A captain for the ages: a leader and champion in his 25-year NHL career, Mark Messier is uncertain of his future in the game.

Publication: Hockey Digest

Publication Date: 01-SEP-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Century Publishing

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO know about Mark Messier the hockey player is in his nickname. In a sport with history of monikers that includes the Rocket, The Golden Jet, and The Great One, Messier's would seem generic, The Captain.

Yet in a league with 30 captains (and whose all-time roster of skippers stars the most famous names in hockey) somehow Messier has made the word "Captain" his own.

It seems likely that The Captain has left the ice. If at 43, age hasn't caught up with Messier, a labor impasse just might. Everyone around the league is braced for a lengthy work stoppage that could wipe out the 2004-2005 season, and the idea of Messier taking the ice for 2005-06 as 45 approaches seems unlikely.

And the last game Messier played, on Match 31 against the Sabres at Madison Square Garden, certainly had a farewell feel to it. Messier told reporters before the game that while he wished he could give a definitive answer about his future, his mind just hadn't been made up. As a result, the Rangers didn't fill the arena with figures from Messier's past and his number 11 wasn't etched into the ice as Wayne Gretzky's 99 was when he played his last game in the Garden in 1999.

"If I did think in my mind that this was it, I would have made a lot more plans and preparations a month ago," Messier said after the game. "I didn't know completely in my heart that that was the case. I didn't want to put myself in the situation and then come September, perhaps I want...

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