Gretzky Wayne - The great one: the complete wayne gretzky collection

Copyright 2012 Time Inc.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The great one : the complete Wayne Gretzky collection / Sports Illustrated, ed.

eISBN: 978-0-7710-8362-4

1. Gretzky, Wayne, 1961-. 2. Hockey players Canada Biography.

GV848.5.G78G74 2012 796.962092 C2012-902776-6

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD
BY MICHAEL FARBER

LEARNED IN ALL THE LORE OF OLD MEN
BY E.M. SWIFT. FEBRUARY 20, 1978

MINOR MIRACLE UP NORTH
BY JERRY KIRSHENBAUM. DECEMBER 11, 1978

THE BEST AND GETTING BETTER
BY E.M. SWIFT. OCTOBER 12, 1981

THE LORD OF THE RINKS
BY MIKE DELNAGRO. FEBRUARY 15, 1982

GREATNESS CONFIRMED
BY E.M. SWIFT. DECEMBER 27, 1982

MAN WITH A STREAK OF SHEER GENIUS
BY JACK FALLA. JANUARY 23, 1984

THE KEY MAN IS SHARPER
BY JACK FALLA. FEBRUARY 18, 1985

HOT SHOTS ON ICE
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. JUNE 1, 1987

HERES THAT MAN AGAIN
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. MAY 2, 1988

WOE, CANADA
BY E.M. SWIFT. AUGUST 22, 1988

A KING IN EDMONTON
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. OCTOBER 31, 1988

WHERE HE REIGNS, GOALS POUR
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. DECEMBER 19, 1988

DYNASTY UNDONE
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. APRIL 24, 1989

A BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT
BY JAY GREENBERG. OCTOBER 23, 1989

ONLY MORTAL AFTER ALL?
BY JAY GREENBERG. FEBRUARY 26, 1990

A GREAT 30TH FOR THE GREAT ONE
BY JAY GREENBERG. JANUARY 28, 1991

LOOKING TO A GREAT RECOVERY
BY RICK REILLY. DECEMBER 16, 1991

RETURN OF THE KING
BY RICHARD HOFFER. JANUARY 18, 1993

A STAR IS REBORN
BY E.M. SWIFT. MAY 17, 1993

KING OF THE KINGS
BY JON SCHER. JUNE 7, 1993

THE GREATEST, AND HOWE!
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. MARCH 14, 1994

LESS THAN GREAT
BY MICHAEL FARBER. MARCH 6, 1995

KING NO MORE
BY RICHARD HOFFER. MARCH 11, 1996

THE GOOD OLD DAYS
BY E.M. SWIFT. OCTOBER 7, 1996

STILL GOING GREAT
BY AUSTIN MURPHY. MAY 5, 1997

ONE OF A KIND
BY E.M. SWIFT. APRIL 26, 1999

THE GREAT ONES
BY MICHAEL FARBER. MARCH 4, 2002

GREAT TO BE BACK
BY E.M. SWIFT. NOVEMBER 28, 2005

SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR REVISITED
BY BRIAN CAZENEUVE. DECEMBER 12, 2011

MICHAEL FARBER

WAYNE GRETZKY IS GONE, BUT HIS FINGERPRINTS ARE everywhere.

He is not in the game he left a sorry situation in Phoenix in 2009 and is still owed millions by a forlorn franchise that became the ward of the NHL but in so many ways he remains the game. Modern hockey pros are all the sons of 99, earning their swell livings in a business he reinvented. When the puck is dropped in Anaheim or south Florida or any place else with beach weather, you sense Gretzky. When a surprising trade is made, someone always says, Even Wayne Gretzky got traded. Twice. And when a player goes on a scoring jag, even in this Dead Puck era, you instinctively look up Gretzky because he is the standard by which any forward will be judged until hell freezes over or Canada melts. Gretzky held or shared 61 records 40 regular season, 15 playoff, six All-Star when he retired in 1999. They all still stand. Records were made to be broken. Just not his, apparently.

With deference to the fabulous Sidney Crosby, who scored the most important goal in the most important game ever contested on Canadian ice in the 135-year history of the arena game, Gretzky remains the one name in the sport that reverberates beyond its boundaries.

If Crosby hosts Saturday Night Live, as Gretzky did, awkwardly, in 1989, then we will be happy to revisit the theory.

The advent of the truly modern NHL is generally dated to the 1967 expansion that spread the game beyond the so-called Original Six, but it begins in earnest with Gretzky. Walter and Phylliss son was destined for greatness but no one could have guessed this slender boy from Brantford, Ont., would presage hockeys future. The 13-year, $124-million contract Alexander Ovechkin signed in 2008 with Washington? On his 18th birthday, in 1979, Gretzky signed a 21-year personal services deal with Peter Pocklington, who owned the Edmonton Oilers, then of the World Hockey Association. The dismantling of the 2010 Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks for economic reasons? Through no fault of his own, Gretzky and his Oilers traveled that road decades before the salary-cap era. Breaking faith with a city, a country and a player who had hand-delivered four Stanley Cups, Pocklington traded Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings on Aug. 9, 1988, thus representing the moment the NHL flew off its axis. The deal led to expansion in nontraditional markets in the United States as surely as Gretzky opened up the previously fallow space behind the net. The headline on E.M. Swifts trade story in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED : Woe, Canada. Indeed. In 1988, the year of the Gretzkys last Cup with the Oilers, seven of 21 teams (33.3%) were based in Canada; before the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to once-abandoned Winnipeg for the 201112 season, six of 30 teams (20%) were based in hockeys homeland.

If Gretzky could not see hockeys tectonic shift through his tears on the day that remains a where-were-you-when moment for many Canadians well, that might be the first time he had failed to anticipate something. Gretzky-vision. He always operated in the astral plane, a hockey avatar able to peer into the immediate future.