Look at this ridiculous play by Mario

[Master Shake*]

ten second mark ( :10) into the video.

Click to read more...

 

[theicebox]

That is everything Craig Adams is not.

 

[steveg]

The most skilled, graceful, ridiculously talented player of all time, IMO, and I count it as a privilege to have been fortunate enough to be living in Pittsburgh, and a hockey fan, through his entire career. Watching him on a game-by-game, night-by-night basis perform his artistry on ice was simply a treat. His style was just so unique, it's hard to categorize -- almost like watching a ballet, or other fine arts performance...

I feel bad for all current Penguins fans, who missed out on watching Mario perform night-in and night-out...most have no idea...

 

[billybudd]

The most skilled, graceful, ridiculously talented player of all time, IMO, and I count it as a privilege to have been fortunate enough to be living in Pittsburgh, and a hockey fan, through his entire career. Watching him on a game-by-game, night-by-night basis perform his artistry on ice was simply a treat. His style was just so unique, it's hard to categorize -- almost like watching a ballet, or other fine arts performance...

I feel bad for all current Penguins fans, who missed out on watching Mario perform night-in and night-out...most have no idea...

Yeah. No disrespect to Sid and Geno, but the level Mario was on was just unthinkable. You can see it at other points in the video; he was just impossible to track. And even if you did, he was too big and too smooth to get the puck away from.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

I miss players who like to SLOW the game down and improvise. It is sorely lacking in today's game. The game today is way too robotic for my liking.

I do see a little bit of Mario in Jack Eichel, though. Hopefully he fulfills his potential. I love the way he plays the game.

As for Mario, what do you expect from the greatest player my city has ever produced (or ever will!)?

 

[Al Smith]

The most skilled, graceful, ridiculously talented player of all time, IMO, and I count it as a privilege to have been fortunate enough to be living in Pittsburgh, and a hockey fan, through his entire career. Watching him on a game-by-game, night-by-night basis perform his artistry on ice was simply a treat. His style was just so unique, it's hard to categorize -- almost like watching a ballet, or other fine arts performance...

I feel bad for all current Penguins fans, who missed out on watching Mario perform night-in and night-out...most have no idea...

Yeah, in his early days, the rest of the team was so bad, it was basically Mario against the other team. And his vision was just ridiculous. If you were watching him on an end to end rush, there would be times where he would pass and you could almost hear everyone in the crowd thinking, "what the . . . " and then you'd finally see the play he saw well before everyone else. Just ridiculous.

 

[gopens66]

A few weeks ago I was at this nice, old lady's house because she was donating her old pool table to the church youth group and I was there to move it. She has a bunch of Penguins pictures and some signed stuff on the wall.(Just the players who came to Blair County Ballpark to sign at Curve games. Dupuis, Cooke, etc..)

So, anyway, we start talking hockey and I tell her how I used to go see Mario play all the time, and she says, "Well Crosby and Malkin are right up there with him!"

I said, "Wellll............" She says, "They are"

I just kept my mouth shut at that point cause I wasn't going to argue with this nice, old lady giving the kids her pool table.

It did, however, make me wonder how many people believe this. It saddens me to think that number is probably quite high.

 

[mikethelegacy]

Pittsburgh definitely is a blessed city in terms of hockey. We've now had the best player in the game like 15 out of the last 25 seasons.

 

[steveg]

A few weeks ago I was at this nice, old lady's house because she was donating her old pool table to the church youth group and I was there to move it. She has a bunch of Penguins pictures and some signed stuff on the wall.(Just the players who came to Blair County Ballpark to sign at Curve games. Dupuis, Cooke, etc..)

So, anyway, we start talking hockey and I tell her how I used to go see Mario play all the time, and she says, "Well Crosby and Malkin are right up there with him!"

I said, "Wellll............" She says, "They are"

I just kept my mouth shut at that point cause I wasn't going to argue with this nice, old lady giving the kids her pool table.

It did, however, make me wonder how many people believe this. It saddens me to think that number is probably quite high.

Yes. As mikelegacy just said, this city has been absolutely blessed, hockey-wise...just thinking of the number of years this team has employed the stellar services of Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin...

And as billybudd said, ZERO disrespect meant toward Crosby or Malkin. I count myself fortunate to be able to watch these two generational talents perform night in and night out, no doubt -- and amazingly, right on the heels of the Lemieux/Jagr era.

THAT SAID, and I'll say this as politely as possible, that lady is flat wrong. Anyone who believes that Crosby and Malkin are "right there with" Lemieux in his prime, simply have no clue what they are/were watching.

There are the very good/highly talented players, and we've had lots of those...Coffey, Kovy, Francis, Hossa, Letang, and many others very near that level (Recchi, Straka, Tocchet, Stevens, Murphy, Neal, etc.). And THEN, there is great/a "cut above" all of your peers. This is Crosby and Malkin, and Jagr.


And THEN, there is "otherworldly." THAT was prime Mario...

 

[Til the End of Time]

i look at mario with a big "what if" in my mind. great player but i always wonder how much better he could have been had he been healthy and had a better attitude/work ethic, especially earlier in his career. i also always wonder what crosby could have achieved, had he been healthy and gone to a better franchise.

great players but i think they both were/are capable of more than they accomplished.

 

[Shady Machine]

i look at mario with a big "what if" in my mind. great player but i always wonder how much better he could have been had he been healthy and had a better attitude/work ethic, especially earlier in his career. i also always wonder what crosby could have achieved, had he been healthy and gone to a better franchise.

great players but i think they both were/are capable of more than they accomplished.

You always have to put a negative twist on everything

I imagine you are going to a very interesting doctor.

"Your son is going to be fine, but had he been born without any abnormalities, he could have achieved so much more".

 

[mikethelegacy]

i look at mario with a big "what if" in my mind. great player but i always wonder how much better he could have been had he been healthy and had a better attitude/work ethic, especially earlier in his career. i also always wonder what crosby could have achieved, had he been healthy and gone to a better franchise.

great players but i think they both were/are capable of more than they accomplished.

Crosby started his first season playing on a team with Mario, lived with Mario for years, has had Geno by his side the entire time he's played here and has had a pretty good amount of talent playing with him -- albeit not always on his line -- every year of his career. I don't think you can ask for a better situation than that. Having the best player to EVER play the game mentor you for the first years of your career. I attribute Crosby's success as much to that as anything else.

 

[steveg]

i look at mario with a big "what if" in my mind. great player but i always wonder how much better he could have been had he been healthy and had a better attitude/work ethic, especially earlier in his career. i also always wonder what crosby could have achieved, had he been healthy and gone to a better franchise.

great players but i think they both were/are capable of more than they accomplished.

I agree with this to some degree, regarding Mario (the health part). There is zero doubt that had Mario remained semi-healthy throughout his career, his stats would have been dominant, and on par with (if not, more likely, in excess of) Gretzky's. That said, though, numbers aside, I don't think we would have seen more "pure talent" from Mario than what we saw. He may have "walked on water" more frequently, had his back been pain-free enough on many nights for him to have been able to tie his own skates; in fact, there's probably no doubt that we would have seen it more often. That said, there were few games where Mario did not accomplish head-shaking plays -- usually, multiple times per game, so saying he would have been "better," I'm not sure. Stats-wise, ZERO doubt. But his ability to exude unparalleled skill? I'm not so sure (aside from, perhaps, FREQUENCY)...

As for Sid, hard to say. No doubt he's carried anchors at wing for a large chunk of the time -- anchors from the perspective that they haven't given him the space and time needed to truly dominate the way he is/was capable. But, that said, Mario was saddled with bad, if not worse, talent on the wing for a long time, as well...

 

[billybudd]

"Your son is going to be fine, but had he been born without any abnormalities, he could have achieved so much more".

 

[Shady Machine]

Crosby started his first season playing on a team with Mario, lived with Mario for years, has had Geno by his side the entire time he's played here and has had a pretty good amount of talent playing with him -- albeit not always on his line -- every year of his career. I don't think you can ask for a better situation than that. Having the best player to EVER play the game mentor you for the first years of your career. I attribute Crosby's success as much to that as anything else.

Meh Crosby's success is because of his hard work and talent. Sure having Mario around as he entered the league helped, as does any mentor, but Sid has earned all of his success.

 

[BobCole]

Yes. As mikelegacy just said, this city has been absolutely blessed, hockey-wise...just thinking of the number of years this team has employed the stellar services of Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin...

And as billybudd said, ZERO disrespect meant toward Crosby or Malkin. I count myself fortunate to be able to watch these two generational talents perform night in and night out, no doubt -- and amazingly, right on the heels of the Lemieux/Jagr era.

THAT SAID, and I'll say this as politely as possible, that lady is flat wrong. Anyone who believes that Crosby and Malkin are "right there with" Lemieux in his prime, simply have no clue what they are/were watching.

There are the very good/highly talented players, and we've had lots of those...Coffey, Kovy, Francis, Hossa, Letang, and many others very near that level (Recchi, Straka, Tocchet, Stevens, Murphy, Neal, etc.). And THEN, there is great/a "cut above" all of your peers. This is Crosby and Malkin, and Jagr.


And THEN, there is "otherworldly." THAT was prime Mario...

Agreed. I was born in '88 and Mario became my first idol at about the age of 4. I tried to watch him as often as I could growing up, but there were only so many games I could get access to from Vancouver, not to mention the fact that I was too young to really appreciate what I was watching in Mario in the early 90s as a young lad.

That said, I saw enough of Mario to appreciate that he was/is on another level from any hockey player playing in the league today. I could wax poetic about him for paragraphs and still not capture how great he was, but if I had to say one thing, it's that he made it look easy. He made NHL hockey look like a game of shinny on a frozen pond. It was almost surreal.

I love watching Sid and Geno. It's a blessing to have the best two players in the game today on the Pens. But honestly, neither of them holds a candle to Mario. I hope Crosby eeks into that "Top 10" conversation, and 1 in every 50 games or so, Geno basically plays a "Mario" game, but ultimately neither Sid nor Geno are remotely on Mario's level.

 

[Cherpak]

That was a nightly basis for Mario. It got to a point in his career that after awhile nothing and I mean NOTHING surprised you watching what he was capable of doing on the ice. The guy's skill level was astronomical. There was a reason he was known as "Super Mario" and "Le Magnifique"

 

[steveg]

I love watching Sid and Geno. It's a blessing to have the best two players in the game today on the Pens. But honestly, neither of them holds a candle to Mario. I hope Crosby eeks into that "Top 10" conversation, and 1 in every 50 games or so, Geno basically plays a "Mario" game, but ultimately neither Sid nor Geno are remotely on Mario's level.

Yep -- I agree. Malkin is much more stylistically similar to Mario than Crosby is, and everyone once in a great while, during one of Geno's most "beastly" of "beast mode" games, I am reminded a bit of Mario...

That was a nightly basis for Mario. It got to a point in his career that after awhile nothing and I mean NOTHING surprised you watching what he was capable of doing on the ice. The guy's skill level was astronomical. There was a reason he was known as "Super Mario" and "Le Magnifique"

Astronomical is a great word for it. "Le Magnifique" is a most fitting title...

 

[The Old Master]

I was at the game. it was like 2 yr,s ago! ya that's it.

 

[mikethelegacy]

Meh Crosby's success is because of his hard work and talent. Sure having Mario around as he entered the league helped, as does any mentor, but Sid has earned all of his success.

Yeah, I agree, but there are a lot of pitfalls both on and off the ice that a superstar player has to deal with. I'm sure it will be similar with McDavid, and all the hype that's been built up all his life. Having a fellow superstar there to help you through some of those things definitely couldn't have hurt. Plus, no one was messing with Sid when he was Lemieux's apprentice.

 

[AjaxTelamon]

This seems like the last time a Pen scored an EN goal, Mario from our own blue line.

I like how Mario and Recchi make Gordie Roberts look like a sniper.

 

[turd]

The thing I miss most from that video is the air raid siren that used to play when the Pens scored. It was so much better than the dumb horn they have now.

Games where they wear the throwbacks, they should play the siren for goals.

 

[BobCole]

The thing I miss most from that video is the air raid siren that used to play when the Pens scored. It was so much better than the dumb horn they have now.

Games where they wear the throwbacks, they should play the siren for goals.

I really like this idea.

 

[FinProspects]

When I was 8-12y old (1992-1996) I remember watching this show called Hockey Forum (IIRC) every Satruday Morning here in Finland. 1 hour of highlights, interviews.. that was pretty much all could see from NHL. Back then I was the biggest Selänne fanboy there could be, just like every kid my age. But.. it was still clear that no one, I mean no one, could compete with Mario. It was basically Mario and the rest. They showed Selänne scoring 2+1, which was amazing.. but next was highlights from Pittsburgh game where Mario scored 4+2.. I was like, god daaamn... and the commentary of Mike Lange still gives me chills.

To me Mario is the greatest.

 

[PeterTZ]

I lived in Cole Harbour for several years and got to watch Crosby as he was going through the minors until he left for St Mary's. Then he returned to play in the Q where I saw him quite a bit. Dominate player in so many ways back then, as he still is today. Having moved around a bit, got to see Gretsky play several games as well as Mario.

Crosby is certainly a great player and will have some rarefied points totals when he retires but Gretsky still would be the best that has ever played. Mario was without question right up there with him. Better than Gretzky in some respects but just slightly behind him overall. Mario might have beaten some of his records had he stayed healthy for his career but Gretzky was unique. No one saw the ice like he did. No one created plays from nothing like Wayne.

When you look at Pts/G, only 2 with over 1000 points are close to 2, all the rest are below 1.5. Gretzky at 1.921 and Mario at 1.883. Pretty amazing to think they were that much better than all those before them or since.

In terms of skill, they are that far ahead of the rest, that close to each other and played very differently than each other. Had Mario played the same number of games, He would have likely been the all time scoring leader but Wayne would still be the all time points leader.

I don't think we'll ever again, see that level of skill or those types of numbers these 2 produced.