fifth post

• Wayne was 12, just about to start his major pee wee season. He needed new gloves and naturally he'd left it until the last minute. so there we were in the sporting goods store run by our friend, Gerry Dallaway, shopping for gloves with practice due to start in half an hour and the rink is 20 minutes away. We were not exactly prepared to browse around.
• 6 months later, when Wayne neede a police escort to get out of one rink and a police escort to get into another, and the Turkstra Lumber team was pulling into the crowds of 11 thousand in Quebec City to see the kid they'd dubbed "Le Grand!" and "The White Tornado" I remembered that remark.
• In his first year he had that one goal. In his second, he scored 27, in his third, 104 plus 63 assists in 62 games. In 1970-71, as a 9 year old, he scored 196 in 76 games, plus 120 assists. People were shaking their heads and wondering how anyone could score that many. So the next year he played in 82 games and scored 378 goals.
• In 1972-73, as a 11 year old competing against kids in major pee wee he scored 105 goals. a few people nodded knowingly: it was a lot of goals, sure, but not compared to the year before.
• So it wasn't as if people were looking at Wayne when he was 11 or 12 and saying, "There's the next Bobby Orr."
• you've heard of the 50-goal season? When he was 11, Wayne had a 50-goal weekend in 9 games at the Hespeler, Ont. Olympic Tournament.
• In the summer of 1971, coming off the 196-goal hockey season, Wayne scored 158 goals and added 66 assists in 31 games for brantford PUC in the inter-city lacrose league, pitched and played baseball in the house league.