Bob Errey remembers it well. His locker was right beside Mario Lemieux’s during the 1989-90 season, when the Penguins’ captain, then 24, played through throbbing back pain while nearly catching one of the NHL’s most hallowed records. It was beautiful and horrific theater, all in one.
Tracy Luppe, a young member of the Penguins’ equipment staff, built a device to help Lemieux tie his skates. Errey would just sit there and watch.
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“I remember what it was like for him,” Errey said. “He had this ointment he’d put on his back, but I don’t know how much it really helped him. And they built this thing that looked like a podium for him. He’d have it beside his locker. He would put his legs up on the podium-looking thing so he could tie his skates. I’m sure he didn’t want anyone else tying his skates for him, so that was the only way he could do it because he couldn’t bend over at all.”
Not only could he not bend over, he almost never took part in practice or morning skates because of back pain that had bothered him all season.
“The thing I remember most was that he was in so much discomfort before games, we didn’t think he was playing on many of those nights,” said teammate Phil Bourque, now a broadcaster for the Penguins. “We would look at him in the locker room and be like, ‘What the hell?’ Sometimes he’d even miss the first five minutes of the game. Then you’d hear the crowd roar. And you knew it was him walking onto the ice.”
Yet starting Oct. 31, 1989, ironically in a game against Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings, Lemieux scored at least one point in 46 consecutive games. Gretzky holds the NHL’s all-time record at 51.
The streak that began in Pittsburgh on Halloween ended 30 years ago today, Valentine’s Day, at Madison Square Garden, when the suffocating pain forced Lemieux to leave a game against the Rangers in the second period.
Lemieux accomplished many things while playing through adversity that it’s almost impossible to appreciate that his greatness wasn’t mythical. It actually happened. He scored a goal on the day of his final radiation treatment for lymphoma. He dominated a league that did almost literally nothing to prevent him from being assaulted almost nightly. He was the best player in the league, at 35, after not playing for almost four years.
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“You just came to expect the impossible from him,” Errey said. “At the time, we didn’t think as much of it as we probably should have, because it was just Mario being Mario. But I don’t think people ever appreciated his toughness, definitely not back then.”
Lemieux played in immense back pain for much of his career. However, 30 years ago, the pain finally was too much. He had played sparingly in some games leading up to that night in New York, the pain limiting him to power play work and occasional shifts. By February, he was noticeably limited on the ice. Yet the streak lived on as Lemieux’s unparalleled talent and sheer will produced what some consider the greatest feat of his career.
“That streak was the greatest thing I ever saw him do in hockey,” legendary Penguins broadcaster Mike Lange said.
Finally in New York, the pain was too much. Lemieux nearly recorded an assist in the second period on a power play with Lindy Ruff in the penalty box. Had John Cullen buried a chance, Lemieux would have received the second assist on his goal and the streak would have reached 47. However, Cullen’s shot clanged off the post, and Mark Recchi tapped in the rebound. Cullen and Paul Coffey were awarded the assists.
Lemieux sat on the bench for a few more minutes in noticeable pain, grimacing even without moving. His only shifts that period were a 54-second shift to start the period and then two power plays. During a break in action midway through the second period, he skated to the Penguins’ locker room and never returned. Gretzky’s record was safe. Lemieux’s future was not.
“Mario needed medical attention,” said Craig Patrick, who was serving as head coach and general manager of the Penguins at that time, a few months before hiring Bob Johnson. “That was more important than his scoring streak.”
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Those who were in New York that evening remain struck by the imagery of it all, three decades later.
“He had tears in his eyes on the bench that night,” said longtime broadcaster Paul Steigerwald. “He was in true agony at that point in time. I think everyone around the team, we just tried to ignore it, phase it out. You just wanted him to play every night and to break that record, so I think everyone kind of ignored how much pain he was in.”
Lemieux would have back surgery in the offseason.
“It was tough,” Lemieux said after the game. “I didn’t get a chance to really handle the puck tonight. My back has really been bothering me a lot the past couple of days. I’m obviously disappointed to have the streak broken. But now at least I’ll be able to rest my back a little bit.”
He spent much of the six weeks following the game in New York receiving treatment in Los Angeles before returning on March 31 of that season in an attempt to carry the Penguins to a playoff spot. He scored a goal and set up another against Buffalo at Civic Arena, but the Penguins lost in overtime, losing out on a postseason spot by one point. Lemieux didn’t play again until January of 1991.
“He was in California getting some kind of massage therapy so he could hopefully avoid surgery,” said Tom McMillan, the Penguins’ Vice President of Communications who was a reporter covering the team for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that season. “In retrospect, he obviously shouldn’t have been playing at all because of the condition he was in.”
The toll absorbed by playing with a back in that condition is impossible to calculate. Even now, Lemieux’s back pain hasn’t disappeared. He recently played in his annual fantasy camp with other former Penguins greats. Following a game involving the current Penguins during that week, Sidney Crosby looked at Pierre Larouche and asked, “How’s Mario’s back holding up?”
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Larouche grimaced.
In the winter of 1990, Lemieux’s back was at its worst. A combination of things may have led to his back condition, though it’s impossible to identify the ultimate cause of his discomfort:
• At a time when few players could reach his 6-4 stature, some believed that a lifetime of taking faceoffs triggered his back pain
• Lemieux was never big on training, once famously — and perhaps accurately — noting that he “stops ordering the fries with the club sandwich in August” when asked how he trained in the offseason
• It could have been genetic and, to some extent, probably was
• The NHL was very much the wild west in the 1980s and Lemieux literally was physically assaulted on a regular basis, the cross-checks to the back increasing in frequency when it became common knowledge that his back was ailing
Add it all up, and Lemieux’s back pain was simply suffocating.
“The streak probably was the greatest thing he did on a hockey rink when you take into account the pain he was in,” McMillan said.
McMillan covered the game in New York that evening. In those days, the press box in Madison Square Garden was only a few rows from ice level.
“From where we were seated, we could literally see the agony he was in that night,” McMillan said. “Put it this way: He needed significant back surgery. Not just surgery, but significant back surgery. He was dealing with that kind of pain, and he had put together a point streak of 46 straight games. Nowadays, it’s a story if someone gets a streak of five or 10 games. You almost need the perspective of all of these years to realize how astonishing it was. His career was astonishing in real time. It’s even more astonishing now when you look back at it, especially what he did that season.”
Lemieux produced 109 points in those 46 games, good for 2.37 points per game. While the game was certainly higher scoring then, it also was potentially disastrous for anyone playing through an injury.
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“Everyone talks about it being fire wagon hockey back then, and yeah, there were goals being scored,” Errey said. “But you know what? It was really dangerous, too. Gretzky was protected in a way that Mario was not. The Oilers had so much talent that they could afford to have a few tough guys around to scare people off of Gretzky at all times. We weren’t there at that point. People always went after Mario. Maybe it was because he was big. I really don’t know. But he took a beating every night. And let’s be honest, he shouldn’t have been playing during that streak. He was doing a disservice to his body. But he just had so much pride. He wanted that record.”
For the Penguins and those who covered the team daily, witnessing Lemieux that season remains the stuff of legend. He couldn’t tie his shoes, instead wearing slip-on shoes. He couldn’t raise his arms to put a piece of luggage into the overhead compartment in airplanes.
“He was almost superhuman at that time,” McMillan said. “To see how excruciating the pain was for him all the time, in airports, wherever I saw him, and to consider that he was still putting up those kinds of numbers? It’s incredible. He literally pushed his body as far as it would go. He had so much determination. Everyone knew the talent he had, but a lot of people didn’t appreciate the toughness and the determination that he had.”
On some nights during the streak, Lemieux played in slow motion. He couldn’t accelerate, couldn’t fend off defenders with his customary ease and couldn’t shift into the extra gear that came so easily in his younger days.
“He couldn’t even lean forward on some of those nights,” Steigerwald said. “He looked stiff. He was relying strictly on his hands and on his guile. He couldn’t really dig in and skate. He never looked so vulnerable physically. You wanted to cover your eyes every time he got hit or got knocked down. You were imagining the pain he was in and how aggravated his back became after every hit. I was always, always cringing. Everyone was. The pain was written all over his face.”
It’s safe to say there will never be another Lemieux and that Gretzky’s record probably never will be eclipsed. It’s certain that no one will ever put together a streak in the fashion that Lemieux did.
Everyone marveled at it, but no one wants to witness it again. Even talking about it makes those who saw it uncomfortable.
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“It was remarkable,” Errey said. “To be there, to see it, it was incredible. We didn’t know then the risks we were taking with our health. We just didn’t know. We were hockey players. Mario was a hockey player, too.
” … Thinking back on it, how the hell did he do that? How did he put up a point in 46 straight games when he couldn’t skate? He never practiced. He was always in pain. It blows you away.”
Had the streak continued, it would have provided Lemieux with the ultimate exclamation point. Game No. 52, the one that would have set a new record, would have taken place on Feb. 24, 1990, at the Forum in Montreal. It would have been a crowning achievement for Lemieux and it would have taken place in his home town.
“The back pain that season, and not breaking the record, it was a microcosm of his career,” Steigerwald said. “He was so great, but there’s always that what-if quality. What records would he have broken? His health was always in the way.”
His health, his talent and his drive certainly made for compelling moments, few of them more powerful than that night at Madison Square Garden. There was pain on Lemieux’s face and pain for those who watched him climb to extraordinary heights that winter, only to see him fall so painfully short.
“His health was always in the way,” Steigerwald said. “He’d have broken every record there was. But don’t forget about what he did that season. There’s never been anything like it.”
(Photo from Feb. 14, 1990: Bettmann / Getty Images)
