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• As Wayne skated past, one of them shouted, "Let's see you get 4 in a row now, hotshot!". Wayne looked over at him for a second, then lned up for the faceoff. He won it, carried the puck into the slot and fired it over the goalkeeper's shoulder. Now it was 6-4. At 9:25 he scored again on a power play to make it 6-5. Brian wood, anther Brantford minor hockey product, tied it at 10:39, and 57 seconds later Wayne cut the Nats up 7-6.
• One day in November, a man phoned from Weekend Magazine and asked for an interview. Wayne said, "Sure, as long as it's over breakfast and you buy." That same day he had to do an interview with the Toronto Star, one with the Toronto Sun, do some filming with CBLT-TV, and finally a film with the Hockey Night in Canada crew. I guess he figured breakfast wasn't to much to ask.
• Since 1963, the National Hockey League Association had had an agreement with the Canadian Amuteur Hockey Association that it would not sign juniors under 20 years of age. That way the junior clubs wouldn't lose their star attractions early, and it gave them a better chance to make money and kept what amounted to an almost-free farm system pushing that talent along.
• There was a rumour that John Ferguson, the former Montreal Canadien star, was going to coach in Winnipeg. That scared Wayne a little bit because we'd heard Fergie was kind of rough, tough guy who like his hockey and his players just that way. We also heard another rumour that Rudy Pilous, the Jet's general-manager, had advised the team owners not to buy Wayne because there was no way he was worth the money, Mr. Skalbania was asking, and there was no way he'd be that big in the NHL, where the Jets figured they'd be once the leagues merged, which now seemed inevitable.
• In shifting from Indianapolis to Edmonton, Wayne hadn't missed a game. He'd played the full 80, and in this first season as a pro - a year he entered with a target of 20 goals and 40 assists - he'd wound up with 46 goals, 64 assists and 110 points. He'd finished third in WHA scoring and been chosen rookie-of-the-year as well as second-team All-star centre behind Cincinnati's Robbie Ftorek.