Mario Lemieux will miss the rest of the season after hip surgery next week, but he doesn’t plan to retire. The six-time NHL scoring leader and twotime Stanley Cup champion hasn’t played for the Pittsburgh Penguins since injuring his left hip Nov. 1 against Boston.
Lemieux has since tried therapy and rehabilitation, but a magnetic resonance imaging performed yesterday showed no improvement. Lemieux, who also owns the last-place Penguins, will have arthroscopic surgery Jan. 13.
"I was optimistic that the injury would heal, and I was hoping to get back in the lineup,’’ Lemieux said. "It is disappointing that I won’t have a chance to return to the ice this season, but I look forward to coming back next year.’’
Penguins team doctor Charles Burke said Lemieux is experiencing ongoing pain because of tendinitis in his left hip flexor muscle. The surgery will remove damaged labrum, the ligament-like cartilage that contains nerves and lines the hip socket, and repair a tendon.
This is the third time in as many seasons Lemieux had been sidelined by injury, and one of a score of such layoffs in his remarkable but oft-interrupted career that saw him sit out the 1994-95 season and retire for 44 months.
Lemieux, 38, missed most of the 2001-02 season with a right hip injury that also required surgery. Lemieux had that operation shortly before helping Canada win its first Olympic hockey gold medal in 50 years.
He returned to lead the NHL in scoring for most of the 2002-03 season, only to finish eighth with 91 points in 67 games after sitting out nearly a month with a sore groin.
This season, Lemieux injured his left hip three days after becoming only the sixth player in NHL history to reach 1,700 points.
Posted by Ron at January 7, 2004 09:40 AM