Longtime National Hockey League journeyman player, no relation to Mario Lemieux, former player for and now owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins. In his long NHL career, Lemieux has played for the Dallas Stars, Phoenix Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils twice, and Colorado Avalanche. His final season was spent playing a very limited role for Zug SwissA in Europe. He seems to have retired following the 2003-04 season.
While a member of the Colorado Avalanche, Lemieux made himself the most hated man in Detroit with a vicious hit on Kris Draper of the Red Wings during the 1996 playoffs. The hit in question, which was made while Draper was not in possession of the puck, managed to drive Draper's face into the boards, breaking his jaw. This was the spark that set off the most bitter rivalry in sports of the late 1990's, Red Wings-Avalanche. This culimated in a later game, on March 27, 1997, during which there were many brawls but perhaps none so memorable as the Wings' Darren McCarty reigning down blows on a turtling Lemieux, directly in retaliation for Lemieux's hit on Draper the previous season.
Lemieux is one of very few players to win the Stanley Cup with three different teams, and the only player to win a Cup with one team (NJ, 1995), go to another team and win it (Colorado, 1996), then return to the previous team and win it again (NJ, 2000).
When he retired, profesional hockey lost one of its greatest all-time cheap shot artists.