17 Amazing Stories About Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky played 20 seasons in the NHL. AP Photo
Wayne Gretzky has been in the news since he was 10, when he scored 378 goals in a season. Twenty years after his retirement in 1999, he remains Canada’s most famous athlete. But Gretzky is more than a Canadian icon.
His popularity while playing with the Los Angeles Kings is credited with igniting NHL expansion in unlikely hockey locales like San Jose, Anaheim, Las Vegas, Miami, Tampa Bay and Nashville. Recently, the Beijing-based Kunlun Red Star hired Wayne Gretzky as a global ambassador to promote hockey in China.
More than any other hockey player, Gretzky is an international icon. There’s nobody like “The Great One.”
Not Everyone Loved Him
When Wayne Gretzky was 6, he was playing with 10-year-olds in his hometown of Brantford, Ontario. When he was 10, he scored 378 goals in a season.
This achievement should’ve been a cause of celebration, but some of his teammates’ parents became jealous, booing him and calling him a “puck hog.”
The pressure was so intense, a 13-year-old Gretzky considered quitting hockey. But the next season, his parents arranged for him to move to and play in Toronto, in part to get away from the negativity of his spotlight.
He Wanted to Play Baseball First
At 13, Gretzky pitched for Brantford at a 1973 Peewee Baseball tournament. In fact, the hockey legend wanted to be a baseball player first.
“I would’ve taken baseball all day long,” Gretzky told Dan Patrick in 2017, revealing his preferred position was shortstop. “I grew up such a big Tigers fan.”
The Oilers Got an Early Introduction
Gretzky was 17 when he signed his first pro contract with the NHL’s rival league, the World Hockey Association.
At the time, the NHL did not allow players under 20 to be drafted or to sign contracts.
The WHA’s Indianapolis Racers took advantage, and the teen scored his first pro goal against the franchise that he would lead to four Stanley Cups.
Soap Operas Came Calling
Gretzky loved soap operas, and in November 1981, he made a guest appearance on “The Young and the Restless,” playing a mobster introduced as, “This is Wayne, out of our Edmonton operation.”
In the scene, he was bantering with Melody Thomas Scott, who was playing Nikki Reed.
Wayne: Sure could use some of your class around home, Nikki.
Nikki: Thank you. Are you just visiting, Mr. …?
Wayne: Call me Wayne. Everybody does.