From the archives: Wayne Gretzky retires

This story was originally published in Newsday on April 18, 1999

A river ran through the Ontario farmland of his grandparents and it was there, on the frozen water of the Nith, that Wayne Gretzky learned to skate at age 2. Already, he had taken his first shots, with a tennis ball, inside the farmhouse at an imaginary goal guarded by his grandmother. Replace the pitchfork with a hockey stick and the family portrait could be entitled "Canadian Gothic."

Walter Gretzky, the youngster's father, had played amateur hockey and did everything in his power to aid his son's development in the sport. Behind the modest three-bedroom house on Varardi Street in Brantford, about 55 miles west of Toronto, he built a rink in anticipation of Wayne's fourth birthday. Later, he installed floodlights so the backyard games could go on into the night.

According to his own testimony, Wayne Gretzky would skate for an hour and a half in the morning before school, resume his exercise when he returned from classes and go back outside after dinner. "It was religious for me," he once said, sometimes spending as much as eight hours a day on the ice.

And he practiced with a purpose. His father, a telephone repairman, would put cones on the ice for skating drills and he would instruct his son not to chase the puck in the manner of so many playmates. "Don't go where the puck was," he'd say, "go where the puck is going to be." Throughout his career, Gretzky's sense of anticipation separated him from his peers.

"Gretzky sees a picture out there that no one else sees," Harry Sinden, Boston Bruins president and general manager, would say many years later.

By the time he was 9, the youngster had scored 1,000 goals and become a national curiosity. At 10, playing in the Brantford Atom League, he was credited with 378 goals (an age-group record) and 120 assists. His appearance in pee wee tournaments would sell out 16,000-seat arenas and his fame in his hometown began to eclipse that of Alexander Graham Bell, who lived briefly in Brantford before going off to Boston and inventing the telephone.

To provide the opportunity for Gretzky's precocious talent to flourish, his family challenged the prevailing rules for junior players and Wayne was allowed to play Tier II hockey (a level below Major Junior) at 14. Two years later, he was drafted by Sault Ste. Marie and he earned rookie of the year honors in the Ontario Hockey League by getting 70 goals and 112 assists.

It was at Sault Ste. Marie that Gretzky first donned No. 99. Previously, he had worn 9 in tribute to his hero, Gordie Howe, but a teammate on the Greyhounds, Brian Gualatzie, already was wearing the jersey. Gretzky began the season wearing 19, switched to 14 and finally opted for 99 at the suggestion of general manager Murray MacPherson, who noted that Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge had adopted 77 and 88 after their trade from the Bruins to the Rangers.

At 17, Gretzky appeared ready for the pros, but were they ready for him? The regulations of the National Hockey League prevented the drafting of players under 20. Though the upstart World Hockey Association paid lip service to a similar rule, its desperate owners were inclined to circumvent it when it suited their purposes.

So it was that Nelson Skalbania, who owned the weakest of the seven remaining WHA franchises, the Indianapolis Racers, signed Gretzky to a seven-year personal services contract valued at a reported $ 1.75 million. Gretzky made his WHA debut Oct. 14, 1978. Suddenly, the wunderkind was playing with and against players twice his age. Barely 6 feet tall and weighing no more than 165 pounds, he looked like what he was, a boy among men.

The Racers fourth game of the 1978-79 season pitted them against the Edmonton Oilers. "We knew Gretzky was available," recalled former Oilers coach Glen Sather, "so we went to the morning skate before the game. We were amazed how small he seemed alongside the other guys. He looked like a mascot. He didn't play much against us that night; six shifts. But whenever he was on the ice, he had the puck. He scored two goals against Dave Dryden, one from behind the net."

Those goals, in a span of 39 seconds during the second period, were Gretzky's first two as a professional. Sather wasted no time telling his owner, Peter Pocklington, that the teenager would make a wonderful addition to the club. With the Racers on thin financial ice, the Oilers thought the time was ripe for a deal. On Nov. 2, less than two weeks later, Edmonton acquired Gretzky, goaltender Ed Mio and winger Pete Driscoll for $ 850,000.

Gretzky was a sensation from the outset with the Oilers. He had 43 goals and 61 assists in 72 games. For the second time in two years, he was selected the league's rookie of the year. The WHA dissolved at the conclusion of the season and Edmonton was one of four teams absorbed, at considerable expense to their ambitious owners, into the NHL.

Critics carped that he wasn't strong enough or fast enough for the next level. "I remember people saying, 'Wait till he gets hit, " recalled Bill Torrey, then the GM of the Islanders. "Hell, he never got hit."

If anything, his ability to elude checks and escape detection until it was too late for goaltenders was enhanced by his presence in the more physical NHL. At 18, he became the youngest player in league history to score 50 goals (netting 51 in 1979-80) and won the first of eight consecutive Hart trophies presented to the most valuable player. A year after that, he won the first of 10 scoring titles and in his third NHL season, he scored an astounding 92 goals, including 50 in the first 39 games, to break Esposito's record of 76.

Maurice Richard had established an NHL standard by scoring 50 goals in a 50-game season in 1944-45. Thirty-six years later, Mike Bossy of the Islanders accounted for 50 goals in his first 50 games en route to a total of 68. But Gretzky's performance the following season dwarfed those accomplishments. He got his 46th, 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th goals in game 39, against Philadelphia.

"I know everything that's been written about you," Flyers captain Bobby Clarke told him afterward. "I think none of it is adequate."

Gretzky not only obliterated cherished records, he changed the way the game was played. He had the audacity to run the power play from behind the opponent's net. "I started going back there because of my size," he said. "If I stood in front of the net, I'd get knocked over. I started going back there, using the net as a decoy, when I was 14 or 15."

From any angle, he and his team were virtually unstoppable after dethroning the Islanders in 1984. They won four Stanley Cups in five years and might have continued to win championships indefinitely if not for the trade that shook all of Canada. In August, 1988, just one month after Gretzky married American actress Janet Jones in what Canadians treated as a royal wedding, the financially pressed Pocklington announced he had dealt Gretzky, Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski to the Los Angeles Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, three first-round draft picks and $ 15 million.

After a tearful goodbye to Edmonton fans, Gretzky wasted little time in turning Los Angeles into a hockey hotbed. He scored a goal on his first shot as a King, led a team that was seventh worst in the NHL the previous season to the fourth overall record and produced 24 sellouts at the Forum, where there had been three in 1987-88. He also overtook Marcel Dionne as the second-leading scorer in league history and garnered his ninth Hart Trophy.

Although the Kings never won a Stanley Cup during his eight seasons in Southern California, Gretzky almost singlehandedly drove the team to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1993. And he played a huge role in popularizing the sport throughout the Sun Belt.

"A lot of kids here do love the sport now," he conceded on the night in 1994 that he surpassed Howe, his childhood hero, as the most prodigious goal scorer in NHL history. "I feel proud to be a part of that. There are three strong franchises in California. And the teams in Texas and in Florida have something to do with the Kings."

They have more to do with Gretzky, who was acquired late in the 95-96 season by St. Louis but who was unable to help the Blues past the second round of the playoffs. He signed with the Rangers as a free agent to play with former teammate Mark Messier and to chase a fifth Stanley Cup but the association, though producing a few magical moments, was frustrating. Messier left after the 96-97 season following a contract hassle and the team failed to qualify for the playoffs the last two years.

The Great One's Greatest Hits

1987 Canada Cup Final -- (Sept. 15, 1987) The best-of-three series against the Soviet Union was even at a game apiece, the score in Game 3 tied at 5. With 1:26 remaining in the third period Gretzky fed Mario Lemieux to give Canada a 6-5 victory and clinch the series. The Great One scored three goals and had 18 assists in the nine-game tournament.

1988 OT Winner vs. Flames -- (April 21, 1988) The Calgary Flames were heavily favored and the Edmonton Oilers started on the road in this second-round series. The Oilers won the first game, 3-1, and left the rest to Gretzky. In overtime, Gretzky roofed a shorthanded goal over the shoulder of Mike Vernon for a 5-4 Oilers victory. "It was like, pick up the ice we're not coming back," said Rangers assistant coach Craig MacTavish, who played for the Oilers. Gretzky has said that goal is his most memorable. Edmonton swept the series and went on to win its fourth of five Stanley Cups. Gretzky had an NHL-record 13 points against the Boston Bruins in the final. He was traded to Los Angeles that summer.