one of its most prodigious goons.

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