NEW YORK – Mark Messier never wanted this day to the happen. The future Hall of Famer would have been happier riding off into the sunset, rather than having all the adulations, which come with having No. 11 raised to the rafters at Madison Square Garden.

“He didn’t want a celebrity tag,” said general manager Glen Sather, who joined Messier along with Garden president James Dolan, Commissioner Gary Bettman and Edmonton Oilers’ GM Kevin Lowe at a press conference on Wednesday. “He said, ‘Let me do what I am doing and let me enjoy my kids.’ But I told him it’s a great honor to have his sweater hung in this building, so he couldn’t run away from it. He wanted to be like the Lone Ranger.”

But the Captain knew he had to go through with the festivities and a teary-eyed Messier stood at the podium at the press conference in his honor. Instead of a prepared speech to the press, the legend read a letter to whom he calls the Garden Faithful.

“The crowd was always known to us as the Garden Faithful. At 4-4:30 before we came to a game, we would always say the ‘Garden Faithful will be fired up for this or fired up for that,’” Messier explained before he read the letter to the press, which described his feelings for the Ranger fans.

When Messier was traded to the Rangers just before the 1991-92 season, the fans immediately embraced him. They adored his rough style of play, but saw someone who brought order to an organization, which went through numerous chaotic seasons in the 1980s and last tasted victory 50 years before. The five time Stanley Cup winner taught young and talented players like Brian Leetch and Mike Richter what it takes to win and proved it by winning the Hart Trophy for league MVP his first season on Broadway.

But more than that, New Yorkers could take to the Edmonton native because he was a lot like them – bold, larger than life and willing to put himself out on the limb for his team.

That was never more proven than just before Game Six of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals against the New Jersey Devils. Down 3-2 in the series and facing elimination at a the Meadowlands, Messier made a Joe Namath like prediction guaranteeing victory and bringing the series back to the Garden for a decisive Game Seven.

“As a captain, you are trying to get your team on track and I wanted them to wake up in the morning seeing that in the paper,” Messier said. “What I didn’t know was 14 million people and the New Jersey Devils will see it as well, which was an oversight on my part.”

He backed up his words by scoring the natural hat trick in the third period, which led the Blueshirts to a 4-2 victory. Two days later, Stephane Matteau’s overtime goal put the Devils away and sent the Rangers to the Cup Final.

In the series against Vancouver, Messier kept the team together in the midst of rumors about coach Mike Keenan’s departure. His leadership allowed the Rangers to finally break the snide and win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 54 years.

“There’s a famous picture of you receiving the Stanley Cup [in 1994] with sheer joy and ecstasy on your face,” Bettman said in his comments. “That’s the embodiment of what sports is about. It was about someone who has given his all to give something to a city that so desperately wanted the Stanley Cup.”

It’s the joy of victory, which made the Captain so determined to win and drove him to continue playing well into his 40s.

“He can still play,” current Ranger Jaromir Jagr said after practice on Tuesday. “Last season, he scored [almost] 20 goals and that was a different league. If he played under these rules, he could score 30.”

But the lockout gave Messier a chance to experience family life on a full time basis for the first time and allowed him to close the playing career chapter of his life.

And with No. 11 raised to the rafters, it also allowed his fans to again show their love to a player that meant so much to New York.

Reprinted with permission from The Wave of Long Island.