Why Mark Messier is Often Regarded the Worst/Most Hated Vancouver Canuck of All Time.

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Yes, I observed it first hand. It was painful to watch, and Rangers kept failing to make playoffs year after year. Sometimes a player needs to know when to retire. He was certainly harming his club more than helping it.

I think he would have been fine as a third liner who got no time on special teams. But I agree that he was harming the club more than helping it in the way he was actually used.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Messier and Vancouver is what happens when a player on his way down goes to a team on the way down. Messier's style and persona aren't really going to come off very pleasantly if the Messier you are getting is playing like an ageing diva star. Many old NHLers play like that but it's forgiven - a Messier can't be forgiven because he projected and revelled in an image that he just couldn't back up anymore.

At the same time, Vancouver was heading into a transitional phase anyway, getting rid of Linden and Co. probably had to happen regardless of the emotional ties the fans had to the 94 team. Messier and Keenan were basically the lightning rods with the personalities that made them easy scapegoats. Ironically, the Canucks easily and lopsidedly won the Linden trade and it paved the way for their resurgence in the early 00s.

 

[Budddy]

As a bruins fan living in BC at the time, I remember my Canuck buddies incensed about the Messier time in Vancouver....taking the captaincy from Linden started it and went downhill from there....

 

[Sentinel]

I think he would have been fine as a third liner who got no time on special teams.

Then he would not be Messier. He actually lead the Rangers in IT, over Lindros, Bure, and others.

 

[Sonny Lamateena]

Then he would not be Messier. He actually lead the Rangers in IT, over Lindros, Bure, and others.

Messier average ice time per game (rank among forwards)

2001 - 19:14 (3rd behind Fleury and Nedved)
2002 - 18:31 (7th behind Bure, Lindros, Fleury, Fleury, York, Nedved and Dvorak)
2003 - 18:38 (5th behind Nedved, Lindros, Kovalev, and Bure)
2004 - 16:29 (6th behind Jagr, Kovalev, Nedved, Rucinsky, and Holik)

 

[seventieslord]

I definitely found the criticism for taking shifts that were too short to be really strange.

That was my first instinct as well.

 

[seventieslord]

You'll have to explain to me how Bertuzzi's 50 points in 80 games was a bigger reason for success than Messier's 54 points in 66 games, especially with the team performing much worse without Messier in the lineup. Bertuzzi was certainly an improvement over Linden though. As for the "main reason," it was clearly because the team was no longer bottom-three in GA, as the team had a top-10 offense in 1997-98 (something they wouldn't have again until 2001-02) and managed to lose 43 games in spite of it.

Right, I forgot to mention that. The canucks were much better with him than without.

 

[TheStroker]

Mark the moose Messier

 

[RealisticLeaf55]

Messier was a major black spot on the history of the canucks. His stats themselves speak a whole lot of the story. His effort was never there, he'd rarely shoot and even when he would pass it was some half-asked effort. He would turn the puck over in the neutral zone and wouldn't bother to chase after his own mistake. Yet when he would return to the rangers, all of a sudden the effort came flying right back? Stay classy, Mark Messier.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Right, I forgot to mention that. The canucks were much better with him than without.

of course they were, but what does that prove? in those three years, they were a terrible team with dog crap for center depth.

in '98, you take messier out of the lineup and your top centers are either mike sillinger or dave scatchard (as a rookie, no less). if you were lucky, you had 32 year old zezel in the lineup (he played 25 games that year).

in '99, zezel plays 40 games, so i guess you have a 50/50 chance of him being your first line center when messier is out. of course, those were his last 40 games in the league. other guys: scatchard again, and the other guys who came in and out of the lineup: harry york, darby hendrickson, bust prospects john holden and brandon convery, and 34 year old dave gagner at the end of the season after the bure trade.

it's not until 2000 that the canucks have a second center who could legitimately play in the top six of a competitive team, and that's being pretty generous to andrew cassels. but even then, when messier is out, your second line center is one of harold druken, harry york, darby hendrickson, or rookie artem chubarov. of course they were worse without him than with him, no matter how big of a lazy disruptive piece of garbage he was. and it's not like if they'd never gotten messier, they wouldn't have spent those millions of dollars on a more useful center.


but for the record, the biggest reason for the improvement in 2000 was andrew cassels. he gave the team a second line. but yes, bertuzzi's emergence, plus bringing in crawford to replace keenan at the end of the previous season, also helped.

near the end of the 2000 season, they traded mogilny for brendan morrison, then went 7-4-1 in their last 12 games, with morrison scoring nine points in that span. the team continues to improve going forward not just because naslund and bertuzzi evolve into superstars, but because for the first time since the linden trade they have two top six centers (neither a true number one, which is one reason why this team was always dog crap in the playoffs-- the other reason being crawford brought henrik sedin along wayyyyyy too slowly, both while cassels was still here and after he left).

man, those were all awful years. why do i even post in these threads and relive them?

 

[seventieslord]

of course they were, but what does that prove? in those three years, they were a terrible team with dog crap for center depth.

in '98, you take messier out of the lineup and your top centers are either mike sillinger or dave scatchard (as a rookie, no less). if you were lucky, you had 32 year old zezel in the lineup (he played 25 games that year).

in '99, zezel plays 40 games, so i guess you have a 50/50 chance of him being your first line center when messier is out. of course, those were his last 40 games in the league. other guys: scatchard again, and the other guys who came in and out of the lineup: harry york, darby hendrickson, bust prospects john holden and brandon convery, and 34 year old dave gagner at the end of the season after the bure trade.

it's not until 2000 that the canucks have a second center who could legitimately play in the top six of a competitive team, and that's being pretty generous to andrew cassels. but even then, when messier is out, your second line center is one of harold druken, harry york, darby hendrickson, or rookie artem chubarov. of course they were worse without him than with him, no matter how big of a lazy disruptive piece of garbage he was. and it's not like if they'd never gotten messier, they wouldn't have spent those millions of dollars on a more useful center.


but for the record, the biggest reason for the improvement in 2000 was andrew cassels. he gave the team a second line. but yes, bertuzzi's emergence, plus bringing in crawford to replace keenan at the end of the previous season, also helped.

near the end of the 2000 season, they traded mogilny for brendan morrison, then went 7-4-1 in their last 12 games, with morrison scoring nine points in that span. the team continues to improve going forward not just because naslund and bertuzzi evolve into superstars, but because for the first time since the linden trade they have two top six centers (neither a true number one, which is one reason why this team was always dog crap in the playoffs-- the other reason being crawford brought henrik sedin along wayyyyyy too slowly, both while cassels was still here and after he left).

man, those were all awful years. why do i even post in these threads and relive them?

It proves a hell of a lot, doesn’t it? It proves he wasn’t “badâ€, it proves he wasn’t a negative influence or negative performer on the ice, a sub-replacement liability, or anything else that was thrown out there. Without him, the team was much worse. This is a fact.
*
Quite simply, he didn’t meet expectations. He was still quite a good player despite that.
*
Be honest, if the Canucks were .335 with him in the lineup and .467 without him, you and many others like you would be pointing to it as definitive proof that Messier was a team cancer and negative influence on the on-ice results… and rightfully so, I should add!
*
Giving due credit doesn’t constitute admitting that this entire narrative is garbage; it’s nothing more than giving due credit.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

It proves a hell of a lot, doesn’t it? It proves he wasn’t “badâ€, it proves he wasn’t a negative influence or negative performer on the ice, a sub-replacement liability, or anything else that was thrown out there. Without him, the team was much worse. This is a fact.
*
Quite simply, he didn’t meet expectations. He was still quite a good player despite that.
*
Be honest, if the Canucks were .335 with him in the lineup and .467 without him, you and many others like you would be pointing to it as definitive proof that Messier was a team cancer and negative influence on the on-ice results… and rightfully so, I should add!
*
Giving due credit doesn’t constitute admitting that this entire narrative is garbage; it’s nothing more than giving due credit.

Sure he was "bad"... being a better center than Harry York isn't anything to boast about.

As for replacement value, we're talking about replacing Messier with another player who would have earned the same amount as him. In that comparison he has a huge negative value.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

It proves a hell of a lot, doesn’t it? It proves he wasn’t “badâ€, it proves he wasn’t a negative influence or negative performer on the ice, a sub-replacement liability, or anything else that was thrown out there. Without him, the team was much worse. This is a fact.
*
Quite simply, he didn’t meet expectations. He was still quite a good player despite that.
*
Be honest, if the Canucks were .335 with him in the lineup and .467 without him, you and many others like you would be pointing to it as definitive proof that Messier was a team cancer and negative influence on the on-ice results… and rightfully so, I should add!
*
Giving due credit doesn’t constitute admitting that this entire narrative is garbage; it’s nothing more than giving due credit.

does it really? he was the best center on a team with a third line-calibre center and AHL fodder. of course the team would be worse without him. you take the first line center off amost any team, even a good one, and don't replace him, and that team is worse, no matter how underachieving or disruptive that first line center is.

but look at it this way: if instead of messier the team had re-signed cliff ronning. would the team have been better off? cliff ronning was not a superstar, or even an all-star in his very best year. but he was a good team guy and always gave an honest effort. the canucks didn't re-sign cliffy after he turned 30, but between 30 and 37, he put up 50-60 points every year, often on teams with just as little center depth as the keenan-era canucks.

 

[blogofmike]

It proves a hell of a lot, doesn’t it? It proves he wasn’t “badâ€, it proves he wasn’t a negative influence or negative performer on the ice, a sub-replacement liability, or anything else that was thrown out there. Without him, the team was much worse. This is a fact.
*
Quite simply, he didn’t meet expectations. He was still quite a good player despite that.
*
Be honest, if the Canucks were .335 with him in the lineup and .467 without him, you and many others like you would be pointing to it as definitive proof that Messier was a team cancer and negative influence on the on-ice results… and rightfully so, I should add!
*
Giving due credit doesn’t constitute admitting that this entire narrative is garbage; it’s nothing more than giving due credit.

I agree with this. High expectations that Vancouver wasnt ever going to live up to, combined with the eviction of the popular, if no longer productive Trevor Linden.

I wonder if Islanders fans were ever dumb enough to have hope, if they'd be upset about trading Bertuzzi, McCabe and a pick (Ruutu) to get Linden's "leadership".

 

[sully1410]

It should the Steve Yzerman Leadership award.

 

[JA]

Here's more evidence:

Gino Odjick, one of the NHL's great enforcers and a long-time member of the Vancouver Canucks, was asked about this in interview Dan Russell of CKNW 980 this past Thursday (April 4th, 2013). Odjick had been very outspoken at the time of Messier's arrival about how vile the latter's presence was to the team. His view has not changed. The full interview is a half-hour long, part of Russell's series about the hockey journey of NHL players from youth to retirement. I've posted the segment in which Gino discusses his time with the Canucks, his fights, and his friendships.

Inevitably, the issue of Mark Messier and Mike Keenan was brought up, and Gino was clear to state he believes Messier and Keenan destroyed the dressing room. Nobody on the team was comfortable with how Keenan and Messier imposed their authority on the organization:

13:00:

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Oh, I'm sure that Messier and Keenan destroyed the Canuck's dressing room. But how bad is it to destroy the dressing room of a losing team that only seemed to be getting worse?

I mean, there's a good argument that Jacques Lemaire helped destroy the dressing room of the NJ Devils during his last stint, but the team seemed better off with the clique of complacent vets (led by captain Jamie Langenbrunner and fellow vets John Madden and Colin White) broken up.

 

[Sonny Lamateena]

It's understandable that Odjick didn't like seeing the Canucks broken up mid-Dynasty. At least he can take solace in the fact that he and all of his former teammates went on to great personal and team success with other organizations.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Oh, I'm sure that Messier and Keenan destroyed the Canuck's dressing room. But how bad is it to destroy the dressing room of a losing team that only seemed to be getting worse?

I mean, there's a good argument that Jacques Lemaire helped destroy the dressing room of the NJ Devils during his last stint, but the team seemed better off with the clique of complacent vets (led by captain Jamie Langenbrunner and fellow vets John Madden and Colin White) broken up.

i guess you need to keep in mind two things: 1. that messier and keenan were the same guys who beat our most beloved team of all time by one single goal. 2. there are many ways to break up a beloved group and rebuild; this was the ugliest imaginable way.

so imagine this: let's say '94 ("matteau, matteau") was as far as the devils ever got. let's say marty ends up having steve mason's career, stevens' career unfathomably falls off a cliff à la linden, richer's career falls into the toilet one year earlier, lou never makes the neal broten trade, claude lemieux holds out in '95, you get the idea. let's say in '95 and '96 the devils are still competitive but get bounced early, and in '97 they miss the playoff altogether. you've drafted pieces of crap instead of guerin, rolston, niedermayer, sykora, elias. so in '98 lou dumps longtime guys like mckay and holik, signs messier as a UFA, who through whatever series of manoeuvres gets the captaincy from stevens. let's say without the '95 cup, maclean and driver are still there, along with daneyko. messier alienates the vets, gets all those heroes from '88 and '94 traded, but not before having them publicly humiliated by keenan, who in the interim has also taken over lou's job.

how do you feel now? (and yeah, i think it matters that it's stevens, daneyko, etc. instead of madden, langenbrunner, and white; that was the scale of our attachment to linden, mclean, pat quinn, gino, and even lumme)

are you better off in the long run? debatable. i mean, i'm not going to thank brian burke for the chokey, disappointing nas/tuzzi years, so i'm definitely not going to thank keenan.

in the very long run, sure it turned out for the best. mccabe becomes the draft pick that became one of the sedins, bertuzzi becomes luongo. hard to complain about netting two guys who each finished no lower than 2nd in hart voting in a canucks uniform. but again, there's an emotional toll that looking at this in a rational, mean-ends sort of way doesn't account for.

anyway, this thread is called "Why Mark Messier is Often Regarded the Worst/Most Hated Vancouver Canuck of All Time," not "should mark messier be regarded as the worst/most hated canuck of all time." and there's your answer to the original question.

 

[seventieslord]

The last sentence is key, and why this is only a one line reply, not one paragraph.

 

[JA]

More on Mike Keenan, this time from Markus Naslund circa 2003. A Swedish article was posted with comments from Markus; many discussed it in this thread:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=13842

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=232856&postcount=7

Well he basicly just says that Keenan is an @sshole..

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233020&postcount=9

I remember reading awhile back that Keenan almost dealt Naslund for next to nothing and was only prevented by an injury. Would someone that recalls the details of that story please re-post it?

Thanks


btw, Mrs. Heimy and I spent some time in beautiful Vancouver over the summer and fell in love with the place.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233101&postcount=10

I remember reading awhile back that Keenan almost dealt Naslund for next to nothing and was only prevented by an injury. Would someone that recalls the details of that story please re-post it?

He was almost dealt to the Sens for a mid-round pick, but Todd Bertuzzi got injured and the Canucks had to keep Naslund because they didn't have enough forwards.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233149&postcount=11

^4th Round Draft Pick, to be precise. We would have looked as foolish as Pittsburgh. The deal was all but done when Todd Bertuzzi took an Adrian Aucoin slapshot to the leg and was done for the season. Naslund was kept around due to a shortage of NHL ready wingers on the Canucks team.

It would have been a typical Keenan thing to do.

~Canucklehead~

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233162&postcount=12

Rough translation:

He is the coach that scares his players, that sends talents to the farm team just to ***** with them. And that hates swedes.
"Mike Keenan likes to scare guys and humiliate them just to elevate himself" Markus Näslund has to say about the most feared coach in the NHL.

Näslund is not known as a loud mouth who says negative things about others but there is one person he can't stand. Mike Keenan. Iron Mike. "He used to go after us younger and less established players and after a while I was sick of it" Markus says.

Mike Keenan had his breakthrough when he in less than a year turned Rangers from a loserteam to SC-champions 1994. From then he has wandered from team to team and scaring players but not won any more titles.

Keenan - now in Florida - is infamous for his rock hard work methods, that often turns into pure personal attacks on the players. Brutal coaching. Or Management by fear. "If you grew up in Sweden with the security we have here it is totally different having Keenan as coach" Näslund says.

The list of swedish players that has had problems with Keenan is long.

Keenan and Näslund immediately was on a collision course when Iron-Mike arrived in Vancouver. The 98-99 season the swedish goalgetter started in the press box. Sent there by Keenan. He just wanted tough players. "It was a very hard period. Luckily for me players got injured and I got the chance. That turned things around for me and I am glad I was able to get through it" Näslund says with a sigh.

Despite the fact that it was under Keenan Näslund got his breakthrough he is still bitter. "His ways really got to me. A person that has to degrade others is a small person" Näslund says.

It's fortunate McCaw fired Keenan partway through the 1998-99 season, in time before Markus was traded away. At that time, Naslund's confidence was not very high, and had Keenan remained it could have had adverse effects on Markus and the entire franchise. Without Naslund, the Canucks might not have climbed back out from their bottom-dwelling status of the Messier era. Attendance continually declined from 1997-98 to 1999-2000, dropping from an average of 17,320 in 1996-97 to 14,641 in 1999-2000. Markus had a 41-goal season the year after Messier left and was named the team's new captain. Attendance jumped back up to an average of 17,712 again.

http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=8756

 

[Honour Over Glory]

*Disclaimer: this is a purely informative piece meant to enlighten hockey fans on the influence of Mark Messier on the Vancouver Canucks. This is not meant to be offensive or controversial, and is only designed to allow readers to understand his relationship with the team and the fanbase.

With all due to respect to Mark Messier and the incredible career he had, there was a period in his career in which he was nothing short of a cancer to his team. Canucks fans who experienced this era are well aware of Messier's effect on the franchise and why he is the most hated player in franchise history. This thread is designed to share with readers the story of Mark Messier's relationship with the Vancouver Canucks throughout the 1990s. Undoubtedly, this story was not as well-documented outside of Vancouver, but those who had witnessed and experienced it over a period of those three years will be able to recall a tale of disappointment, division, and bitterness.

The story begins in the 1996 off-season when the Canucks were in search of a top-line center. Pat Quinn, the Canucks' general manager at the time, had targeted Wayne Gretzky as his free agent of choice. Unfortunately, Quinn's own impatience resulted in him presenting Gretzky with an ultimatum in the middle of one summer's evening, calling him in the middle of the night to make a decision about where he would sign. Gretzky took offense and ultimately chose not to sign with Vancouver. Having missed this opportunity, another high-profile free agent centerman, Mark Messier, was available the following off-season, and served as a consolation for Quinn's failure.

Messier signed with the team in the summer of 1997, and fans generally viewed the acquisition positively. They were well aware of how Messier had led the Rangers to the Stanley Cup victory in the 1994 playoffs and how he had decimated the hopes and dreams of Canucks fans that year. Fans were still bitter, but were generally prepared to forgive him; he was a Canadian player, a renowned leader returning to the Canadian west. When he joined the team, he was expected to contribute as one of the team's top players. He was the highest-paid player on the team, earning $6 million per year, and fans had certain hopes for him.

Instead, his signing marked the beginning of a period of disaster for the franchise. As soon as he joined the team, he demanded to wear the unofficially-retired #11, which had been retired to acknowledge and respect the passing of an original Canuck, Wayne Maki, in 1974. The organization gave him the number without the consent of Maki's family, which sparked outrage from the family. At this point, the team had a new owner, having bought the team from the Canucks' previous long-time owners, the Griffiths family, after the latter had overspent to build GM Place. The McCaws were supposed to only own a share of the team, but took advantage of this opportunity to buy the remaining shares. The mysterious and very private McCaw brothers now owned the team, and business became very secretive and sketchy. Giving the #11 to Messier was one of these slimy decisions.

More on the Griffiths-McCaw story: http://www.lcshockey.com/issues/57/feature10.asp



Before the season began, Trevor Linden gave his captaincy to Messier as a sign of respect, but later regretted giving the captaincy to him, as he felt Messier had imposed an unwelcome presence on the team. As soon as Messier stepped on the ice, fans knew he was not the same player he was even a year ago. Game footage from the 1997-98, 1998-99, and 1999-2000 seasons clearly show that Messier was not interested from the very start. Statistics affirm this as well. He was a disastrous signing, proving to be a lazy player who took short shifts, shied away from physicality, did not shoot the puck, nor carried with him his mean streak from past years. Those who witnessed those seasons know how dreadful he was.

Mark Messier looked like only a shell of his former self. He was a totally different player, despite wearing the captain's "C" and being paid $6 million. Mickey Redmond mentioned in an early game between the Canucks and Red Wings during the 1997-98 season that Messier did not look like himself. He showed no heart, no grit, no passion. He played a lazy game and was often a liability.

The team struggled early in the season, and so GM Pat Quinn fired coach Tom Renney and introduced Mike Keenan to the team -- another mistake. Keenan immediately changed the dressing room philosophy and made the team feel even more uncomfortable; soon afterwards, the McCaws fired Quinn and promoted Keenan to GM as well as coach.

Keenan played favorites, often allowing Messier to roam in whatever role he was comfortable with. Messier, meanwhile, was often seen socializing with Keenan at Vancouver Grizzlies games. The two had a clear connection that the rest of the team did not share. As the Canucks continued to sink with Messier and Keenan at the helm, the organization did the unthinkable and traded away all of the fan favorite players, including the beloved long-time captain, Trevor Linden. Keenan traded away Linden, Gino Odjick, Kirk McLean, Martin Gelinas, and Dave Babych that season, leaving the Canucks with barely any of its previous personality. They were soulless, cycling through goaltenders, swapping parts, and remaining a bottom-dweller for three seasons. Keenan and Messier were in full control until Keenan was replaced by Brian Burke the following year.

Linden's camp later made clear that Messier's presence felt hostile, and that Keenan was a huge issue as well:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/2001/08/08/sayitaintso_canucks/



And, in the words of the New York Daily News' Frank Brown:


Another quotation from the Vancouver Sun is from Trevor Linden and Pat Quinn in retrospect:
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Sixteen+defining+moments+Trevor+Linden+career/1068425/story.html



And more about his relationship with Keenan:




Traded now was the team captain who had led the team through thick and thin since 1990, who had offered the most inspiring playoff performance in franchise history playing through some of the most difficult injuries any player could endure, and who was the heart of the team:

http://canucks.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=453227






With the core group of players now gone as part of Keenan's regime, the team was left mangled, hardly resembling its former self; meanwhile, the team finished in third-last place in the NHL that year with a record of 25-43-14. The team was absolute garbage, had a slimy owner, a ruinous GM/coach, and a cancerous team captain.

McCaw replaced Keenan the following season with Brian Burke and Marc Crawford, and things began to move in the proper direction again; Keenan's removal prompted Messier to change in ways, and the youth on the team began to listen to him, though Messier's continued on-ice laziness and poor performances would eventually lead to Brian Burke buying out the last two years of Messier's contract in Vancouver:



A dozen years later, however, the story still had not ended. Though Messier had by this time been long retired, news surfaced in 2012 that echoed the shady business practices of the McCaws and Messier's sense of entitlement from that era. The latter had included a clause in his contract that would allow him to profit from any increase in the franchise's value from 1997 to 2002. Of course, since the McCaws had, in 2004, sold their share of the team to the current owners, the Aquilinis, Messier went after the latter:


http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Mark+Messier+wins+million+arbitration+case+against+Vancouver+Canucks/7033843/story.html


After the way he destroyed the team, he now wanted money he felt he was owed. In truth, the team recorded its worst ever attendance at GM Place/Rogers Arena during the Messier years. Attendance in 1999-2000 averaged 14,641. The season after Messier was bought out, attendance rose to an average of 17,026 seats per game.

http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=8756

Without a doubt, Mark Messier was the face of evil for Canucks fans throughout the 1990s. Along with his role in the destruction of the team with his former Rangers bench boss in the latter half of that decade, Messier's greed continues to carry into the business of the Canucks organization. Prior to any of these events, he was responsible for ending the Canucks' hopes of a Stanley Cup in 1994 and injuring Linden in the Finals. From 1997 to 2000, he and Keenan forced Linden out and ruined the team from internally.

Perhaps the most encapsulating moment of the relationship between Canucks fans, Trevor Linden, and Mark Messier is from the dying seconds of Game 6 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals. It was Messier who was responsible for taking a cheap shot at Linden while he was already down injured, injuring him even further, away from the play in the final seconds of the game in Vancouver. You can see it all in the video below at the bottom of the screen. Linden was left broken physically, but pieced himself together for the mightiest performance of his career. The moment spawned one of the most memorable quotations in franchise history: "he will play, you know he'll play."



Despite a broken nose, broken ribs and torn rib cartilage, and now this injury, Linden rallied back with two goals in Game 7 to bring the Canucks within one goal of tying the game. Contrasted with Messier, Linden was the heart and soul of the Vancouver Canucks. The team had faced Messier in 1994 when the latter took liberties with his dirty play. By 1998, the team's leader had been displaced by a heartless, disinterested egomaniac, the same man who had robbed them of a championship and who now would impose his destructive influence on the team.

Canucks fans have every reason to despise Mark Messier. The Mark Messier years in Vancouver were an absolute disaster, and fans have every reason to despise him, Mike Keenan, and John McCaw. Messier was overpaid, created distraction after distraction, controlled the dressing room and his own fate with a sense of entitlement, disrespected long-time players, traditions, and members of the community, and played as lazily as one could imagine as the team's supposed leader, leading them only towards the bottom of the NHL standings. He destroyed the Canucks' hopes in 1994 and injured the captain, then played a role in Linden's removal and mutilated the team from within. If there was any one individual who could be identified as this franchise's greatest evil in the 1990s, it would be him.

*UPDATE* April 4th, 2013:

Here's more evidence:

Gino Odjick, one of the NHL's great enforcers and a long-time member of the Vancouver Canucks, was asked about this in interview Dan Russell of CKNW 980 this past Thursday (April 4th, 2013). Odjick had been very outspoken at the time of Messier's arrival about how vile the latter's presence was to the team. His view has not changed. The full interview is a half-hour long, part of Russell's series about the hockey journey of NHL players from youth to retirement. I've posted the segment in which Gino discusses his time with the Canucks, his fights, and his friendships.

Inevitably, the issue of Mark Messier and Mike Keenan was brought up, and Gino was clear to state he believes Messier and Keenan destroyed the dressing room. Nobody on the team was comfortable with how Keenan and Messier imposed their authority on the organization:

13:00:



*UPDATE* April 9th, 2013:

More on Mike Keenan, this time from Markus Naslund circa 2003. A Swedish article was posted with comments from Markus; many discussed it in this thread:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=13842

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=232856&postcount=7


http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233020&postcount=9


http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233101&postcount=10


http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233149&postcount=11


http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=233162&postcount=12


It's fortunate McCaw fired Keenan partway through the 1998-99 season, in time before Markus was traded away. At that time, Naslund's confidence was not very high, and had Keenan remained it could have had adverse effects on Markus and the entire franchise. Without Naslund, the Canucks might not have climbed back out from their bottom-dwelling status of the Messier era. Attendance continually declined from 1997-98 to 1999-2000, dropping from an average of 17,320 in 1996-97 to 14,641 in 1999-2000. Markus had a 41-goal season the year after Messier left and was named the team's new captain. Attendance jumped back up to an average of 17,712 again.

http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=8756

Do I need to eat some magical mushrooms and wear a tin foil hat while I read this?

 

[DisgruntledGoat*]

i guess you need to keep in mind two things: 1. that messier and keenan were the same guys who beat our most beloved team of all time by one single goal. 2. there are many ways to break up a beloved group and rebuild; this was the ugliest imaginable way.

so imagine this: let's say '94 ("matteau, matteau") was as far as the devils ever got. let's say marty ends up having steve mason's career, stevens' career unfathomably falls off a cliff à la linden, richer's career falls into the toilet one year earlier, lou never makes the neal broten trade, claude lemieux holds out in '95, you get the idea. let's say in '95 and '96 the devils are still competitive but get bounced early, and in '97 they miss the playoff altogether. you've drafted pieces of crap instead of guerin, rolston, niedermayer, sykora, elias. so in '98 lou dumps longtime guys like mckay and holik, signs messier as a UFA, who through whatever series of manoeuvres gets the captaincy from stevens. let's say without the '95 cup, maclean and driver are still there, along with daneyko. messier alienates the vets, gets all those heroes from '88 and '94 traded, but not before having them publicly humiliated by keenan, who in the interim has also taken over lou's job.

how do you feel now? (and yeah, i think it matters that it's stevens, daneyko, etc. instead of madden, langenbrunner, and white; that was the scale of our attachment to linden, mclean, pat quinn, gino, and even lumme)

are you better off in the long run? debatable. i mean, i'm not going to thank brian burke for the chokey, disappointing nas/tuzzi years, so i'm definitely not going to thank keenan.

in the very long run, sure it turned out for the best. mccabe becomes the draft pick that became one of the sedins, bertuzzi becomes luongo. hard to complain about netting two guys who each finished no lower than 2nd in hart voting in a canucks uniform. but again, there's an emotional toll that looking at this in a rational, mean-ends sort of way doesn't account for.

anyway, this thread is called "Why Mark Messier is Often Regarded the Worst/Most Hated Vancouver Canuck of All Time," not "should mark messier be regarded as the worst/most hated canuck of all time." and there's your answer to the original question.

And here we are at the inevitable conclusion to all Messier in Vancouver threads. After all the conjecture and fabrication falls apart, its, 'whatever, you don't know what it was like cheering for those teams'.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

And here we are at the inevitable conclusion to all Messier in Vancouver threads. After all the conjecture and fabrication falls apart, its, 'whatever, you don't know what it was like cheering for those teams'.

because i didn't try to explain it in non-canucks-specific terms...

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

This was very informative. I thought he finished his career with Vancouver but looking at the stats I see he wound up back with the Rangers for 4 more years! (this was about the time I stopped following hockey) How did his second tenure with the Rangers go?

He was a shell of himself when he returned to the Rangers and got way more ice time than he deserved. He could barely skate anymore and should have been strictly a third liner by that point, but nobody was willing to tell him that. He put up decent points but was a liability defensively. Nobody really cared that much though because they still remembered him as The Messiah.

Yes, I observed it first hand. It was painful to watch, and Rangers kept failing to make playoffs year after year. Sometimes a player needs to know when to retire. He was certainly harming his club more than helping it.

I think he would have been fine as a third liner who got no time on special teams. But I agree that he was harming the club more than helping it in the way he was actually used.

question to those who witnessed messier's second NYR stint: this undeserved icetime that TDMM refers to, the coaches were ron low, bryan trottier, glen sather, and tom renney. messier obviously knows low as a former teammate and former oilers assistant coach; trottier flamed out because he just wasn't ready for the job; slats and mess obviously have all that history; and renney was the guy messier got fired when he and mccaw installed keenan in vancouver. the question is why did messier get more icetime than he deserved on those teams? was it cronyism (low, slats), fear of messier getting the coach canned (trots, renney, maybe also low), some combination of both? because that seems to add to the question whether messier's time in vancouver and the reputation he carried away from it ended up hurting his next team-- and arguably also the roger neilson coup in NYR that obviously turned out a lot better than the renney coup in vancouver.

As a bruins fan living in BC at the time, I remember my Canuck buddies incensed about the Messier time in Vancouver....taking the captaincy from Linden started it and went downhill from there....

i'd have started with him getting wayne maki's number, and maki's widow's press conference. in retrospect, it looks like a john mccaw play -- insisting that messier gets his signature number to sell jerseys -- not a demand by messier himself. but the complexity of the situation is that the lines between what we blame mccaw for, what we blame keenan for, and what we blame messier for is very blurry. maybe not 100% fair, but i think i speak for a lot of vancouver fans when i say that those three all were seen as the enemy infiltrating what canucks hockey, and its relationship to the community on multiple levels, meant.

to reflect on it 15 years later, with some larger manner of historical objectivity, we might also place a lot more blame on arthur griffiths, who now looks all the world like louis XVI or richard II (or jim buss). but back then, it was harder to see, as the legacy of frank griffiths sr., who died at the end of the '94 regular season and whose memory was always in the background of the '94 finals run, was still so omnipresent.

and one also has to remember that vancouver itself was rapidly changing at that time. the ethnic demographic of the city had changed over the five years leading up to '97 (when hong kong changed hands from britain to china). alongside that xenophobia, to say nothing of outright racial hostility (study your late 90s/early 2000s canadian politics if you really are interested), was an initial resistance to a seattle businessman buying the team from the griffiths family, who had deep deep community ties and who had owned the team since 1974. we had a new cookie-cutter corporate arena, a terrible NBA team sapping resources (and consequently we lost local heroes ronning and geoff courtnall to unrestricted free agency the year BEFORE messier got here), then we bring in all these new york guys... kind of an ugly paranoid period when you consider the role canadian nationalism and also sectarian western canadian nationalism plays in all of this. but a MUCH MUCH more complicated story than "old core was old, had to bottom out, congratulations you have naslund and bertuzzi and won one playoff round in 2003."