I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the
retirement of Wayne Gretzky. Now I appreciate Gretzky as much as
the next guy, but being from Pittsburgh and having the chance to
see Mario Lemieux play on a nightly basis has allowed me to make
the decision that Mario is the greatest player of all time.
I know Gretzky has 61 NHL records to his name. I also know that
he is the all-time leading goal getter and points scorer, but
let's face it, if I played in the NHL for fifty years I'd have a
truckload of goals too. I'm also an awesome hockey player, but
that's me, deal with it.
"The Great One" scored 894 goals in 1487 games, which is a
remarkable feat. "Le Magnifique" had 613 goals to his credit in
only 745 games an even "Greater" feat. For those of you who need
work on your math skills, that's about half as many games as Gretzky. Times Lemieux's total by two and you get 1226 goals.
Is it Lemieux's fault that he had chronic back problems? No. Is
it Lemieux's fault that he got Hodgkin's Disease? No. Is it
Lemieux's fault that he's better than Gretzky? Oh, Hell No!
I'm not here to bash Gretzky, I just felt a little upset that
with all the talk this past week about the retirement of Gretzky
the only person they could compare him with was Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan? I mean he's okay and all, but how do you put
those two on the same plateau? It's two different sports. It's
like comparing Pete Sampras to Pele. You just can't do it.
I just can't believe that with all the coverage on the different
networks every single broadcaster projected Gretzky as the best
ever, which is fine with me. The only problem I had was that
they wouldn't even mention Lemieux's name in the category of top
players. You heard names like Howe, Orr, Fairish, but rarely
Mario. I just feel that it was my responsibility to bring this
point to light. Not to mention Mario Lemieux would kick Wayne
Gretzky's ass.
Let's talk about the Pens...
They're gonna lose. They're gonna lose in five games.
When the Pens take the ice Thursday night to face the New Jersey
Devils I hope they have their priorities in order...
Did I make reservations for the hotel?
Did I get my tickets for the Oz Fest in June?
Did I call LCS Hockey's Jerry Fairish and thank him?
Did I punch that damn chimp?
The Penguins haven't been playing like a team competing for the
Stanley Cup for the last several weeks. They have been plagued
with injuries, they have no team chemistry right now, and New
Jersey is awesome. With all these things combined it's going to
make it hard for the Penguins to pull this series off. However,
I think they can do it. If "do it" means losing 4 out of 5
games, then yes they can do it.
Also of note...
I got two, count 'em, two fan letters from this past issue. I
would like to take this chance to thank Martin Hamacher from
Germany and C-LOB from Mt. Pleasant, Pa for taking their time to
drop me e-mail. I would have printed your name in this issue,
but you didn't send me one. Oh yeah, thanks, mom, for the
pick-me-up cherry pie.
Well, that's it for me.
P.S. Neil Wilkinson was scratched more this season than a fat
kid with Poison Ivy.
