Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304180077
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PITTSBURGH LENGTH: Long
THIS STORY TRUE
AFTER ILLNESS and injury, Pittsburgh Penguins star Mario Lemieux still is "nothing short of brilliant."\ Write this story as fiction and nobody would buy it. Spielberg wouldn't film it. Doubleday wouldn't publish it. ABC wouldn't make a docudrama of it. Oprah wouldn't devote a show to it.
Hockey star requires career-threatening back surgery and months of recuperation, yet leads a once gosh-awful team to the Stanley Cup.
One year later, same hockey star breaks a wrist in the NHL playoffs, comes back weeks earlier than anticipated and team wins another Stanley Cup.
Another year later, hockey star develops cancer - cancer! - but returns in mere weeks to lead a record-setting winning streak.
Too unbelievable, they'd agree. Too Jack Armstrong-ish, too Frank Merriwell-ish, too Clark Kent-ish, they'd say. These are the 1990s, not the 1930s, they'd point out, and passe stories about heroes who accomplish unsurpassable feats of wonder simply don't cut it with today's sophisticated public.
Except that Mario's Miracle isn't fiction, but fact.
There really is a Mario Lemieux, his comeback is documented, his courage is real. The Pittsburgh Penguins center has withstood two career-threatening - and one life-threatening - medical crises in three years, only to return even stronger, even better, and, if it's possible, even more magnificent.
"He's nothing short of brilliant, in my eyes," Penguins wing Rick Tocchet said. "He's just a rock, just a big huge rock. Nothing fazes him."
If his sport were more popular, Lemieux would be the stuff of which legends are made, the Babe Ruth of his generation, a superhero whose appeal transcends all measurable demographics or Neilsen ratings.
If he played in Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh, they probably already would have a statue of him erected alongside Rocky Balboa's at The Spectrum.
"When you watch Mario and what he's done . . . you know you're watching the greatest player who ever played hockey," linemate Kevin Stevens said. "What he's done is unbelievable. It's scary."
After all, it's been just three months since Lemieux not only didn't know how long he would be away from hockey, but how long he had to live. Already suffering periodically from intense back pain, Lemieux learned Jan. 8 he had Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes that has a 90-95 percent survival rate when detected early.
The odds were on his side, for sure, but the statistics also meant that 5-10 percent of Hodgkin's patients don't survive. Obviously, this wasn't a hamstring pull or a torn tendon - this truly was life or death, do or die.
Doctors warned he would experience severe side effects from his month's worth of radiation: fatigue, loss of strength and endurance, the frequent urge to sleep. Lemieux listened, faithfully underwent his therapy - and kept right on playing hockey. Not in games, but in practice, where he sometimes skated for two hours straight with what teammates called game-like intensity.
If hockey couldn't wait for its greatest scorer, its greatest star to return, Lemieux's urge to return was even greater.
Maybe it was his fanatical desire to win his fourth NHL scoring title in six years, to win another Stanley Cup with what he calls "the greatest team I've ever played on."
"I told [Buffalo's] Pat LaFontaine at the All-Star Game, `I'll be back as soon as I can and we'll have a little race at the end,' " for the scoring title, Lemieux said. "I was going to spot him a few points, just as a joke."
Lemieux was so eager to return after completing his final radiation treatment March 2, he chartered a plane to Philadelphia so he could play that night. Of course, he scored a goal. Three nights later, his back was so sore he barely could stand up, and the Penguins lost 3-1 to the New York Rangers.
Six weeks and 18 games later, they still haven't lost, breaking along the way the NHL winning streak record of 15 set by the 1981-82 New York Islanders and going 17-0-1. They open the NHL playoffs today at home as two-time defending champions, intent on establishing themselves as one of the greatest teams of all time.
What Lemieux did during the streak wasn't just the stuff of a superhero, but superhuman. So quickly did he overtake LaFontaine in the NHL scoring race that, in the Sabre's rearview mirror, Lemieux must have looked like a test car straight off the Utah salt flats.
In his 20 post-radiation games - so improbable was his comeback that he even has his own statistical niche - Lemieux had 30 goals and 26 assists, an average of 2.8 points per game. The Penguins are 17-2-1, an .894 percentage.
"I was fortunate to have a few big games, which gave me a lot of confidence and the hope that I could win the scoring title . . . and winning scoring titles is what they pay me to do," Lemieux said. "I was pretty far back, but I had some six-point, five-point and four-point games."
Plus the second five-goal game of his career April 9 in New York as the Penguins beat the Rangers 10-4 to break the record.
"I'm still not in top shape," he said. "I'm still a little tired every time I play, especially late in the second period when I get a little fatigued. I'm just trying to get my stamina back."
That's just what NHL goaltenders wanted to hear: Lemieux's still not on top of his game.
"I can't wait to see what Mario does in the playoffs, when he is in shape," New Jersey's Stephane Richer said. "He's the best player in the world, and you see why."
"How can you imagine what he's done?" Stevens said. "It's crazy. Only one person in the world could have done what he did."