When it comes to naming the best hockey player ever I go with Gretzky as well, but like I said, a case can be made for Lemieux. I would even go so far as to say Lemieux accomplished more with less. Not less personal talent because Lemieux maybe the most talente individual to ever play the game, but less surrounding talent. Lemieux didn’t have a Messier, Anderson or Kurri for much of his career like Gretzky did.
Anyway, here are some numbers that I crunched for a thread back in April of 2000 that show how close they really were (I really need to update the stats but I don’t have the time right now):
Seasons: Gretzky-20 Lemieux-12
Games played: Gretzky-1487 Lemieux-745
Points: Gretzky-2857 Lemieux-1494
PPG: Gretzky-1.921 Lemieux-2.005
Art Ross: Gretzky-11 Lemieux-6
Stanley Cups: Gretzky-4 Lemieux-2
Of the subject of ice hockey as an international sport, it might be interesting to note that the Japan Ice Hockey Federation has been around since 1965. Go Bunnies! (Whoa! That emoticon does look like a bunny. If it only had ears…) And I just found out that they’ve been playing ice hockey in Australia for a century now.
Emmitt Smith was a good RB behind a great O-Line. He doesn’t even belong in the top 5 all time running backs. He’s never even had a 2000 yard season.
1a) Jim Brown
1b) Walter Payton
1c) Barry Sanders
4) Gale Sayers
5a) OJ
5b) ED
7) Marshall Faulk (would have the overall yardage record if not for the Madden Curse)
Messier, Kurri and Anderson’s numbers with and without Gretzky would suggest he impacted them more than the reverse. Of course it’s true he had many great reammates, but it’s not as if Mario Lemieux lacked for amazing teammates: Jaromir Jagr, Paul Coffey, Kevin Stevens, and others had fine years with Lemieux.
The thing is, these really aren’t that close. Per game they’re dead even, but the length of career just can’t be ignored - it’s monstrous.
Imagine if you had Gretzky and Lemieux on the same team for a season. Gretzky plays all 82 games and scored 159 points. Lemieux plays 41 games and scores 82 points. Which player helped the team more? It’s pretty obvious that Gretzky would be vastly more valuable; it’s the marginal difference of having a player who plays 41 games and scores 77 points.
The difference, when you get right down to it, is that Gretzky kept playing after 1989. Up to that season Gretzky had played 774 games - more or less the same length as Mario’s career - and had scored 1,837 points, 2.37 points per game. So after playing more or less the same number of games as Mario, Gretzky had done MORE, not less.
Then, AFTER 1989, Gretzky played an additional 713 games and scored an additional 1,020 points. So that’s the difference between the Great One and The Magnificent One. Imagine having a Mario Lemieux who actually score a few more points, and then having another player who plays 713 games and scores 1,020 points - in other words, nine seasons of 100+ points a year. That’s how much more Gretzky did.
I’m a bit disappointed at the outright dismissal of Howe. The guy was the complete hockey player. He could score, pass, play defense, and crush anybody on the ice.
You can have your Gretzky. I’ll take Howe simply because Howe would crush Lemieux, Greztky, etc. on the way to the net.
As for the goalies, you really have to make that separate. It’s takes an entirely different set of skills to play the position. On that I would have to go for Sawchuck with nods to Roy, Hasek, and Brodeur.
Or looking at it another way - Wayne Gretzky maintained pretty much the same average number of points per game over his entire career than Mario did during his years of peak ability. Since all players slow down significantly in their last few years (including Gretzky), for him to maintain a 2 point per game average throughout his career means he was doing significantly better than that during his peak years.
If you want to compare raw skill, compare the two at the same stage of their careers. Take the last eight years of Gretzky’s career and chuck them out, and then compare stats between the two. I think you’ll find that Gretzky racked up significantly better numbers.
That sounds good until you try it. I’ve spoken with NHL players and ex-players who tried to stop Gretzky and/or Lemieux, and the comment about was always that
They seemed to be impossible to hit squarely no matter how hard you tried, and
If by some chance you did get one of 'em, their way of getting revenge was to get up and score a few more goals.
I mean, not to point out the obvious here, but these guys played a long time. If you could just nail them and put a stop to them, then people would have done it.
I am reminded of the story about one of the Sutter brothers - I think it was Daryl - whose father kept telling him, “hit Gretzky, son! Ya gotta HIT him! You can stop him if you just hit him! Hit him! Why aren’t you hitting him?” Finally Sutter screamed back at him, “Dad, I’m TRYING!”
Howe was super-great, of course, but I’d rank him behind Gretzky in career value and behind Gretzky, Lemieux, and Orr in peak value.
I think it’s harder to rate goalies because it’s hard to divine the effect their teams have on them without a lot of statistical analysis. For instance, Ken Dryden’s accomplishments look amazing on paper, but given the 1970’s Montreal Canadiens, you could put Guinastasia between the pipes and she’d probably win 45, 50 games a year. It’s not hard to win games when 50 minutes a game it’s a swarm of red shirts at the other end of the ice. Similarly, it seems to be the choking trap defense Marty Brodeur has played behind suggests his numbers aren’t as good, in context, as a Sawchuck or a Roy. Objectively speaking, it seems clear that Patrick Roy won a huge number of games behind teams that on average were vastly inferior.
I’d pick Patrick Roy, but your picks are pretty good too.
OK, here’s one completely and totally inarguable one (as long as we accept intellectual sports):
The greatest Checkers player ever, by a truly ridiculous amount, was Marion Tinsley. From 1950 to his death in 1994 he WON EVERY TOURNAMENT HE PLAYED IN!!! I think he may be the greatest single competitor in the history of mankind.
I can’t comment too meaningfully on the topic, but the greatest mountain climber of all time seems to be Reinhold Messner
Golf
Men: Jack Nicklaus then Jones then Woods.
Woman: Annika Sorenstam
Baseball: Babe Ruth
Tennis
Mens: Rod Laver ahead of Sampras
Womans: Martina Navratilova
Hockey: The Great One, not even close
American Football: Jerry Rice ahead of Jim Brown ahead of Barry Sanders. I want to put Larry Allen on the list but it’s kind of hard to back him up with stats. He belongs on a most dominating list I think, for sure.
Football: Maradona ahead of Pele
Basketball: Michael Jordan (hate him but I can’t very well in good concience put anyone else up there) ahead of Wilt Chamberlain ahead of Tim Duncan.
Checking defense shmecking defense. I put Brodeur in due to his skill and consistency. Right now the easiest job in the NHL is to be Brodeurs backup. You’ll play maybe ten games a season. Not to mention the Devils insane commitment to defense really hinders their offense. Martin Brodeur has to be great because the Devils expect to win every game 1-0 or 2-1 as opposed to Roy who played for Montreal in their prime and then for the lowly Avs.
I placed Sawchuck at the top because the dude set the records without benefit of modern pads or a helmet. You can say that there weren’t as many hard shots in his day, but there were a few that could really launch the biscuit. Let’s put Roy in Sawchucks pads for a season and see how many records he can rack up then.
As for Howe, I simply think he embodies nearly every aspect of hockey better than Greztky or Lemieux. They were likely more talented than Howe, but not by much. With Howe, he could either outskate you, deke you, or simply run you down. He was/is/always will be one of the most feared fighters in the NHL. When has anybody ever said “OH SH*T GRETZKY DROPPED THE GLOVES!!” Add to that Howes penchant for switching hands on his stick (ambidextrous baby) to fool goalies and defenseman alike and you have one hell of a hockey player.
Like it or not, Gretzky and Lemieux are just too danged pretty.
(Shrug) It’s not about who’s tough or pretty. It’s about who has more goals after sixty minutes.
Gretzky was so great I don’t think his greatness is being fully grasped. I guess he was more appreciated at the time; I remember that people in pools often set No-Gretzky rules, because allowing Gretzky to be drafted meant drafting #1 automatically gave you the win.
Gretzky was exactly equivalent to a baseball player who could hit 90 home runs a year, or a running back who could rush for 3,000 yards and score 35 touchdowns. Nobody who has ever played the game DOMINATED the way he did. Howe could check and fight? Fine. Gretzky just kept scoring. At the end of the game they add up how many goals you have. A one-dimensional player can be better than an all-around player.
In 1980-1981Gretzky scored 29 points more than any other player.
In 1981-1982, 65 points more.
1982-1983: 72 points more.
1983-1984: 79 points more.
1984-1985: 73 points more.
1985-1986: 70 points more. 163 points; nobody else had more than 93. Think about that.
1986-1987: 75 points more.
Best player in hockey history? Gretzky is the greatest athlete in the history of North American professional sport, hands down, by a mile. Greater than Ruth, greater than Jordan, greater than Rice, Mays, greater than any of them. You show me ANYONE who was that far above his league for seven straight years.
You just described Mark Messier. And if we’re going to list the all-time greats, he has to be right up there. In fact, I believe I’d put him ahead of Howe. Messier is now second in all-time points behind Gretzky. And believe me, no one was more feared than Messier when he was on the ice. He was one of the top goal scorers in the game, and there really wasn’t any weakness in his game. And as for longevity, Messier is still playing, and he’s 43 years old. And there was never a better leader in the NHL than Messier. When the Rangers were trailing in the 1991 cup race, Mark Messier held a press conference and promised the media that they were going to win. He guaranteed it. Then the next night his team came out flat, and Messier just about crushed the other team by his own damned self. Played like an animal. And they won the cup.
To me, that was one of the greatest moments in sports. Gotta give Messier a few places higher on the list just for that.
Talent-wise I agree, but I was speaking statistically. The best RB I’ve even seen is Barry Sanders, but Gale Sayers and Jim Brown were before my time.
Can you argue with Jerry Rice as the greatest ever, though?
What, because of the pads and helmets? Piffle. Those are just there so the players can hit harder. You’ll get more bumps and bruises in rugby, but you’ll get more concussions, fractures, and outright paralysis in football.
If it doesn’t leave you drooling and mumbling incoherently in your wheelchair by the age of 32, it’s not a real man’s sport.
Couldn’t agree more. The Rangers won the Cup in '94, but you nailed it. Whether or not he’s one of the most gifted athletes, Mess is one of the greatest leaders in the history of sports. He will forever be a New York hero for that guarantee and the hat trick he scored that night, even if nobody cares about hockey anymore. By the way, he’s also second all-time in playoff goals and points (both to Gretzky, of course), and seventh all-time in goals.
And as a further measure of Gretzky’s greatness, look how far ahead he is of the competition in those categories!
Right. I was thinking earlier because Messier won the cup with the Oilers in 1990, after Gretzky was gone.
Being in Edmonton, I’ve heard lots of first-hand and second-hand accounts of Messier’s exploits (and of course in our local newspaper). The man was almost as feared on his own team sometimes. There was a night after a particularly lackadaisical performance by (I think) Petr Klima that Messier picked him up, pinned him to the lockers, put his nose about an inch from Klima’s, and told him that if he put in a piss-poor performance like that again, they were going to have to have a ‘talk’.
Looking back I see that Ellis Dee posted several of the stats I also posted. Oops.
In what sense is this true other than ‘we have one, you don’t, so ours is better?’ What complete nonsense. So golf (Ryder Cup) is a sport and baseball isn’t? Right. Hell, chess is international. It’s still not a sport. Major League Baseball doesn’t have teams anywhere except the US and Canada, but we’re seeing more and more foreign players than ever.
Yeah, losing in the Finals really chucks those 9 titles out the window. :rolleyes: My personal opinion is that he did as much as you could with a team that was, in two words, absolutely uncoachable. The two main stars wanted to kill each other, they both insisted they were #1. Kobe didn’t like him. Payton claimed he came to win a championship, then refused to try and be a team player even though he’s over the hill and couldn’t take a team that far on his own. So he was trying to do the same thing as Kobe only without the ability. The Lakers had the talent to win and didn’t, no question. But Jackson has had unparalleled success dealing with talent and getting players to work together to win. This year, he had a team that was too full of itself even for him. And like I said, they still won the conference.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
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In what sense is this true other than ‘we have one, you don’t, so ours is better?’ What complete nonsense. So golf (Ryder Cup) is a sport and baseball isn’t? Right. Hell, chess is international. It’s still not a sport. Major League Baseball doesn’t have teams anywhere except the US and Canada, but we’re seeing more and more foreign players than ever.
QUOTE]
What I am trying to get at is that for someone to be the “greatest ever” there has to be meaningful competition and if a game is only played in one place, that competition doesn’t exist. My point about world cups is that the games in which these exist (or world titles eg boxing) then there is a wold participation in them - so the achievement of winning them is that much greater.
So American Football is not a world game (and is the dullest thing imaginable - Janet Jackson’s tits notwithstanding).
(Whoa! That emoticon does look like a bunny. If it only had ears…) And I just found out that they’ve been playing ice hockey in Australia for a century now.