Rare photo of ‘The Great One’ as a Pete sparks memories
There is an interesting story surrounding one of the more well-known photographs involving the Peterborough Petes and their former trainer and coach.
Dick Todd was the trainer when Wayne Gretzky played his three games with the Petes in 1977.
“Wayne played for the Toronto Young Nats and he was basically the reason the Petes affiliated with them,” Todd said.
“We knew he was a great player and (through the affiliation) we were able to bring him in for some weekend games. It gave us a chance to look at him as a potential draft (pick).”
Gretzky, who was attending school in Toronto, arrived late for his debut game in Peterborough.
“He arrived after the game had started,” Todd remembered, “and I had to find him equipment that fit. The head gear was the big problem; his head was so small that I had to basically fill the interior of the helmet with foam in order for it not to rotate around on his head.”
Gretzky ended up assisting on three goals in his three-game call-up. The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds drafted Gretzky the next year.
In his only full junior year, Gretzky scored 70 goals and assisted on another 112 in the 64 games he played.
The next season he moved to the World Hockey Association playing with both Indianapolis and Edmonton. In 1979, the WHA folded and Edmonton, with Gretzky, joined the NHL.
Todd remembers Gretzky in those three games with the Petes “as being very small and slight. He did seem to have an instinct during the course of a game to make one magnificent play to set someone in the clear. He was not strong enough or quick enough yet,” Todd recollected, “to get inside himself but he was smart enough with the puck to get clear and set up someone else.”
The next contact Todd had with Gretzky was in 1996 when Todd was assistant coach of the New York Rangers, Gretzky’s last NHL team.
One day Todd asked Gretzky if he remembered what number he wore in those three games with the Petes.
He didn’t and, when Todd told him it was “26,” it perked Gretzky’s interest.
After practice, Todd showed Gretzky a photograph of the skinny adolescent in a Petes uniform. Petes executive member Ed Rowe had sent Todd five copies of the photo hoping to get three signed as Christmas gifts for relatives. The others were for Todd and Gretzky.
“Wayne thought that was OK, so he signed them,” Todd said.
A few months later, Todd told Gretzky’s father, Walter, about the photo. He was thrilled.
“Apparently, the Petes were the only team Wayne had played for that his father did not have a photo of him in uniform,” he told Todd.
It now adorns the basement shrine in his Brantford home the proud father has put together of his son.
Todd remembered Gretzky as being very magnanimous to others in the game that don’t get the limelight. He frequently took the trainers and stick boys out to dinner.
He allowed ex-Pete Matt Johnson to live with him at his Los Angeles home when the rookie was at his first training camp with the Kings.
One Christmas, he even gave Todd a ride back to Canada on his chartered jet.
“There are so many moments in a game when he seems to have eyes in the back of his head,” Todd remembered, “but I recall the time he used the side of the net to complete a pass. To have the confidence to even attempt such a play showed how incredible he was.”
Don Barrie is a retired teacher, former Buffalo Sabres scout and a member of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Peterborough and District Sports Hall of Fame. His column appears each Saturday in The Examiner.