***
On this day, August 29th, in 1994, Mario Lemieux announced he would miss the entirely of the 1994-95 NHL season.
The news was not necessarily a complete shock to the hockey world. Lemieux had been battling Hodgkin's lymphoma and back problems for four years. After undergoing a second surgery to repair a herniated back muscle on July 28, 1993, the Penguins' star center missed the first ten games of the 1993-94 season and was limited to just twenty-two games that year.
While Lemieux was back in the lineup that postseason, commentators noted that he was playing like a shell of his former self.