Messier: Did the Canucks miss the Mark?: It has not been a vintage season for the Canucks and their newest captain.: [Final Edition]
Mason, Gary. The Vancouver Sun [Vancouver, B.C] 17 Apr 1998: E1 / FRONT.
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"It's been a very successful season in some ways," he says. "A lot of things happened that had to take place and the changes have all been positive." It's been a familiar refrain of his lately. But Messier wasn't born yesterday, as his play often reminded us.
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Expectations. Oh, yea, there were certainly those. About $37 million US worth of them. And Messier was a big chunk of that... I've studied Messier up close this season and don't know him one ounce better than I did before he arrived. Well, maybe I do. I know how important his image is to him and how closely he guards and protects it. And monitors it too. He's the only player who gets the daily press clippings delivered to his room on the road. He reads everything that's written about him. And the battering he's taken lately in the media must sting. He's all business. Messier doesn't indulge in the easy banter of his teammates. After the game, after he's showered and dressed, he steps before his dressing room stall, stiff-backed, chin up, to offer his pronouncements on the game. Then he's gone... He's often moved through this season alone. On the plane and team bus, he's sat by himself, deep in private thoughts. Most players couldn't summon the nerve to sit and chat with him. Which surprised me. I thought the art of team building, as Messier so expertly knows it, happened differently.
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Messier was so identified with the city of New York. He embraced it and it embraced him... Again, maybe it's too early, but he hasn't seemed to form the same bond with this city. Made an emotional investment with the people. And I think the fans sense that too.
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Messier's contribution this season will mostly be measured by his performance on the ice. While his offensive numbers aren't overwhelming, they aren't horrible either. His play away from the puck has been the biggest concern. But let's be clear here: this was not one of Messier's strong suits in New York either. He still thinks offence first, and maybe that's a hangover from his days with the Oilers. But Messier's defensive lapses have given other teams goals. And cost the Canucks games. Personally, this has been the most annoying aspect of Messier's conduct this season: Never once did I hear him single out his own poor play after a bad game... I never heard Messier say that this year: `that was my guy who scored. I have to pick him up. It cost us the game.'
What I have heard from Messier has surprised me. A great deal of talk about injuries that have plagued him. There were also the over- blown comments about the arena's bad ice. Regardless, it's often sounded like excuses and I've never known Mark Messier to rely on an excuse in his life.
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Messier was always the teacher's pet. In Keenan's eyes, he could do no wrong. While the coach didn't hesitate to rip into anyone else for lackadaisical play, he would never finger his captain. If I was a player on that bench, watching the way Messier played some nights, I'd have problems with that. Because it smacks of preferential treatment. Which is okay if someone is playing like a superstar, but not if his wide circles are costing you goals.
While this might have cost Messier some respect in the dressing room this season, a bigger problem has been the role he's played in personnel decisions.
Former Canuck Gino Odjick's outspoken comments about Messier's thirst for power and the influence he has on all trades, speak best to the problem the Canuck captain has. He may not spend four hours in trade meetings, as Odjick suggested, but there's no question he's had input on moves. Shortly after arriving he talked to Tom Renney about a few players he thought weren't of any use to the team.
And I can see how this might create problems for teammates. For instance, when the first leaks from the Canuck dressing room started appearing in print this season, Messier was outraged. He called the unnamed players "gutless." He called it a complete betrayal of their teammates. But if Messier is talking to management, or the coach, about the fate of certain players, behind their back, who's betraying who here?
At times Messier has wanted to distance himself from this role and at other times he hasn't. He's been a skating contradiction.
When I talked to him in January he told me the team needed to be completely restructured. He also said he knew in the summer there were major problems with the team that would not be easy to fix. Now, he says he arrived with an open mind and no pre-conceived notions. Which is it?
In New York, Messier was the buffer between his teammates and Mike Keenan. He hasn't been that here. Again, as Odjick and others have said, Messier lost respect when he didn't defend players being verbally chastized by Keenan.
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I knew to the core of my being that it meant he would be captain and Linden would be shipped out. Quinn signed his own walking papers with that signing as an early losing streak the following season cost him his job and Keenan came in and, well, it was just a matter of time before Linden was gone. It took a few more months, until the '98 Nagano Olympics for Linden to officially give up his captaincy, then was traded for McCabe, Bertuzzi and a pick that became J. Ruutu. That is the dark ages for the Canucks according to this Canucks fan who began his fandom on the Towel Power of the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals run. I don't hate Messier per se, but his name brings up such bad memories of the Canucks organization (fighting equally with his NYR heroics, 1990 Oilers cup riun and eighties glory in my memories). Messier had 17 great years of greater than a point-per-game average when he signed with the Canucks and I suspected the gravy train had ended and that the true captain of the Canucks, Linden, was gong to be pushed out. Ugh. What a mess.
