Pittsburgh ? Unlike many aging superstars, Mario Lemieux’s problem wasn’t that his heart no longer was in the game. Rather, his heart no longer allowed him to play the game the way he always had played it.

The Lemieux way – with greatness and grace, with dominating skills but also with a quiet dignity – may prove very difficult for future generations of hockey players to rival.

Lemieux, his Hall of Fame talent eroded by an ongoing heart problem, retired from the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second time Tuesday in a long, productive yet star-crossed career, but this time was different.

This was the last retirement, and the tears in his eyes and the quiver in his voice said so. So did the proud but sad looks on the faces of wife Nathalie, their four children and the Penguins players who gathered to say goodbye, even though it visibly pained all to do so.

“This is it,” Lemieux said, “and it hurts.”

The 40-year-old Penguins owner-player learned in early December he has atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can cause his pulse to flutter wildly and must be controlled by medication. He returned Dec. 16 against Buffalo, but the problem flared up again in the third period and he has not played since.

Lemieux, the NHL’s seventh-leading career scorer with 1,723 points, practiced the last several weeks with the intent of playing again. But after several repeat episodes of an irregular pulse, he decided his health should be his primary consideration, especially with a raft of new stars turning the NHL into a faster, younger man’s game.