Seventeen Seasons. 690 Goals. 1,033 Assists. Six Scoring Titles. Five Player of the Year Awards. Four 60-goal seasons. 1.88 ppg, the most by any player in modern history. Two Stanley Cups.

You probably know that Mario Lemieux hung up his skates today, for the second, and probably last, time. The greatest hockey player in Pittsburgh history---arguably the best player in NHL history---is finished, retiring with a whimper after sitting out the past few months with heart trouble while his team, of which he is both captain and Chief, wallows in the cellar of the Eastern Conference.

There’s no question that Le Magnifique leaves an indelible mark upon the game and upon his adopted home, but to many---including almost everyone I spoke with today---it was time for Super Mario to go. Some argued that his numbers were down. Some said that he wasn’t the player to thrive in the new, faster NHL. One friend even argued that Lemiuex’s departure was what the team needed most: To cut ties to the loose, super-talented high-flying Cup-winners of the early 90s, making room for the discipline that the team so desperately needs as it builds around its new superstar.

In a lot of ways, I agree with all of these arguments. Mario’s numbers were certainly down: He had scored only seven goals in his 26 games of action, a paltry sum for him even in the lock-and-hold days of the trap, and an extreme drought in this year of the open, high-scoring NHL (the league’s leading scorer, Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk, has 35 goals). Like Brett Hull, who called it quits at the beginning of this season, the “new” NHL was tailor-made for players like Lemieux…when they were young. But at 40, he’s a shell of the dynamic, did-you-see-that scorer that delighted me with six goals at my very first NHL game.

The team argument from my friend Pat holds water, too: Since making the coaching change from the wide-open players’ atmosphere to the boot camp of Michel Therrien, the team has made strides—in effort if not on the leaderboard. Lemieux’s departure allows the franchise to start fresh, to let go of the glory days and embrace the tough road back to relevance.

But what makes Lemieux’s retirement most fitting is his last season on ice. Like Joe Namath’s forgettable campaign with the Rams, Emmitt Smith’s shadow of himself in Arizona and Franco’s limping out of the league with Seattle, Mario’s final campaign has been difficult to watch. Skating with a geriatric line with John LeClair and Mark Recchi, Lemieux was tough to watch. His amazing feet, perfect stickwork and killer instinct were replaced by plodding shifts that offered few scoring chances and almost no glimpses of the talent that had brought a city to its feet for so many seasons. If there was a silver lining to Mario’s swan song, it was that it was not in a strange uniform, but in the Igloo, set to the score of Mike Lang’s voice.

So my friends are right: It’s good that it’s over. Hockey is being passed to a new generation of sharpshooters and stickhandlers, with a fast-paced, high scoring game to helm back into the public consciousness. Pittsburgh hockey has a fitting heir in Sidney Crosby, a young man who could, should the team stay in town, bring the franchise back to the glory that Lemieux’s presence once promised. It is time for Mario to go.

And none of that makes me feel any better.

Almost all of the Pittsburgh sports heroes I’ve watched—Andy Van Slyke, Barry Bonds, Barry Foster, Rod Woodson—have skipped town or faded into obscurity. With each one, I have either learned to remember him fondly (Van Slyke) or despise him for abandoning my team (Bonds, though I realize the Bucs let him go). All of them except Mario, that is. Lemieux not only didn’t leave town, he literally saved the team years after bringing it to glory, buying the franchise and then returning from retirement to lead the Pens to the Eastern Conference finals in 2000.

Try as we might to make them into microcosms of society of metaphors for life’s secrets, professional sports are, at their very core, kids’ games. Watching a man who thrilled you as a boy grow to be a shell of himself as an older man does more than preach of mortality and the fleeting nature of brilliance. It means a part of your childhood is over. Moments of magnificence you shared with your father, family and friends are gone. The couches, televisions and soon the Arena where we watched those moments are gone. Many of those friends are gone, too. And someday, if you’re lucky enough to still have him, so will be your father.

For a guy in his early 20s, Mario’s retirement hits huge. I wasn’t alive to watch Pops, Bradshaw, Franco and Mean Joe make Pittsburgh the “City of Champions,” and I wasn’t old enough to watch them retire. Lemieux is the first Pittsburgh Hall of Fame hero of my generation to retire in black and gold, and I can finally imagine what those sign-offs meant to the city. I’m holding back tears as if a loved one has passed, and I realize that in a way, one has: It’s a little me, marveling with my uncle that Mario can be so big and that Mitsubishi makes televisions as well as cars, or clutching a copy of “Goal” while my Dad explains why Mario will always be better than Gretzky. Those memories are as wonderful as the myriad Mario highlights they’re set to. But it’s time for them to go.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Elvis has just left the building.