NHL: The Final Installment: Super Mario Bros. 4

By Lee Manchur Sports Central Columnist

"... and Mario Lemieux is quickly living up to all the hype" were the words of the Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play announcer when Lemieux scored his first NHL goal on the first shot of the first minute on his first shift in his first NHL game.

That was 16 years ago, in the year 1984, and today, just weeks away from the year 2001, Lemieux has become a legend of the game because of a list of improbable comebacks ... a list that he is about to add to.

Throughout the 1989-1990 season, Lemieux struggled with a herniated back, but finished fourth in league scoring with 123 points, despite missing 21 games.

In the offseason, Lemieux had surgery to repair the damage, and that's when everyone thought Lemieux's sickness was over, but it was just beginning. After his surgery, Lemieux learned that he had developed a rare form of bone disease. The cause was an infection created by his previous surgery. He missed training camp and the first fifty games of the 1990-1991 regular season, but rejoined on-ice "brother" Jaromir Jagr and the rest of his teammates in Pittsburgh in the playoffs, leading not only all playoff performers in points with 44, but also leading the Penguins to their first ever Stanley Cup championship. The first installment had ended, but the second had not even begun.

In January, 1993, Super Mario had to fight yet another off-ice battle. Lemieux was diagnosed with a form of Hodgkin's disease, a sometimes-fatal disease that enlarges the lymph nodes, spleen, and liver, that put him out of the line-up for months. Lemieux underwent treatment in the form of radiation between February 1 and March 2. He again joined his on-ice "brother," Jaromir Jagr, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and although he played just seventy-three per cent of the regular season, sixty games, Lemieux captured the league's scoring title with 160 points, the Bill Masterton Trophy for dedication to the game of hockey, and also the Hart Memorial Trophy as the player most valuable to his team.

The next four years were hard for Lemieux. He even took a whole season off to completely recover. However, with obstruction not being called by the referees to protecting their superstar players, Lemieux just couldn't handle the physical aspect any more and retired after the 1997 playoffs.

The object of what we could title "Super Mario Bros. 3" was to save the entire Pittsburgh Penguins franchise. Lemieux had done it on the ice, but after he retired, he saved the team yet again. The Penguins, after the 1997 season, were about to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, but Lemieux came back (again). He dropped the over $26 million the team owed him in past salaries and acquired nearly twelve new investors to buy the team with him.

Now, Lemieux is about to save the team for a fourth, and, almost certainly, final time.

After the 1997 quarter-final playoff round versus the Philadelphia Flyers, Lemieux hugged and said good-bye to Flyers' center Eric Lindros. It seemed to be the passing of the torch - that Lindros would be the superstar player the NHL needed to lead the league into a new era. However, Lindros has failed to do that because of concussions, and simply not being effective on the ice, so now, Lemieux is coming back to save the NHL who is in desperate need of a super star.

The object of "Super Mario Bros. 4" will not only be to fill that roll of NHL super star - one who can sell out arenas in no matter what city he plays - but also, as in the past, to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to a Stanley Cup victory. Will it be as successful as the last two comebacks - both of which lead to most valuable player awards, scoring titles, and Stanley Cup championships?

Partly.

The Penguins are not the great team they were in the early '90's. The goaltending is not strong anymore with Barrasso gone (and even if he were there, he is well past his prime), and even though they will still have the best two hockey players in the world on their team, assuming Lemieux plays his old self, with Jaromir Jagr at the Magnificent One's side.

But will Lemieux play as strong as he did three years ago? In 1997, he was the league's top-scorer with 122 points and was also named as the centerman for the First All-Star Team. Logic says that if Lemieux were an average player, he could not play as great as he did before he retired because of the long time of not being on skates, but Lemieux is no average player.

At 6'4" and over 200 pounds, Lemieux is not a Wayne Gretzky-type player that needs a bodyguard by his side in order to get the job done offensively, and even though the one of the major reasons Lemieux retired in 1997 was because there was too much obstruction, he will fight in the corners for the puck and can deliver body checks. He can score, as we all know, and he is a team leader on and off the ice, even though he will not be wearing the "C" on his jersey when he comes back at the end of this month.

Look for Super Mario to play well with Jagr on the same line, but he will never be as great as he was.

However, in the words of Peter Pan, "Never say 'Never'."

Article courtesy of Sports Central