Graves' legacy with Rangers was about more than his performance

Accompanied by Mark Messier, Mike Richter and Brian Leetch, Adam Graves holds a gift guitar autographed by Bruce Springsteen before Tuesday night's ceremony. Chris McGrath/Getty Images Related Links Rangers honor Graves, retire No. 9 uniform

NEW YORK -- The raising of Adam Graves' No. 9 to the rafters of Madison Square Garden Tuesday night marked a rarity among retirement ceremonies. This had less to do with the 52 goals, then a team-record, he scored in the Rangers' Stanley Cup-winning season of 1993-94 or the 280 goals he scored for the franchise over his career. For one night, the most tangible honor a franchise can bestow on an athlete had more to do with intangibles. In an age of me-first, showy self-congratulation, it is nearly an anomaly that an athlete should be so honored for exhibiting character rather than being one. Scoff with good reason at contrived celebration of celebrity, but this was a people's champion in a street-smart city that spits out phoniness like a bad case of Alex Rodriguez.

After winning a Cup with the Oilers in 1990, he came to the Rangers as a lightly publicized offseason pick-up who had scored seven goals the year before. "The phrase you kept hearing was 'character guy,'" recalls goalie Mike Richter, Graves' Ranger teammate for a decade. "You hear that with different players, but with Adam you'd literally hear it from everyone. Either they were reading from the same script or we were getting someone special."

Graves owed that to his upbringing. The son of Toronto policeman Robert Graves often played big brother to the at-risk kids his father brought home. That meant Adam got the top bunk and Linda Graves would cook up an extra dinner. Forty foster kids passed through the Graves home. As a New Yorker, Graves embraced community service with an uncommon zeal. "The Rangers have always been involved with charity events," says Brian Leetch, "but Adam was just doing so many things on his own, you couldn't keep track of them."

At one such December outing during Graves' playing days, fans were asked to bring gifts for the Toys for Tots campaign that gave Christmas presents to underprivileged kids. In return they could get an autograph from Graves. The autographs led to pictures and at times lengthy conversations. The line extended around two corners and the hour-long event turned into five. "We would just laugh about it." Ranger captain Mark Messier recalled of Graves' charity work. "He'd go to a hospital, a school, another hospital. We'd say, 'He can't keep it up this long. He needs to pace himself, doesn't he?'"

One morning when a member of the Rangers' staff placed a large box on the stool next to Graves locker, Messier turned to defenseman Richter and said: "That's how he does it. He gets a box of nice delivered every morning."

Richter recalled Graves being late for a busride back from a practice rink. "I remember someone shouting, 'Where's Adam?' Someone yelled out: 'Feeding the stray dog.' Then another voice said: 'Helping the lady across the street.' You know what, he was giving away tickets. For real."

"What separated Adam from the rest was the connection he made with people," said Messier, who let his emotions take over as usual when he spoke about Graves during a pregame speech. "It was an honor for me to introduce Adam because I knew him so well, but I'll bet everybody in the building felt they could make that introduction, because he was so accessible to everyone here. He had time for everybody."

On the ice, Graves served as Robin to Messier's persona of Batman, while playing on the left side of the captain centerman. If a foe so much as looked askew at Messier, well equipped to settle his own scores, Graves would reflexively come to his captain's defense. "Matthew Barnaby came to the Rangers [after years of being a feisty rival with Buffalo]," Leetch recalled. "The first thing he said was: 'every time I threw a check in this building I'd hear Graves' skates chasing me from behind."

Graves also raised his goal totals from 26 to 36 to 52 before a bad back he sustained from the pounding he took in front of opposing nets hampered his mobility. Appropriately, when he broke Vic Hadfield's club record with his 51st goal of the 1993-94 season in Edmonton, he was being cross-checked to the ice by Oilers defenseman Luke Richardson. That season, the Rangers ended a 54-year jinx with their only Stanley Cup victory since 1940. It became another joke in the Madison Square Garden pressroom that Graves would insist his goals were merely preposterous luck, silly deflections, accidents of circumstance. Of the record tying 50th, Graves remarked: "I made sure to close my eyes before I shot." Of his series clinching wraparound overtime goal in Game 5 against the Devils in 1997, he said, "I was falling down. That's about the only way I ever score."

In spite of Graves' avowed shortcomings, teammates did manage to shoot the puck off his stick 329 times in a 16-year career. "He went to the hard areas of the ice, where most people really don't want to go, because you have to pay a price to score goals," Messier says. "He made so much of his skills by just refusing to leave the area where he knew good things would happen."

On Monday, Richter and Messier joked about the odd combination of grit and grace that bespoke Graves. "He politely crushed people," said Messier. "Yeah, he said sorry after he broke your nose," added Richter. "I think the things went hand-in-hand. I don't think I've ever run across someone who just willingly felt a sense of responsibility for people he came into contact with. That could be a teammate who needed a hand or someone with cancer who needed a hand. I don't know if every athlete does that the way he does, but it's what we should do. I'm sure people around here will think of that when they see No. 9 up there."