Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky, often referred to as "The Great One," is a legendary figure in professional hockey, known for his unparalleled scoring ability and strategic playmaking. Born in 1961 in Brantford, Ontario, Gretzky demonstrated extraordinary talent in various sports from a young age, ultimately focusing on hockey, which he began playing at just two years old. By the time he was a teenager, Gretzky was already breaking records in youth leagues, leading his family to relocate to Toronto to support his burgeoning career.
His professional journey began in the World Hockey Association before he transitioned to the NHL, where he became the primary catalyst for the Edmonton Oilers, leading them to four Stanley Cups in five seasons during the 1980s. Gretzky is renowned for several remarkable achievements, including scoring fifty goals in the first fifty games of a season, a feat he accomplished multiple times. After a high-profile trade to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, he played a key role in popularizing hockey in California. Throughout his career, he amassed an incredible 2,857 points, a record that remains unchallenged.
Following his retirement in 1999, Gretzky continued to influence the sport as a coach, part-owner, and analyst, while also engaging in philanthropic efforts to promote youth hockey. His contributions to the game, both as a player and a mentor, have solidified his legacy as one of the sport's greatest icons.
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Wayne Gretzky
Canadian hockey player
- Born: January 26, 1961
Immediately after entering professional hockey at the age of seventeen, Gretzky began breaking single-game, season, and career scoring records. Known as the Great One, he was the major force behind the Edmonton Oilers’ winning four championships in five seasons.
Early Life
Wayne Gretzky (GREHTS-kee) was born to be an athlete. In school, he participated in baseball, soccer, basketball, ice hockey, lacrosse, golf, track, and cross-country running, doing well in all sports. Hockey, however, was his main sport. At age two he was already skating on the Nith River near his grandparents’ farm and in the local park’s outdoor rink. When Gretzky was four years old, his father, Walter, flooded the backyard to make an ice “rink” for his son and other neighborhood boys. His father later admitted he made the rink not to help develop his son into a hockey star but because his own feet had gotten too cold from standing around in the park while Wayne skated. His mother, Phyllis, also supported Wayne’s skating mania.
Six-year-old Wayne began playing in the major novice league for ten year olds, because at that time there was no league for children his age. He scored only one goal in that first year, but the next year he scored 27, then 104, then 196. By the time he reached age ten, he was still just four feet four inches tall, but he scored 378 goals in sixty-nine games. The second-place scorer made 140 goals.
It was around this time that a local reporter started to call him the Great Gretzky and the public began besieging him for autographs. Some parents of other Brantford-area boys began to resent his success, and they even threatened him. By the time he was age fourteen, the abuse became so bad that he moved with his family to Toronto and joined the Vaughan Nationals hockey team. Some of his new teammates were twenty years old. Gretzky managed to score two goals in his first game with the new team.
In 1977, Gretzky went to Sault Ste. Marie in northern Ontario, his first time far away from home. He had always worn uniform number 9, honoring his hero Gordie Howe, but a Greyhounds veteran already had that number. Coach Muzz MacPherson suggested that he double it, as Phil Esposito had done when traded to the New York Rangers. Gretzky wore number 99 from then until his retirement in 1999.
In 1978, Gretzky was seventeen years old but too young to play in the National Hockey League (NHL), so he signed an eight-year personal-services contract with Nelson Skalbania, owner of the World Hockey Association’s (WHA) Indianapolis Racers. After just eight games, Skalbania sold the contract to former partner Peter Pocklington, owner of the WHA’s Edmonton Oilers. That 1978–1979 season was the WHA’s last, as the Oilers and three other teams merged into the NHL, bringing with them Gretzky and several other star players.
Life’s Work
One of Gretzky’s most cherished records was scoring fifty goals in the first fifty games of a season. Maurice “Rocket” Richard had done so in 1944–1945, and Mike Bossy matched it in 1980–1981. Gretzky aimed for that record during the 1981–1982 season. In the Oilers’ thirty-eighth game, he scored four goals to reach forty-five. The next game, he scored five goals to reach fifty in only thirty-nine games, a remarkable feat. He achieved the fifty-in-fifty mark two more times, in 1983–1984 and 1984–1985.
The Oilers and Gretzky did well in the NHL, but they did not win the Stanley Cup championship until 1984, when they beat the reigning New York Islanders in five games. The Oilers won the cup again in 1985, 1987, and 1988.
In the summer of 1988, Gretzky helped engineer a trade that sent him to the Los Angeles Kings, causing an uproar across Canada. Los Angeles had been in the NHL since 1967, but it was the acquisition of Gretzky that made hockey a popular sport there. After he was traded to the Kings, the closest Gretzky ever came to winning the Stanley Cup was in 1993. Los Angeles beat the Montreal Canadiens in the first game of the cup finals, and they led with less than two minutes left in game two. Montreal coach Jacques Demers picked that crucial moment to call for an official measurement of Marty McSorley’s stick, whose blade was curved more than the rules allowed. Montreal tied the game on the ensuing power play and went on to win that game and then the series. Gretzky never reached the Stanley Cup finals again. The infamous stick was displayed in a glass case in Gretzky’s Toronto restaurant. Gretzky finished his career with stints playing for the St. Louis Blues and the New York Rangers, retiring in 1999.
Gretzky credited his father, who died in 2021, for much of his skill. Young Walter played at the junior B level and later served as an amateur hockey coach. He was a finesse player and passed that along to his sons. Not all of Walter’s advice was right for his son, though. When Gretzky was the stick boy for the team that his father coached, Walter would tell him “never skate behind the net.” Many years later, the area behind the net became known as “Gretzky’s office” because he was so good at passing to scorers from that location. His low threshold for panic made the spot ideal for Gretzky. In situations where other players would hurriedly get rid of the puck, Gretzky would calmly wait until a player was open or the goalie was out of position. Indeed, his behind-the-net play helped get the goalie out of position, forcing him to look over both shoulders and lose his focus of the game in front of him. With Gretzky behind the net, teammates could get clear on either side of the net, receive his pass, and score as the goalie lost focus.
When Gretzky retired after the 1998–1999 season, the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee waived the usual three-year waiting period. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman retired Gretzky’s number 99 for all teams, the only time that honor had been conferred. Gretzky won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player nine times in his first ten seasons. As the league’s leading scorer, he won the Art Ross Trophy ten times, and for his sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct he was awarded the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy five times. When he retired, he held or shared forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six NHL All-Star Game records. He scored 2,857 points in his career, a record that dwarfed the second-place mark by almost 1,000 points.
In his autobiography, Gretzky said that he dreamed of owning an NHL team some day but definitely did not want to be a coach or a general manager. He became part-owner and managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2001 and became the team’s coach in 2004, a position he held until his resignation following the franchise's bankruptcy in 2009. The following year, he served as an ambassador for Vancouver and special advisor for Canada's men's hockey team during the Winter Olympics. He later participated in several alumni games, including the Heritage Classic in 2003 and the 2017 Winter Classic Alumni game, played in December 2016. In October 2016, Gretzky became a partner and the vice chair of his old team's parent company, the Oilers Entertainment Group. He remained in that position until May 2021, citing the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and life changes as his reasons for stepping down. Later that year, became a sports analyst for Turner Sports. In 2023, Gretzky signed a multi-year extension to remain with the program.
In his retirement, Gretzky established the Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery and donates a portion of the proceeds from the winery to support and promote youth hockey. Gretzky and his wife, Janet, had five children together.
Significance
Gretzky’s most significant contributions as a player include his ability to anticipate the location of the puck; his behind-the-net play; his great passing ability, coupled with his uncanny awareness of the strengths of his teammates and his ability to complement those strengths; and the exactness of his shooting. Contrary to his father’s early instructions, Gretzky found that skating behind the goalie worked for him, and for his team. That the Edmonton Oilers won four championships in five seasons with Gretzky attests to the uniqueness and greatness of his play on the ice.
Bibliography
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