In his Hockey Hall of Fame career, star center Pat LaFontaine was a thrilling competitor and slick producer of offense. And in this cover story from THN's Sept. 4, 1998 edition, writer Mark Brender chronicled the ending to LaFontaine's career.

Few American NHLers have had the impact as star forward Pat LaFontaine. And in this cover story from THN’s Sept. 4, 1998 edition (Vol. 51, Issue 41), writer Mark Brender wrote about LaFontaine’s bittersweet departure from hockey’s best league.

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LaFontaine burst upon the NHL scene in 1984, enjoying a trip to the Stanley Cup final as a member of the New York Islanders. As the third overall pick in the 1983 draft, LaFontaine had major expectations placed on him, and he lived up to the hype right away, posting a 30-goal campaign in his second full season. It wasn’t long before he generated a career-high 54 goals in 1989-90, but a contract dispute led to him being traded to the Buffalo Sabres in 1991. But he began to accumulate concussions, a problem that led to his retirement in 1988. Still, he didn’t want to change a thing about the way he played.

“I always loved that speed type of game, that fast-paced game,” LaFontaine told Brender. “Just the freedom of being out there and being in tune and being focussed. It’s just a special feeling to be out there in the environment that you’re in, and so focussed that you don’t hear anything around you other than those plays and those moments that are occurring. Those are great times.”

LaFontaine’s health became a concern in Buffalo, and in six seasons as a Sabre, he played more than 57 games only twice. In his only season playing for the New York Rangers, LaFontaine generated 23 goals and 62 points in 67 games. Still, he couldn’t escape the issue of head injuries.

“When something hits you as hard as that, and you never think you’re ever going to play for the longest time…I think there was a part of me that said I didn’t want that hit to get the best of me,” LaFontaine said. “I was always the youngest, the smallest…and you kind of go through those adversities your whole life. And those were challenges to me. I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be done playing. I really felt that it wasn’t my time to move forward. I really had that desire and passion to go back (and play for the Rangers) and I’m so glad I listened to that.”

By the time he retired at age 33, LaFontaine had produced 468 goals and 1,013 points in 865 regular-season games. Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2003, he still stands out as one of the greatest American players of all time and left a lasting imprint on the sport.

“He revolutionized to some extent what you thought of when you thought of an American star player,” Rangers GM Neil Smith said of LaFontaine. “He was a superstar regardless of his nationality.”

And for LaFontaine, a student of the game, understanding his place in hockey history was a blessing.

“I can honestly say I’ve been a part of that generation of players that really watched the game grow to a tremendous level,” LaFontaine said. “And it was quite a generation of hockey players.”

OOOOH LA-LA AMERICAN DREAM FULFILLED

Vol. 51, No. 41, Sept. 4, 1998

By Mark Brender

Winning is not the most important thing, it’s the only thing.

What a crock.

Winning all that matters? Tell it to Pat LaFontaine. Try to tell him that based on the number of games his team went in the tank last season, he would have been better off renovating an office above the garage in his Connecticut home. It would have been done by now, and Lord knows there can’t be any news clips from the 1997-98 debacle he’d actually want to file away for safekeeping. Tell him he wasted his time. Then maybe he’ll tell you what that phrase is for him. Winning is everything for those with good health and luck – yes, luck – to afford it.

When the biggest worry for a player is blow-torching the proper curve on his stick blade, you can see why it’s possible for him to get caught up in all of that stuff. Wait until life throws him a curve of its own and his world is blown apart, and then see how much the score means.

The mightily paid New York Rangers won 25 of 82 games last season, third-fewest in a 26-team league. LaFontaine, who during the late 1980s and early 1990s was among the elite three or four centers in the game behind Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux – the brightest American beacon in what was even a decade ago a decidedly Canadian league – was in a detached state of bliss all season long.

For the first time in his career, he was able to let the projector slow long enough for him to savor every frame – the first game of the year, the Olympics, his 1,000th career point: “I just really took it all in.” LaFontaine learned that even when you’re part of a horridly underachieving, embarrassing team, appreciation is not a crime. He can admit enjoying six months of NHL life as the losses mounted and the playoffs pulled away from the Rangers like a bus splashing slush on their collective galoshes. This does not make him a selfish lout. It is a sign of maturity.

Growing up in St. Louis and Detroit, all LaFontaine wanted to do as a kid was pay his way through college. He ended up having a standout junior career in the Quebec League, where he battled Lemieux for the scoring title. He was named to one NHL second all-star team, played in two Olympic Games and 15 spectacular NHL seasons, scoring 40-or-more in six straight. Sure he would have liked to tie ’em on for another year or two, but he’s not in a position to complain. He has already made his Big Comeback.

As it turned out, the hit that was supposed to finish his career, from Francois Leroux of the Pittsburgh Penguins Oct. 17, 1996 while LaFontaine was a member of the Buffalo Sabres, didn’t. It eventually ended his season after only 13 games, gave him headaches the likes of which not even Gary Suter deserves to experience, made him question getting out of bed in the morning let alone out of the house let alone into a hockey arena. Eventually, he got a clean bill of health from his doctors, was traded to the Rangers for a second round draft pick and made it back.

That’s why last season meant so much, and, in the grand scheme of things, winning so little.

“When something hits you as hard as that, and you never think you’re ever going to play for the longest time…I think there was a part of me that said I didn’t want that hit to get the best of me,” said LaFontaine, 33. “I was always the youngest, the smallest…and you kind of go through those adversities your whole life. And those were challenges to me.

“I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be done playing. I really felt that it wasn’t my time to move forward. I really had that desire and passion to go back and I’m so glad I listened to that.” He has repeatedly expressed his appreciation to Rangers’ GM Neil Smith for giving him the opportunity.

The same neurologist who gave LaFontaine the green light to return a year ago, brain injury expert Dr. James Kelly of Chicago, told him in late June this summer he would be at greater than minimal risk of doing serious damage to his brain if he returned again. The career-ending blow was a fluke head-on collision with teammate Mike Keane last March 16 that resulted in LaFontaine’s sixth recorded concussion in seven years. He announced his retirement at a news conference in New York Aug. 11.

Keane and LaFontaine, the two smallest skaters on the Rangers, went up against each other several times during the year – back-to-back. They had a season-long debate over who was taller. (LaFontaine is listed at 5-foot-10, Keane at an overinflated 6-feet, which says something about the accuracy of the NHL Guide and Record Book). The hit settled the matter. Not the part about LaFontaine later telling Keane he’d be forgiven if he conceded, but a teammate’s quip later – the one that said LaFontaine had to be taller, otherwise he would have seen Keane coming.

Dressing room humor, har, har. LaFontaine said he’ll miss that.

The reality is his slight size when combined with no-fear attitude probably contributed to his fate. His head was at about the same height as the shoulders of defenseman he was determined to beat. He came at them with the acceleration of a rock fired out of a slingshot. Something had to give.

“He didn’t use that speed in safe areas,” said Smith, who took a two-year, $9.6-million gamble on LaFontaine last summer when the Sabres refused, citing medical concerns. “I think at the end of the day, it’s the style of game that he had, with his blinding speed, that ended his career. His disrespect for his own safety ended his career prematurely.”

LaFontaine wouldn’t change a thing.

“I always loved that speed type of game, that fast-paced game,” he said. “Just the freedom of being out there and being in tune and being focussed. It’s just a special feeling to be out there in the environment that you’re in, and so focussed that you don’t hear anything around you other than those plays and those moments that are occurring. Those are great times.”

So they’re over. Fine. Spill no tears. He leaves with 468 goals and 1,013 points in 865 games. His career goals-per-game ratio of .541 is the NHL’s eighth-best.

“Knowing what I know and what I’ve gone through with concussions, there’s a part of me that’s relieved, too, that I don’t have to experience that again,” LaFontaine said. “It’s what the game has done for me, not what it hasn’t done.

“It hasn’t been easy at times,” he said a week after announcing his decision to retire, “but I know it’s the right thing to do.”

Knowing the right thing to do is not always this easy when it comes to head injuries. Was it the right thing, in hindsight, for LaFontaine to come back a year ago, now that we know one mid-grade concussion was all it took to end his career? Was it the right thing for the Sabres to say they weren’t satisfied it was safe for LaFontaine to play despite his having Kelly’s blessing, thus drawing criticism from fans (and LaFontaine’s agent, Don Meehan) who said all the Sabres wanted to do was dump salary as the team underwent a change in ownership?

It’s hardly a cut and dried case. Even LaFontaine, who was bitterly upset with the Sabres at the time, but now says he holds no hard feelings against the team, said of his current status: “It’s kind of in a gray area where (doctors) don’t know a whole lot, but they do know it doesn’t get any better.”

Meehan is more blunt: “To see what Buffalo did in the name of business, or what they attempted to do, was in my view disgraceful.”

Sabres’ GM Darcy Regier was on the job less than three months when the LaFontaine situation landed on his desk. He came from the New York Islanders, where he was involved in the concussion issue with, among others, Brett Lindros, who was eventually forced to retire after two seasons.

’Tor me, it was medical and I have no problem stating that,” Regier said. “And with respect to money, financial, if it had got beyond medical, it could have been financial. But before you get to the business you have to get past the medical.” Regier said he never did.

As for the fact that one more concussion did end LaFontaine’s career, Regier said: “It contributed significant credibility to our concerns.”

The tragedy would be if the debate over LaFontaine’s departure from Buffalo obscured what was a brilliant career. Only five years ago, LaFontaine, Alexander Mogilny and Dave Andreychuk were poised to become the first line in history to have three 50-goaI scorers before Andreychuk was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Andreychuk finished with 54, LaFontaine, 53 and Mogilny, 76. Without LaFontaine, Mogilny’s production hasn’t been close since.

“He revolutionized to some extent what you thought of when you thought of an American star player,” Smith said. “He was a superstar regardless of his nationality.”

With all due respect to Joe Mullen, LaFontaine was the first American of his stature in the game and today, the finest American player yet to retire.

That Brian Leetch or Chris Chelios may surpass him does nothing to diminish his record. In 1983, when he was drafted third overall by the Islanders, Meehan’s first significant client, one spot ahead of Steve Yzerman, he was a trailblazer.

“I can honestly say I’ve been a part of that generation of players that really watched the game grow to a tremendous level,” LaFontaine said. “And it was quite a generation of hockey players.”

Here’s how long LaFontaine has been around: In his second NHL game, he scored five points in an 11-6 win. (Anyone seen that kind of score lately outside of a football stadium?) At one point, Maple Leafs’ defenseman Jim Korn hit him from behind and the two got into a shoving match. LaFontaine heard a voice of one of his linemates. “Kid, just go to the penalty box and don’t ask any questions.” And then the voice had it out with Korn, and LaFontaine thought: “Wow, here I am 19 years old, just hoping to get a college scholarship, I played for the United States in the Olympics in Sarajevo and sitting on the bench in the penalty box with Bobby Nystrom.”

The Islanders lost in the Stanley Cup final that season, their Drive for Five ended by the beginning of the Edmonton Oilers’ dynasty. Eight years later LaFontaine was dealt to the Sabres in a blockbuster deal for Pierre Turgeon. But LaFontaine still remembers the words spoken by teammates Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin that first season: Enjoy your time, kid, it goes by fast.

Now LaFontaine has people telling him to make sure he takes the time to enjoy his own kids-daughters Sarah, 7, and Brianna, 5, and son Daniel, 3. That’s what he’ll be doing this fall. The time goes by fast.

LaFontaine will continue to work with the American Academy of Neurology and equipment company CCM on concussion awareness and safety strategies, but beyond that he is noncommittal on his future.

No one ever accused Pat LaFontaine of not wanting to win. But after he says his goodbyes and hangs up on a 40-minute phone conversation, you realize the Stanley Cup was never mentioned. The question never crossed your mind. Nor his. 

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