Mark Messier said Thursday night that he may have played his last NHL game.
Messier, the Rangers' 44-year-old captain, said he would have strongly considered playing in a record-tying 26th HL season -- albeit a shortened season -- if a labor agreement had been reached.
But when Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the cancellation of the season on Wednesday, Messier reflected on the emotional tribute he received March 31 at Madison Square Garden.
"I can't lie and say I didn't think it would be my last game," Messier said in a telephone interview from his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
"Even without the lockout, there was that possibility. But, as I said after that game, I wasn't interested in making a decision at that time.
"You need to be able to think clearly to make those kinds of decisions. And I don't think it's a good time to do that at the end of the year. But there's always that possibility that it could be."
A 28-game season, which was considered by the league and the players association during negotiations, might have been perfect for Messier, who is second to Wayne Gretzky on the career scoring list.
When asked if he would have come back, Messier said: "I think that's hard to say until the opportunity came up. It was important for me to see where all this led to, and at that time, make a decision. Hopefully, I'll still have to make that decision."
He said that when a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, the responsibility is on the players to promote the game more vigorously than they have in recent years to win back disgruntled fans.
One of hockey's foremost ambassadors, Messier said the sport's popularity may have reached its zenith in June 1994, when he led the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup championship since 1940. The NHL's first lockout followed that season, and the league's popularity has steadily declined.
But Messier said that Gretzky, his former teammate, brought hockey back into vogue in the 1980s and early 1990s, and current players should learn from Gretzky's example.
"I broke into the league when the WHA joined into the NHL," Messier said, referring to the league's merger with the defunct World Hockey Association for the 1979-1980 season.
"At that time, it was a 21-team league. The league was doing OK But it was more of a small business, a mom-and-pop kind of run organization.
"We all saw the hard work Wayne put into promoting the game to where it got in 1994. He almost single-handedly put it on his back and turned the game around. I don't think there's enough of that going on right now. If anything, this might push the players to get back to promoting the game as it should be.
"Players now don't really realize the work Wayne did, because they were too young when he was playing. Wayne was obviously a unique situation. And the time he came in was very unique, as well. But the league needed that shot in the arm and Wayne was born and bred to do it."
Gretzky not only had a strong feel for promotion.
"In the last few years, there has been so much money in the game, the players haven't had to put the time and effort into promoting the game like they have to," Messier said. "I think the players have to take it upon themselves to create that again and put the sport back where it was. And I think it can be, when they do get back to playing again. But I'm getting ahead of myself maybe."
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