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Mark Messier is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player known as one of the best in the National Hockey League. He led six Stanley Cup victories during his career, five with the Edmonton Oilers and one with the New York Rangers. Messier started playing at a young age and became team captain at 16. He played with Wayne Gretzky, creating one of the best center duos in NHL history. Messier retired in 2005 and his number 11 jersey was retired in 2006.
Mark Douglas Messier, born January 18, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is known as one of the best hockey players to ever play in the National Hockey League (NHL). He is also known as one of hockey’s top leaders and led six Stanley Cup victories during his career. Mark Messier led the Edmonton Oilers to five Stanley Cups and the New York Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in more than 50 years.
Mark Messier grew up in the Edmonton area with his father, mother, brother and two sisters. Both Messier’s brother Paul and father Doug played professional hockey in Edmonton. Messier was just seven years old when he skated with his father on the ice hockey rink after practice. He was ten when he played on a hockey team and even at that young age he was already gaining a reputation as an “intense” player.
Doug Messier coached many of his son’s teams during Mark Messier’s teenage years. At age 16, Mark Messier became a team captain and started talking to the team in the locker room, a job his father did. At age 17, Messier earned enough in a half-season of professional hockey in the World Hockey Association (WHA) league in Edmonton to afford to rent an apartment on his own and own two cars.
Messier began playing NHL hockey with the Edmonton Oilers when he was 18 years old. Lui scored his first NHL goal in his second game and his first NHL assist in his fourth game. Messier’s pairing with hockey leading scorer Wayne Gretzky created one of the best center duos in NHL history.
Messier was first placed in center under Wayne Gretzky in the 1983 and 1984 seasons. The Edmonton Oilers won eight games in a row. At the end of that season, the Oilers not only had their best record ever, they led the league and won the Stanley Cup.
Messier also led the Oilers to four more Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990. He moved to New York to play for the New York Rangers in 1991 when he was 30 years old. The Rangers hadn’t won a Stanley Cup in over 50 years. When Messier won the Stanley Cup in New York against the Vancouver Canucks in the 1993 and 1994 seasons, the nickname “The Moose” he had had in Edmonton was changed by New Yorkers to “The Messiah”.
For the most part, Messier fell short of the Vancouver Canucks’ high expectations when he played three years in Vancouver from 1997 to 2000 as he was older and more prone to injuries. Messier returned to the New York Rangers and played there from 2000 to 2004. “The Captain” resigned from the NHL on September 12, 2005 at the age of 44. Mark Messier’s number 11 hockey jersey was raised to the rafters in retirement at Madison Square Garden in New York City on January 12, 2006 during Mark Messier Night to honor one of the greatest hockey stars of all time.
