Mark Messier willed his teams to succeed. AP

This was Mark Messier: On a late New York morning eight or maybe 10 years ago, a visitor was ushered into the living room of his uptown brownstone. On the table was a book about Eastern philosophy -- Zen, if memory serves. On the television were cartoons.

The contrast between the brain food of the book and the electronic wallpaper on the flickering screen encapsulated a man who had the skill to operate on many levels. He was, when necessary, a scorer but he also was a presence. He was a consummate leader and, especially in his carefree early days in Edmonton, a raucous follower. He was open-minded and curious about many things but could be unyielding in his attitude about how the game should be played, as coaches like the late Roger Neilson and Tom Renney would come to know all too well.

He was an Edmontonian who loved New York. He could move freely in the kind of social whirl that winds up on Page 6 of the New York Post, but he had the most common of touches. Indeed, his finest moment on the ice might not have been connected to any of his six Stanley Cups but to opening night at Madison Square Garden in 2001, mere weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center in his adopted hometown.

As the hockey teams of the New York City police and fire departments skated out in the solemn pre-game ceremonies, Messier took a proffered fireman's helmet and plunked it on his shaved head. Messier was telling the 18,200 in the arena (and to anybody else in a country that still had its eyes on a wounded city) that "I am one of these guys" and, by extension, those guys are all of us. Though he finished second to Wayne Gretzky in career scoring and Gordie Howe in career games played, for one emotional night, he was, with no apologies necessary to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the No. 1 citizen of the first city of this nation.

Messier developed an extraordinarily high hockey IQ during his quarter of a century as a professional -- something for which he never received enough credit, incidentally -- but his acute sense of the game was never as great as his sense of the moment. Perhaps no one ever quite has grasped moments as profoundly as Messier, who took situations and bent them according to his will.

When the 1990 Edmonton Oilers, making their first Cup drive without Gretzky, were in trouble against Chicago, Messier basically ran the Blackhawks out of the rink in the pivotal game in the semifinal series. When his Rangers fell behind a splendid New Jersey team in the 1994 semifinals, Messier guaranteed a Game 6 win in the Meadowlands, backing it up with a hat trick. When the Rangers hung on to win Game 7 against the Devils and survive a seven-game series against Vancouver for their first championship in 54 years, Messier jumped up and down in childlike glee, later taking the Cup from Commissioner Gary Bettman and shaking it like a champagne bottle he intended to spray on eight million New Yorkers.