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Wayne Gretzky—The Great One
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When a teenaged Wayne Gretzky arrived
in the National Hockey League
(NHL) with the Oilers in 1979,
he had plenty of critics. Established NHL pundits
claimed that the kid was too small, too wiry, and too slow
to be a force in the League. Although, he may have been
an offensive talent in the
World Hockey
Association (WHA), he was
now playing the best in the world in a new,
improved 21-team NHL.
Gretzky proved his critics wrong. Not only was he a great player,
he would become
the most dominant player of his generation, and perhaps of all-time. He was bigger than the game
itself. Canadians identified themselves as fellow
citizens of Gretzky, and foreigners posed with questions
on Canada, named Gretzky first, before prime ministers
or other celebrities.
Gretzky set 61 separate regular
season and playoff records, 60 of which he still holds in 2003.
With 2,857 career points, Wayne Gretzky is the NHL’s all-time
points leader and has
1,007 more points than second-place Gordie Howe. Gretzky
earned 1,669 of these points as an Edmonton Oiler. From 1979-88,
he played for the Oilers, and scored 583 goals. He finished
his career with
894, first-place all-time, and 93 more than his idol Gordie Howe. He has
382 all-time playoff points, again best in NHL
history. To put Gretzky’s playoff performances into
perspective, consider this: New Jersey Devils Scott Niedermayer and Jamie Langebrunner finished tied for
the scoring lead with 18 points each during the
2002-2003 playoffs. In the four
years that Gretzky captained the Oilers to
Stanley Cup victories, his
point totals were 35, 47, 34 and 43. He won the Conn
Smythe Trophy as the playoff's most valuable player in both 1985 and 1988.
Gretzky set the NHL record for points
in a season in 1985-86 with 215 and goals in a season
(92) in 1981-82 (see the Record Breaker section for a
more detailed rundown of his achievements).
Gretzky won the Hart Trophy
as the
League’s most valuable player in eight of the nine
seasons he spent with the Oilers. The run began in the
1979-80 season, when Gretzky tied Los Angeles
Kings’ star Marcel Dionne for the NHL scoring lead with
137 points. That year Dionne scored 53 goals to Gretzky’s
51, and the NHL honoured Dionne with the Art Ross Trophy
as the League’s
top scorer. That year Gretzky played his first season in
the NHL, but was forbidden to compete for
the Calder Trophy as the
League’s top rookie because of
the full pro-season he had spent in the World Hockey
Association. Despite not earning either the Art Ross or
Calder Trophy for the 1979-80 season, Gretzky earned the nod for the Hart.
In 1988, Wayne Gretzky married
Hollywood actress Janet Jones, and the ceremony was the
biggest social-calendar event in Edmonton history.
Hockey stars, celebrities and media from around the world
attended the wedding. Gretzky was a pop-culture icon,
he regularly appeared in ads, invited to be a guest
on the famous American soap opera The Young and the Restless,
and once hosted Saturday Night
Live.
In a move dictated by economics,
the Oilers traded Gretzky to Los Angeles in 1988;
instantly becoming a star attraction in Hollywood. He
transformed the Kings from a team that struggled to
attract 10,000 fans, and made a Fabulous Forum Kings
game into the hottest
ticket in town. As a King, he passed Howe’s record as the
league’s all-time scorer in October of 1989. Ironically,
he did it at Northlands Coliseum, wearing Kings colours,
in front of his
adoring Edmonton fans.
His celebrity in California brought a
new era to the NHL. Thanks in part to Gretzky's
popularity in America, the League’s
governors approved an ambitious expansion plan that has
raised membership to 30 teams in the 21st century.
In Los Angeles, Gretzky won the Hart
Trophy again
in 1989. In 1993, he would lead the Kings on a heroic
playoff run. The Kings were down three games to two to
the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Campbell Conference
final, and Toronto columnists criticized Gretzky for what many saw as a substandard performance.
One Toronto
columnist suggested that Gretzky had “a piano tied to
his back.” Gretzky, who had a habit of using negative
press to spur himself to greatness, led the Kings to a
valiant comeback and an appearance in the Stanley Cup
finals. Gretzky said his performance against Toronto in
Game 7 of that series, a game in which he scored a hat trick,
was the greatest game he ever played. In the finals, the Kings
failed to win the Stanley Cup, as they lost 4-1 to
Montréal Canadiens.
At the end of 1995-96 season, legal troubles
caught up with Kings owner Bruce McNall, and he
traded Gretzky to the St. Louis Blues. Gretzky earned 21 points in 18 games as
a Blue, but did not return due to an unhappy relationship with iron-fisted coach Mike Keenan,
and instead joined the New York Rangers. Even with
old Oilers pal Mark Messier
as a teammate, the Rangers
would not become a contender.
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