Gretzky’s classic tales seem unreal in new era
Flipping through the pages of Wayne Gretzky’s new book, you come across one of many anecdotes that make presentday NHLers shake their heads at the onice excesses of an earlier era.
The book — 99: Stories of the Game— is a history of the NHL mixed with plentiful doses of the Great One’s personal memories. Within it, Gretzky tells the tale of a January night in Edmonton in1984 when by the second intermission he’d racked up four goals and four assists. With 20 minutes to play and eight points on the scoresheet, Gretzky found himself within reasonable striking distance of one of the most enduring records in the sport: Darryl Sittler’s 10-point game.
Gretzky tells the reader that it was the only time in his career in which a coach, in this case Glen Sather, gave him the green light to go on the ice whenever he pleased. Pushing the privilege to its edges, at one point No. 99 took a shift that lasted, by his best recollection, four minutes.
When this nugget was tossed around the Maple Leafs dressing room one day this week, players living through the dead-puck era of 45-second shifts smiled and shook their heads. “Insane,” was the most common reaction. Sitting in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel a few hours later, Gretzky, now age 55 and in town to promote his latest tome, laughed at the memory of his push for double digits.
“I was really tired after the second period. Sather walked in and I had the big oxygen mask on me. And Sather said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, just go,’ ” Gretzky said.
Quick context: Gretzky had racked up a four-point performance the night before in Calgary.
“I remember thinking, ‘Go? I don’t have enough energy to get back to the bench.’ But everybody in the locker room was like, ‘Okay, you have a chance now to break the record or tie the record of10.’ So I went out there and tried.”
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The Great One had just spent time talking with enthusiastic awe about last week’s rare moment in NHL prodigiousness.
He’d been in Edmonton watching on TV alongside Mark Messier when Maple Leafs rookie Auston Matthews scored four goals in two periods in his NHL debut.
“I think I didn’t score until my fourth or fifth game — and it’s a lot harder to score today than it was in 1979,” he said. “So for him to do what he did is just a tremendous start and a confidence booster, not only for him but for the fans of Toronto, for the organization.”
Just as Matthews failed to add to his total in his first game’s third period, Gretzky, back in 1984, had hit his limit. Eight points in a game, a feat Gretzky achieved twice, turned out to be his personal high-water mark. Nobody but Sittler has ever scored more. Still, the story speaks to one of Gretzky’s least talked about strengths. Celebrated rightly and frequently for his “eyes in the back of the head” vision and chessmaster’s genius, he’s less synonymous with insatiable relentlessness. But as Paul Coffey, one of Gretzky’s hall of fameresiding former teammates, once said: “(Gretzky) had 200-point seasons because he was trying to get 300.”
Gretzky nodded at the sentiment and offered an explanation. Though his favourite player as a kid was Gordie Howe, and though he admired end-to-end speedsters like Guy Lafleur and Gilbert Perreault, he patterned himself, in some ways, after Bobby Clarke.
“Bobby Clarke was more of a skater like I was — I could get there, he could get there, but we weren’t the fastest or the smoothest,” he said. “But the one thing about Bobby Clarke that I idolized so much was his work ethic, his tenaciousness.”
Gretzky, of course, turned out to be Bobby Clarke minus the hack-offyour-ankle ruthlessness plus 1,714 additional career points. And Gretzky was always keeping track.
“Glen had a philosophy that was unique . . . He would come in and say, ‘We’re going to win the Stanley Cup. But I want us to win the Vezina Trophy. And I want Coffey to win the Norris. And I want us to win the Hart Trophy. And I want to win the Art Ross.’ He’d say it, ‘I want us to win every trophy,’ ” Gretzky said. “He would be the guy, if we were up 6-2 and there was still 10 minutes left, he’d say, ‘I want to make it 7-2. I want to make it 8-2.’ He always pushed us. And we always pushed ourselves. If I had six points, I wanted to get eight. If I had three goals, I wanted to get five. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You play until the end.”
When Gretzky began life as a teenaged pro, nearly 40 years before teenaged pros became commonplace, he was a rarity.
“I was living and travelling with men, and I was17 years old. I remember a teammate, Jimmy Neilson, he was 36 or 37, and his daughter and I were in the same high-school class together in Edmonton. You’re like, ‘Oh my god,’ ” Gretzky said. “But in saying that, kids of today are so much more worldly in every walk of life. Not just the sports world, but everywhere. There’s so much more knowledge there. They tend to be, in every walk of life, a lot more mature at 16 and 17 and 18.”
Gretzky, as a father of five, probably knows this better than most.
“When I played and you were 18 or 19, the famous line would be, ‘He’s a really good player. But we’ll teach him how to play defence,’” he said. “Well, these kids already know how to play defence. Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews are as responsible as anyone on their team because they’ve been so taught so well for so many years that they understand the defensive part of the game. And that’s where, in a lot of ways, the game has changed.”
One thing hasn’t changed since Gretzky retired in 1999: His career tallies still boggle. Four Stanley Cups, 10 scoring titles, nine MVPs, two playoff MVPs — plus all the scoring records that will never be touched barring a major remaking of the game.
Present-day NHLers shake their heads in unrelatable homage.
But at his California home, Gretzky is a minimalist. As he shares in the book, crafted in a lively and readable style by co-author Kirstie McLellan Day, he currently keeps precisely one hockey-related trophy in the family living space. It’s a replica of the Rocket Richard Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL’s top goal scorer, and it currently shares the residence with one other sports bauble: the U.S. Open trophy won last summer by Dustin Johnson, the fiancé of Gretzky’s eldest daughter, Paulina. The rest of the Gretzky haul is stored at his Toronto restaurant, his father’s basement shrine in Brantford, or the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“Two trophies — and I never won either one,” Gretzky quips, although he would have won the Richard five times had the trophy existed before its inaugural rollout in his final season. With time running down on a relentless day of interviews at the Ritz, Gretzky unfurled one more bit of history.
“We’re playing at the Bell Centre and the people who work for the Canadiens always used to say it this way, ‘The Rocket wants to see you tonight,’ ” Gretzky said. “So I go up and see the Rocket. He said, ‘I know you’re not going to win this trophy, but you should have one of these.’ I thought it was so cool that he gave me that trophy. And he was right. I was never going to win that trophy. I was at the end of my career. But, you know — I know I’m known to the hockey world as a passer. If you asked most people, ‘What was Wayne Gretzky known for?’ they’d say, ‘He was a playmaker.’ But I was proud of the goals that I scored. So for Rocket to give me that trophy, I thought, ‘This is cool. I’m going to keep this in my house.’ And I always have.”