Nah, not about the absurdity of Mark Messier still not knowing if he should retire at age 43. I still find that every bit as frustrating as ever. But on this very front page yesterday I did write, "tonight could've been a great night," and I was clearly wrong on that one. Last night was a great night. Of course, if he doesn't retire the whole situation including last night now becomes about ten times as ridiculous and aggravating, but just for the sake of argument let's assume we did witness the curtain call on Messier's Hall of Fame career yesterday. And if we did witness it, it certainly was a great way to go out. The Sabres staying out on the ice and Messier taking bows at center ice and pointing to the fans and trying to make other hand gestures to symbolize his feelings at that time will stay etched in my memory as long as I still have one.
Did you read the Barnaby interview from yesterday? Even if you did, read it again. Maybe I'm being naive but Barnaby has always seemed like less of a professional athlete and more like one of us, and him taking even just 20 minutes out of his time to answer a few questions for this website just reinforces that idea.
Oh hell! I forgot all about the date. I had some ideas for a front page prank but it completely slipped my mind with the recent Messier business. Rodent, however, did not. Love the new logo! Before Ro-bot took over for Ro-dent, you can read what the latter had to say about Messier's night here.
On to the newspapers...
NY Times: If this was not Mark Messier's last game at Madison Square Garden, it sure felt that way.
Post: "I'd probably say I'm leaning toward not playing - I wouldn't put a number on it, but with the disappointment of the season, and this being an emotional time for everyone, that's the reason not to make a decision right now," Messier, who will not play in Saturday's season-ender in Washington, said following last night's 4-3 loss to the Sabres in the home finale.
Good for the Daily News! While the "Best Sports Section in Town" NY Post has their back cover dedicated to the nearly meaningless second Yankee game of the season and contains one shortish article by Larry (Correction: Thanks to KillerCarlson on the message boards for letting me know the Post does have a second Ranger article today (here) and some of their back covers do have Messier as the feature story. Thanks for the clarification!), the Daily News has a fantastic back cover shot of Messier taking a bow with three articles on the Rangers inside. I'm definitely going to buy the News today just for the memento value of that back cover. The three articles are:
"Looks Like Mess Bows Out," from John Dellapina, another one from John on the press conference between Jim Dolan and the beat writers before the game, and a Sherry Ross article that I mostly agree with, despite her inability to forego taking shots at the Rangers even after a night like last night.
Two from the Ledger, this one on Messier and a long piece on the Dolan press conference.
Two from Nesday as well. Here from Arthur Staple and here from Mark Herrmann.
Wow. Mr. Rick Carpiniello, ex-Ranger beat writer, deigns to submit a piece on last night's events, glowing about Messier yet trashing everything else New York Ranger, including even Jaromir Jagr. I swear, sometimes I wonder if these "journalists" are 14-years old. You know the saying, "there's a time and a place..."? Yet, Larry Brooks seems to be the only one in town who usually undertsands when to criticize and when not to. The Journal News also has one on the Dolan press conference, thankfully not written by Carp.
Between the Messier and Dolan/Sather topics, our message boards should be interesting today.
- Rocha
Posted by pete at April 01, 2004 11:14 AMeMail this entry!
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