 
|
|
              
|
11/18/1997 05:22 EST Lemieux Enters Hockey Hall of Fame TORONTO (AP) -- Mario Lemieux, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night, has ended any hope he might lace on the skates for Canada at the Winter Olympics in Japan in February. ``I will not play in the Olympics,'' Lemieux said before an induction ceremony for himself, Bryan Trottier and Glen Sather. ``It would be very difficult for me to attempt to come back and get back in world-class shape, and I don't think it would be fair to the rest of the players who are trying to play the whole year to get a spot at the Olympics. ``I'm retired and I'm going to stay retired.'' At 32, the six-time NHL scoring champion who helped the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup in 1991 and 1992, has no regrets about his decision last spring to walk away from hockey. ``I don't miss the game at all,'' said Lemieux, one of the few players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame without the usual three-year waiting period. ``I've watched a few games (on TV) and just the way the game is being played right now is not much fun for the players and not much fun for me to watch.'' He misses the camaraderie, but not the hooking and holding. ``I'm enjoying my life quite a bit right now with my (four) kids, playing a lot of golf in Florida. There's not much pressure. It's been great. I've been relaxing and traveling. I don't see myself coming back any time soon. I think I'm retired for good.'' Trottier, who led the New York Islanders to four championships in the early 1980s and who now coaches the AHL's Portland Pirates, was the only other inductee in the player category. Sather, the president of the five-time Stanley Cup-champion Edmonton Oilers, was inducted in the builders category. Ken McKenzie, the former NHL publicity director and a Hockey News columnist, received the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for print media. Gene Hart, voice of the Philadelphia Flyers, got the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for broadcasting. Lemieux said he hopes he's remembered as a player who joined a last place team in 1984 and took it to the top in seven years. He'd still be playing if not for back surgeries and Hodgkin's disease, he said. ``It became very frustrating not being able to do the things I used to do when I was 25 or 26 and that's the main reason why I decided to retire. ``Every game, not being able to challenge people ... that was a part of my game my whole life, since I was three or four years old, being able to handle the puck and beat people one-on-one. ``The last two years of my career, I was not able to do that and I had to change my game because of that. The game became not as much fun for me every night, so it was very frustrating.'' Lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time was the highlight of his career, he said. The 613 goals in 745 games and the MVP awards were gravy. Trottier, 41, was both a rival and teammate of Lemieux, joining the Penguins in 1990 in time to win two Cups in Pittsburgh. ``It took me 10 minutes to pick all the ice chips out of my teeth,'' he said of one misadventure trying to check Lemieux in earlier days. Sather, 54, said his biggest break was getting Wayne Gretzky to help the Oilers win four of their five Stanley Cups in Edmonton. So, who's better, Gretzky or Lemieux? ``That's like asking if Pavarotti is better than Mario Lanza,'' Sather said. ``Hockey was everything to me,'' Lemieux said. ``Growing up in Montreal and seeing the great teams there in the 1960s and 1970s, that meant everything to me. ``Hopefully, I brought some excitement to the game and maybe changed the game in some ways with my ability to score and make plays.''
|
