third post

• My father died in 1973.
• There was always a special kind of closeness between Wayne and his grandparents. After my father died, Wayne was even closer to his grandma-my mother, Mary.
• Wayne's grandma told him that if you were hairy that means you are going to be an awfully rich person. she was sure of that, but she was also pratical.
• When Wayne was 5 years old he told her that some day he was going to have a car. From that day on she started putting a little of her pension money aside. In fact, she buried it. And by the time Wayne was 16, she was ready. "I'm going to buy you a car," she told him. "I've got the money buried." Wayne thanked her but couldn't let her do that.
• A year later when Wayne turned pro, he bought a car of his own, a new Pontiac Trans-Am that he got in Indianapolis, and he drove it to the farm.
• The farm wasn't just a hockey place. It was the kind of growing -up place city kids might dream of.
• Wayne had been fooling around with a lacrose stick, bouncing a ball, and trying fancy stick-work, like that kind of thing, and when the ball got away and went crashing through the farmhouse window. His grandfather wasn't all that upset. After all, boys will be boys.
• Now, my father mad his own wine in the basement.
• I guess our back yard is a little bit famous. Just about every book or story on Wayne's life gets around to it: the rink I made in the yard behind the little house on Varadi Ave. in Brantford where Wayne learned to skate and Walter Gretzky built a hockey star.
• I flooded the yard the first time in the winter of 1965 and I've done it every year since. It hasn't always been easy. One day the sprinkler on the hose broke when i was flooding. Someone had to go to Canadian Tire and ask the salesman where he kept his lawn sprinklers. It was December.
• The second winter we had the rink and I tried to get Wayne registered in minor hockey. He was 5 years old, he was living on the ice and he was bugging me. But in those days, minor hockey in Brantford started with 10 year-olds. There was no place for Wayne to play. Boy, was he disappointed. The following year, a few weeks before the 1967-68 season, we saw a notice in the paper: open tryouts for the major novie team. Just come to the civic centre.
• A man named Dick Martin, who became Wayne's first coach, ignored his size and age, he only looked at his skating, and signed him up.
• When we first movied into the house on Varadi Ave. it had 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom and covered 900 sqaure feet. Plenty of room for a huband, wife and a 7 month old baby. Then, overnight it seemed, there were 7 of us and the house wasn't big anymore.
• In the fall of 1982, we extended the kitchen and dining room and bath upstairs, which gave us more breathing space.

2 post

• in the 1983 NHL All-star game, Wayne scored four goals in the third period, set three records, tied one, and won another car.
• In the 1984 game, he missed 2 breakaways, scored 1 goal, played about 25% as well as he can, and didn't win anything.
• On his first shift in a game in Los Angeles, he'd been checked cleanly, fallen agaisnt the boards and felt something give in his right shoulder. A bruise, he thought at first. As the days went by and it got worse, the Oilers thought it might be a slight sprain, but it would clear up. Two days after the All-star game, the x-rayed it. The shoulder wasn't bruised and it wasn't sprained. It was separated. A "Class 1" they called it, which is the least serious on a scale of 3. He still played but with a separated shoulder.
• In 4 NHL years, he'd set 24 league records and held a share of 10 others. He'd won 3 straight league scoring championships, setting those goal, assist and point records along the way.
• In 1975, he bought the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association, for cash, 2 Rolls-Royce cars, Mrs Pocklington's diamond ring and 2 Krieghoff prints. At one point he owned 4 Rolls-Royces 3 condominiums, a 165-foot yacht, the jet, and this house he'd bought for $1.5 million in 1979 and now he wanted to buy Wayne.

first post

• Wayne Gretzky has a getaway place that is 15 minutes from the back yard where learned to skate and a million miles from the National Hockey League.


• Walter and I were sitting on the porch with a beer and they were talking about a book when suddenly a bunch of people was on the porch. There were Micheal Barnett, his associate, Rod Proudfoot, Wayne and a couple of his Brantford Buddies. They talked of the old games and coaches and friends and girls, and all at once it was 2:30 am and my plane left in 11 hours.


• When Gretzky got there, he had a miserable time with just 2 shots and no points.


• In 2 games in the Stanley Cup final series, Gretzky has more penalties than points. He took a hooking penalty on Paul Boutilier in the 3rd period.


• Two-game totals: 5 shots, no goals, and no assists.


• In 1981-82, he had the greatest season in the history of the NHL. He'd set recorrds for most goals, most assists, and most points.


• The Oilers took the first game 7-1, with Wayne getting a goal and 3 assists before being crashed into the boards by defenceman, Lars Lindgren behind the Miniesota net with 4:21 left to play.


• At first it was said to be a bruised cheek, then a wrenched back. It turned out to be a bad blow to the jaw. He was back 2 nights later to score the winner in the second game, which ended 4-3, but Grant Fuhr, the goalie who'd been so hot through the playoffs, came out of it with a hyper-extended elbow


• The whole family moved to Edmonton - Phyllis, Kim, Keith, Glen, Brent and me. Phyllis and Kim left on Wednesday night and i brought the boys out on the early flight Saturday. We arrived and our luggage didn't, so Phyllis had to bundle the kids to go downtown for some new gear.

what i knew before reading about wayne gretzky

the things that i knew about wayne gretzky

• he learned how to skate and play hockey in a backyard rink
• he played hockey with kids older then him
• he is the coach for the Pheonix Coyotes
• his nickname is "The great one"
• he was born in Canada