You might see him playing with his kids on the Boston Commons if you should be in the area this summer. You probably won’t recognize him unless you are a real hockey fan.

Brian Leetch retired from hockey this week the same way he played the game: with dignity and modesty.

Thirteen hundred games in the NHL over 18 years, 11 all-star games, two Norris Trophies as the league’s best defenseman, and the Conn Smythe as the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1994 is not a bad legacy.

Yet, there was more. He won that Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers in 1994, the year the Cup drought ended in New York and the fan held up the sign after Game 7 at Madison Square Garden that said, “Now I can die in peace.”

Leetch did not play last year. There were offers before and during the season for him to return, but he stayed in Boston with his family. He said he tried to get in shape for a while, and then realized he did not have the drive anymore. Enough.

He waited until the world would hardly be paying attention to retirement announcements from hockey players to say he was done. That is so consistent with the man.

There are few athletes I have encountered in any sport in my days working games that I respect more than Brian Leetch.

The story was never him; it was always the team or a teammate. He was almost shy, but it was a concerted shyness embedded in an honest modesty.

When ESPN broadcast the NHL, we would ask Leetch to be one of the cameo faces we used during games: that slow turn from a side angle to full face. It’s a “hero shot” in the business, designed to entice you, the viewer, to keep watching and follow the “heroes.”

Leetch would politely refuse. “I don’t do those,” he said to me.

He was as skilled a defenseman and as smooth a skater as you are likely to see. Yet, even on the ice, there was no pomp, just professionalism blanketed in the grace of humility.

The only time I ever saw him search out the press was prior to a game in New York when he played for the Rangers.

A Ranger attendant came to me and said, “Leetch would like to see you if you have a minute.” I’m sure that is exactly what Leetch told him to say, and to say it politely.

Leetch had a friend who wanted to propose to his girlfriend and his friend wanted me to ask the question on air during the game, which the two would be watching.

Leetch was smiling and somewhat embarrassed, but it was clear what a good friend this was for him even to be asking.

I proposed for the friend, she said yes, and Brian Leetch said thank you.

The matter as handled by Leetch was simple, honorable, considerate, and without attention drawn to himself.

I stopped using the word hero when referring to athletes a long time ago. I have seen the inside of the den.

Brian Leetch is a hero, not merely as a player, and he will be in the Hall of Fame, but as a human being.

There was a time when common decency, humility, honor, and effort were treasured commodities. They still are.

Brian Leetch never forgot that, on or off the ice.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.