Mark Messier
Mark Messier
Mark Douglas Messieris a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre of the National Hockey League and former special assistant to the president and general manager of the New York Rangers. He played a quarter of a century in the NHLwith the Edmonton Oilers, New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucks. He also played professionally with the World Hockey Association's Indianapolis Racers and Cincinnati Stingers. He was the last former WHA player to be active in professional hockey, and the last active...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth18 January 1961
CityEdmonton, Canada
CountryCanada
I just think overall a lot of it has to do with conditioning and players putting in the time and the effort in the off-season to keep themselves in condition for 12 months a year.
I think now what you're seeing is guys that are in the peaks of their careers anywhere from 27 to 35 years old, seems to be when they play their best hockey.
As a captain, I think it's important that the players really know who you are and what you stand for, what your beliefs are, and to be consistent in those if things are going good or things are going bad.
I played with a lot of great players before. They're all the same. They take a lot of responsibility for their own play, put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform and to play well.
When you play long enough, everybody goes through spells and streaks and slumps of some nature. I think it's just one of the those things where you have to play yourself out of it.
Like I said, a 30-year-old hockey player, even when I came to New York when I was 30, I was on the downside of my career, pretty much the end of my career.
All I was thinking was to try to figure out a way how to make the players believe that I believed that we were going to win.
Besides, ... anyone who plays at 50-odd years old deserves that record.
It's great to see them playing like this. The Garden is an amazing place to play, especially when you're winning. There's no other place like it.
I came into the league as a fourth-line grinder that played a limited role,