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AJ McKenzie
  • 3 days ago
The Great One
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Transcript
00:02Seconds left in the game, do you believe in Miracle's skin?
00:05He is moving like a tremendous machine, that's the series by Crowe.
00:19Terry Strug has won the gold medal for the United States team.
00:23A grand gold score in Miracle's.
00:47Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:50Each year, when the cold set in, the backyard was converted into a private hockey rink.
00:55Day, night, and countless free dons, frail, undersized boy practiced,
01:00while his father watched through the kitchen window, drinking coffee and issuing orders.
01:05Such a cloistered upbringing seemed a perfect way to create a skilled player without a heart,
01:11a tin man on skates.
01:13Instead, as we'll see in the next hour, it made Wayne Gretzky,
01:16who played hockey for the love of it, and did it better than anyone in history.
01:21this thick straw ritual day.
01:39Here we go.
01:42Meanwhile, we'll be right back.
01:44Here we go.
01:51chaque ONG
01:52Edmonton was nothing. It was a nice, clean, northern Canadian city. People didn't really pay it much mind. It was
01:59so far out of the Montreal-Toronto axis.
02:04The National Hockey League is the capital of Alberta.
02:08The National Hockey League was a million miles away. It was just beyond belief that someday in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
02:14the Pimple on the Prairie, the greatest hockey player in the world and the most entertaining and exciting team in
02:19the history of hockey, would all happen here.
02:22From the frozen wasteland of the World Hockey Association, the Edmonton Oilers skated onto NHL ice in 1979.
02:30If the team lacked a certain big-time, tough-guy air, its quiet, self-effacing 18-year-old center fit
02:37right in.
02:38Here's a kid that weighed 170 pounds soaking wet. If you got into an arm wrestling competition, you could probably
02:43drag a couple of girls out of the stands that would beat him.
02:46He was always dead last in the conditioning drill. He benched $1.40. I mean, you almost don't need barbells.
02:53You know, just do the bar.
02:55I said, this guy looks like an anorexic rock star. He's the least athletic-looking person. He has these little
03:00pipe cleaner arms. He just did not look like a Gordie Howe, a Bobby Orr, a Rocket Richard.
03:08But there was something about him that he just had this sixth sense. He knew people. He could see shadows.
03:13He could feel movement. He said it was almost like having deja vu all the time.
03:18The average guy in the league thinks one play ahead. Superstars think two plays ahead. And Gretzky thinks three plays
03:26ahead.
03:27Exactly.
03:36That's why Gretzky made it a habit to make superstars look like regular guys.
03:43He's a leader in both points and goals. And he remains the only player to reach 90 goals in a
03:49season and crack the 200-point barrier.
03:55I played on the line with two other guys, and our assignment was to shut him down.
03:59We would get to the bench, and we would find ourselves arguing.
04:02You had him. No, you had him. I handed him off to you. Remember when we crossed the blue line?
04:06Wayne would disappear and reappear. Wayne was thinking the game.
04:09It seems that there's a trap door in the ice. And suddenly, the trap door opens and Wayne surfaces. And
04:19now you see him, now you don't.
04:21Here's Gretzky again.
04:23Trying to slide one over for Koffe. Koffe back to Gretzky.
04:29Gretzky was the ultimate geographer in terms of where to be in the right place at the right time on
04:36the ice.
04:38If you look at a grandmaster in chess, they can look at a chessboard. They don't see 20 individual pieces.
04:43They see a sequence. That's the same thing that's going on with Gretzky.
04:51Players subconsciously have...
04:52Hockey is one of the physically most impressive sports because there's little margin for error.
05:00Think about it. Even soccer, football, whatever you want to call it.
05:06They have people in front of the goal, too.
05:09But the goal's this big.
05:11The goal is as big as the human in hockey.
05:15So you have maybe this much room to shoot the puck there.
05:23As he progressed up the ice in some of the examples that we've seen, his ability to read the play,
05:30get players coming late, or the famous turn-up play inside the blue line, he was always delineating the number
05:35of people that were involved in a particular play.
05:38He was in another league. He was in another universe as far as the other players were concerned.
05:42I remember an opposing center lining up against him. And just before the referee would drop the puck, I was
05:48saying, could I have your stick after the game?
05:52He was the consummate playmaker. Had he never scored a single goal, his 1,963 assists would still make him
06:01the league leader in career points.
06:03He said, I've worked on this all my life. He said, every practice I go to, I work on the
06:09passing.
06:09You try and lift them old sticks. You try and bank them off the boards. Sometimes you even bank them
06:16off other people.
06:19The idea of standing in the net with the puck, it was very much what we'd seen in the past,
06:24and he made an art out of it.
06:26I can't recall another player right now that's set up behind the net like he did. He could set up
06:32plays, read the play, and outpatient the opposition many times.
06:37Get them to lurk or jump out of position. And then as soon as that happened, he'd find that open
06:43man. And the next thing you know, they'd have a scoring opportunity.
06:46Gretzky looking in front, well, the tight, scores!
06:48Other teams were afraid of him, so they would back off. And when they backed off him, he was able
06:53just to pick them apart and destroy them in that manner.
06:56In 1986, when Gretzky scored 215 points, he posted 163 assists.
07:04Nobody was even close like Dave Ruth with his 60 home runs. It'll never happen again.
07:08I don't know how many records are going to be broken, but that record will never happen again.
07:13On the flip it through, broken up, and back comes Gary Couric. A three-on-one Edmonton break back to
07:18Gretzky.
07:19He's gone!
07:21Wayne Gretzky, Edmonton Oilers. It's like peaches and cream.
07:24That was a hockey team that brought excitement back to the National Hockey League.
07:29There was no doom squad. It wasn't cheap hockey. It was fast-paced, fire on the ice, lightning-quick hockey.
07:38Edmonton Oilers came to town. You wanted to take it.
07:41In the last ten minutes of a game, if you were down by a goal, there was nobody better.
07:45Every pass was crisp on everybody's stick, and it was amazing what he could do in those pressure situations.
07:52Wayne never lost the humility of a small-town upbringing.
07:56I mean, Canadians do not like people to get too full of themselves, to do hockey. Wayne never did that.
08:04His genuineness really kind of rubbed off on the team, and he became a leader because of the way he
08:10treated people.
08:11He was so much more mature as a hockey player and as a person than we were at the same
08:16age.
08:17Part of that maturity was an acute awareness of the pitfalls in his highly active, highly public life.
08:23I was sitting beside him once on a flight, and we hit a little rough patch, and Wayne said, wait
08:29a minute.
08:30And he grabbed the seat in front of him, and he leaned forward, and I said, I really hate flying.
08:35And he said, I hate not being in control.
08:39He was really careful about things. He wouldn't get in the elevator by himself because he was always afraid.
08:45Maybe a strange woman would be in the elevator and accuse him of doing something.
08:49When I wrote his autobiography, I handed him a, I thought it was a terrific first draft.
08:54And he read it, and he called me and said, this is really colorful, really commercial.
08:58Now you've got to rewrite it.
09:00I said, what do you mean rewrite it?
09:02He said, I can't be this controversial.
09:03I mean, I've got an obligation to the sport.
09:04I can't upset people.
09:06I can't be this colorful, and they can't know this about me.
09:08So I had to rewrite that thing three times until it was just bland enough and plain enough for Gretzky
09:15to put out.
09:17Wayne Gretzky for Post-Stars.
09:19Mom likes them, too, because there's no sugar added.
09:21Right, Mom?
09:22That's right, Wayne.
09:22And you like Post-Stars because your picture's on the box.
09:25Ready?
09:25Yes.
09:26Oh, Wayne.
09:26Oh, Ryan.
09:28It was so easy to latch on to Wayne, to grab part of that self-esteem, because he had something
09:33to give to every demographic.
09:35So Wayne became not only the essence of the Canadian culture, but became a self-esteem for a country.
09:41Such public adoration stands in sharp contrast to how the Great One was treated as a prodigy in his hometown.
10:02Well, the Nith River is just a small river, but it runs about 100 feet from the house.
10:09Every spring, it floods.
10:11That's where I learned to play hockey.
10:15Walter Gretzky is sort of the quintessential hockey father that you like to read about and seldom see.
10:22And it started with Wayne when he was five years old, when he put the skates on him and took
10:27them down in the Nith River.
10:29Wayne wanted to swim there.
10:30He wanted to skate there.
10:36The first goalie ever shot against was Grandma Gretzky.
10:41She used to sit in her lazy boy chair at the farm, and he would fire tennis balls at her
10:47feet.
10:48Wayne's father is a very special man.
10:50He'd take them out, and he'd have them work out, and he told them that don't waste the time when
10:53you have to do something constructive.
10:55Jump over the sticks, go around the pylons, learn how to shoot the puck.
10:58There was always seemingly a purpose to what he was doing, and he was blessed with at least one of
11:04the children who couldn't get enough of it.
11:06The harder he asked him to work, the harder way he worked at it.
11:09Gretzky was not that fast.
11:12In fact, he was slow.
11:13And not that strong.
11:14In fact, he was weak.
11:15You know, and not that vague.
11:16In fact, he was tiny.
11:18But he just was so well-schooled in hockey.
11:22I would have him fire the puck, and then I would show him how everybody goes after the puck.
11:27Now watch.
11:29I'm going to go where it's going to be, not where it's been.
11:31So he'd fire it along there, and I'd cut across, and I'd be right there where it was going to
11:36be.
11:37So you can teach anticipation.
11:40The lessons that Wally taught Wayne, I think, really were ingrained in Wayne's consciousness.
11:47And because of it, Wayne has held himself with such esteem and class, he never wanted to let his parents
11:54down.
11:55Pure talent and desire lifted the prodigy to organize hockey at the age of six.
12:01From there, it was a short leap to full coast-to-coast fame.
12:05He lived a life like none of us can imagine.
12:07He could skate before he could walk.
12:09And he became this sort of human icon in Canada.
12:13At 10 years old, he was swamped by other 10-year-olds for autographs.
12:17By 13, he was on National Hockey Night in Canada.
12:20So he's grown up sort of like John F. Kennedy Jr.
12:23He's been the Prince of Canada.
12:24In his 9- and 10-year-old year, he scored 195 goals.
12:29And the people in the town said, yeah, well, when he gets in the next day,
12:33he'll never score 195 again.
12:35And they were right.
12:35The next year, he scored 378.
12:38I used to come home, and I'd score a goal, and I'd be doing cartwheels.
12:41And he'd come home, and they'd win 13-1.
12:44I'd say, how'd you do?
12:44He says, we won.
12:46I said, did you get any goals?
12:47Yeah.
12:48How many?
12:4911.
12:50And that's the way he was.
12:52What his father told him at a very, very young age, that this is bigger than you, Wayne,
12:57that you can't have any bad games, Wayne, that people come to see you for hundreds of miles,
13:02and you've got to give them your best all the time.
13:04And intuitively, Wayne Gretzky understood that it was not enough just to play on the ice,
13:11that he had to be charming, that he had to be sweet.
13:16But Gretzky's gentle nature could not always deflect what was often cruel treatment.
13:24Parents of other kids were terribly jealous.
13:27They would come with stopwatches, and they would go to the coach afterwards and say,
13:30Gretzky played this much, and my son only played that much.
13:34No kid should be able to score that many goals.
13:36And what the hell's wrong with you?
13:37Wayne would come off the ice, and he'd be in tears from what they would say to him.
13:42And the city kind of drove me out of there as a youngster.
13:46I really got to a point where I didn't like being Wayne Gretzky at 14 years old.
13:53To relieve the invasive pain of microscopic scrutiny at home,
13:57Gretzky escaped to play junior B hockey in Toronto, 60 miles away.
14:03When I moved away from home, I spent the first two months lying in a bed crying every night,
14:08saying, what am I doing here?
14:10But what happened was, I developed some real special relationships that were very unique to me
14:15because they were friendships made out of friendships, not because of who I was.
14:20And maybe in my life, it was the last time that I was able to develop friendships
14:26for who I was and not what I was.
14:30First seeing Wayne play as a 16-year-old, he offensively already was as good as any National Hockey League
14:40player.
14:41If we scored 10 goals, he got five and assisted on the rest.
14:45If we scored six goals, he got four and assisted on the other two.
14:49But the distance from home wore on him.
14:52He missed his family and his friends.
14:55Definitely, he was homesick.
14:57Wayne's having a tough time and he misses home.
15:00And actually, the boy's 16 years old.
15:03Most of those kids on his team were 18 to 20 years old, pretty wild,
15:08getting into, you know, the drinking and the girls in the bar scene.
15:11And Wayne was too young for that.
15:12And so they would haze him.
15:14And parents come to me all the time and they try to get me to tell their kids that, you
15:20know,
15:20in order to be a successful hockey player, you need to move away from home like you did at 14.
15:24And I tell parents, that's not why I moved away from home.
15:27I moved away to become a normal, everyday child at school with friends.
15:32But when I look back at it at the time, obviously, it was devastating to me.
15:37I think when you purposely want to go to a high school in another town just to get away,
15:43just to not be bothered for autographs and hate mail and people wanting things from you, that's sad.
15:50He was a man apart.
15:51He was made to grow up far too early and made to leave home far too early
15:56and made to have a man's expectations and a burden of a country far too early.
16:11Junior hockey, if anything, was dirtier than the NHL back then, which in 1978 is saying a lot.
16:19Believe me, there were things that happened on the ice in just about every game that Wayne played
16:25that people could go to jail for.
16:28So just about everybody else would quit under those circumstances, and he didn't.
16:34Facing three more years of physical abuse on the ice, Gretzky was eager to get into the big leagues.
16:41I had a struggling hockey team in Indianapolis.
16:45At that time, the WHA had 27 teams.
16:48So I had a friend called Johnny Bassett, who owned one of the other teams, who recommended Wayne Gretzky.
16:54He said, Wayne's the best of them all, but I can't sign him.
16:57You should sign him.
16:59In 1978, Gretzky, at 17, quite literally wrote his first pro contract, $825,000 over four years.
17:09Scalbania told him, I hope you can play this game.
17:12But after only eight contests, he was sold to the Oilers.
17:18Indianapolis fell on tough times, and in 1978, I made a deal with Nelson to buy Wayne Gretzky.
17:25Nelson came to me and said he tried to make a deal with the then Winnipeg Jets.
17:29They thought half a million dollars for a hockey player was just out of everybody's moral perspective.
17:36He hit it off like gangbusters with Glenn Saban and the Indian Winnipeg Jetsky, and I think he started off
17:43as a rocket almost from the first month.
17:46Never looked back.
17:47He took the city by storm.
17:49He was the city's man.
17:52Everyone loved Wayne.
17:53Everyone talked about Wayne.
17:55He was the icon.
17:57I remember looking at him.
18:02I don't know how this guy's going to be able to survive in pro hockey.
18:08How can this...
18:11They said at the beginning of the documentary that the Oilers were founded in 79.
18:18So Gretzky was this successful with an expansion.
18:24Slight young man, make all those moves, make all those passes.
18:29It was just impossible for you to get a good hit on him.
18:33He could anticipate, he knew what was coming, and he was elusive.
18:36You knew he'd beat up, he'd be brittle.
18:38All of that was going to conspire against him and make him very mediocre in a hurry.
18:45In his first NHL season, near the end of the schedule, and he and Marcel Dion were going for the
18:50scoring title,
18:50so they came in here for a really big game on a Saturday night in Toronto.
18:55And I think he had like two and three.
18:57And after the game, he called me to one side.
19:01One of the few times I ever heard him use profanity.
19:04He said, tell your blankety-blank columnist that this blankety-blank league hasn't caught up to the kid yet.
19:12He had 45 goals in 38 games.
19:15And the idea was to see if he could get 50 in 40 games.
19:19Well, I talked to Kevin Lowe at the skate that day, and he says, Gretz told me he's going to
19:22get five.
19:23He's one-on-one with Barber.
19:25Looks to the open net.
19:26He's got it.
19:27Score!
19:2850 goals for Wayne Bredge in 39 games.
19:32There's a lot of guys that I've played with that have been good players.
19:36And they would get in a game where they'd score two or three points, and they'd almost shut it down.
19:41And Wayne, this is just the opposite.
19:43If he got two or three, he wanted four.
19:45He wanted five.
19:46He wanted six.
19:49Gretzky took it away from him.
19:51Gretzky moving in.
19:52He's got it.
19:52He scores!
19:56Gretzky 77th of the year!
19:59Gretzky has qualifierized another National Hockey League record!
20:03I didn't realize what I was doing.
20:05I was 21 years old.
20:08I was playing on a great team.
20:09I was scoring a lot of goals.
20:10We were winning every night.
20:11I didn't know what I was doing.
20:13I just had fun.
20:14Gretzky over the line with Curry.
20:16Gretzky's center.
20:19It's like a jazz musician going off on a riff.
20:22And if you're a really good jazz musician, maybe you can follow along and figure out what's going on.
20:26And he was blessed with good teammates, especially in Edmonton, who could follow the riffs.
20:31The combination of Gary Curry and Wayne Gretzky, I think, was the greatest one-two scoring punch in hockey.
20:40He and Wayne just fit hand in glove.
20:43It was spectacular.
20:45It was like radar.
20:46They knew where each other was on the ice.
20:48It was remarkable how Curry could finish where Gretzky started.
20:51He raised everybody's standards.
20:54They'd seen what he did and what he achieved, and they all wanted to do the same thing.
20:58And if you have young, talented players like we had, it was remarkable to watch the team develop.
21:06Messier and Kevin Lowe and Paul Coffey, Yari Curry, Glenn Anderson, they could all skate like the wind.
21:14Gretzky could put the puck right on their stick when they were flying down.
21:18It was something that was extremely difficult for other teams in the league to comprehend.
21:24There's no denying that.
21:27Wayne was the leader of our team.
21:30The team was built around Wayne.
21:32This team was closer than any other team in professional sports will ever be.
21:37I mean, look at the clock.
21:38I called him every day.
21:39I can't get rid of it.
21:42I saw him nervous in the playoffs in 83 and 84, because that was the next step to his greatness.
21:51All the individual records are great, but he really wanted a Stanley Cup.
21:55Lodalier, up on his defense.
21:57Hey, look at that guy getting blocked.
22:00But here is that team.
22:04I once asked Wayne, what was your greatest moment in hockey?
22:08And he said, winning that first Stanley Cup.
22:10And I can remember looking down at then NHL president John Ziegler started to hand the
22:16cup to Wayne.
22:16Wayne almost ripped it out of his hands just to hold it up, to kiss it and hold it high
22:21over his head.
22:21I've been fortunate enough to win a lot of individual awards, but those awards meant nothing like
22:26this thing.
22:26This is the ultimate.
22:27You never want to choke it until they won this.
22:29I don't know how to describe it.
22:31I've waited for 25 years to this.
22:32You haven't really waited all that long compared to a lot of other people.
22:36When they won the Stanley Cup, there was a big celebration.
22:39And about 2 o'clock in the morning, Wayne said, my place, 7.30, we're taking Stanley for
22:44a walk.
22:45And Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier, Wayne, all walked down the streets of Edmonton,
22:52downtown, stopping at every cafe, every restaurant, walking with Stanley.
22:57The 1984 victory over the Islanders was just the beginning of a glorious ride.
23:03Gretzky led the Oilers to four Stanley Cups in five years.
23:07The afternoon Oilers have won their fourth Stanley Cup championship.
23:13They are a dynasty.
23:19His homeland, Gretzky gained a...
23:22He said they're a dynasty after they won their fourth championship.
23:29They were a dynasty when they won their third.
23:33Already.
23:35Measure of fame in the U.S.
23:37When he and linemate Mario Lemieux displayed their genius at the Canada Cup tournament in 1987.
23:44We saw three games.
23:45They were all 6-5.
23:47And to see the interaction of Gretzky and Mario Lemieux was just absolutely magnificent.
23:53Who can play with Wayne Gretzky?
23:55There aren't many players that can maximize his ability and his instincts.
24:00And Mario was one of them.
24:02For them to be teaming up, it was just the two virtuosos complementing each other.
24:09It was almost spooky the way they could find each other.
24:12Some of the plays they make just make you tingle because you knew how good it was.
24:18Just how much pure skill the two guys had.
24:22As soon as we got on the ice together, we knew what each other wanted to do.
24:26And we clicked right away.
24:28Here's Gretzky with Lemieux.
24:30Two on one break.
24:31Gretzky to Lemieux.
24:33Goal!
24:34Between that series, Gretzky probably told Lemieux everything he knew about hockey.
24:41As if it was, now kid, you know as much as I do, but I'm still better.
24:46And Lemieux later on talked about how much he learned in that month with Gretzky.
24:53Here's Lemieux poking at the center.
24:56Lemieux at Gretzky.
24:57Has Murphy with him on a two on one to Lemieux.
25:00And he's got it!
25:02He's got it!
25:03That's one.
25:04Twenty-six grenade!
25:06Wayne is an icon.
25:09He's replaced the mountain as our national symbol in Canada.
25:13It's a country with passion, but a sense of decorum.
25:17And Wayne represents all of those things to us.
25:20When Wayne and Janet married in Edmonton, it was the royal wedding.
25:25There were 10,000 people outside the church.
25:28And there were 700 inside.
25:29I mean, they had 200 credentials.
25:32Every day it was in the papers.
25:33Janet's dress is going to stop at the thigh.
25:35Janet's dress is going to stop at the ankle.
25:37It's going to cost $40,000.
25:39They actually had to call a press conference to dispel rumors about how many sequins were on her dress.
25:45And, you know, how much the garter belt cost.
25:47I mean, it was crazy.
25:49It was so out of control.
25:50And in that sense, I think he knew it was time to go.
25:52Because he had outgrown the town.
25:54He'd outgrown the province.
25:56He'd outgrown the country.
25:57He had to go somewhere huge.
26:01This mess, I wouldn't do this.
26:08But, um, as I said, there comes a time when, when, uh...
26:19Millions of people all through Canada watched that press conference, watched Wade weep, watched the emotion pour out of his
26:28body, and inside, wept with him.
26:32It was absolute emotional mayhem.
26:37That killed me because, you know, it's not very often you see your husband cry.
26:44And it meant that much to him.
26:47You don't trade people like that.
26:49He was Edmonton.
26:50He was Edmonton.
26:51He was the Oilers.
26:52He was our kingpin.
26:53The initial shock of the great Gretzky trade has worn off, a little, and it's being replaced by intense speculation,
27:00controversy, and growing anger.
27:02My kids were upset, but, uh, everybody was upset.
27:07It was like trading the Queen of England to Russia.
27:10When they traded him from Edmonton to Los Angeles, a whole nation got caught up in this.
27:16And people still haven't forgiven Peter Potlington for doing that deed.
27:22Well, I think Camelot sums it up.
27:25You know, one brief shining moment when all things came together.
27:29And like any, uh, brief shining moment, it doesn't last forever, that's life.
27:34He sold out Edmonton, first costing out Gretzky.
27:37Los Angeles, uh, gain in this case, Mr. Speaker, will be not only the Edmonton Oilers lost, but Edmonton's lost,
27:44and all of Camper's lost, Mr. Speaker.
27:47Hell, there were protests everywhere.
27:49Though if you were on the wrong side of that issue, you couldn't have been elected dog catcher.
27:53This ranks in the minds of some people, along with Pearl Harbor, a day that will live in infamy.
28:00It's the biggest trade in sports history.
28:03He wasn't a rookie, he wasn't over the hill, he was in his prime.
28:08He had set records that no one in any team sport had ever set.
28:17Canada's Prince in Exile proved to be the perfect cure for what ailed the Los Angeles Kings.
28:24It was like the old joke, you'd call the forum and say, what time's the game start?
28:28And you'd say, what time can you be here?
28:30Here in Los Angeles, nobody cares about anything, let alone hockey.
28:33But all of a sudden, the right people were going, and it was the in thing to do.
28:36It all of a sudden went from not being something that anybody cared about whatsoever to a very difficult ticket
28:41to get.
28:42Let's go to the forum, let's see the Kings, let's see the Gretzs, you know, let's see and be seen.
28:45We were bringing Ronald Reagan before the games to give us pep talks, to give us pep talks.
28:51People just came out of the woodwork. Gretzky had that real star quality.
28:54They knew he was great, nice looking guy, had a great looking wife,
28:58and he could do something which they appreciate in LA, which was kick butt and dominate.
29:22What an impact it made on this team, the sale of jackets, caps, jerseys,
29:31went from dead last to number one of all sports teams.
29:35A succession of star studded sellouts more than doubled the value of the franchise
29:40as the Kings won their first playoff series in seven years,
29:43beating the once indomitable Oilers.
29:46In a single season, Wayne Gretzky sold ice hockey to a city built on sand.
29:51He reinvented Los Angeles Kings and got Hollywood and media corporations involved
29:57and interested in hockey, which has carried over until today.
30:00Ladies and gentlemen, the great one, Wayne Gretzky.
30:04He didn't have an agent out there looking to get on Arsenio or get on Letterman.
30:09He did it because he knew he had to, but it wasn't something he loved to do.
30:12Wayne going to Los Angeles not only saved hockey in California, it saved the NHL.
30:19I remember one day, it was President's Day, my first year in LA.
30:23We were playing a one o'clock game in LA, and I was driving on the 405 in my convertible,
30:30and I had to call my dad, and I said,
30:32you're not going to believe this, I'm on my way to an NHL hockey game.
30:35I've got the top down, it's 85 degrees out, and now I got to go to work.
30:40My dad started laughing so hard.
30:43When Gretzky arrived in LA, there were 21 NHL teams.
30:47By 2000, the league stood at 30 with franchises in Arizona, Florida, Texas and Georgia.
30:53I can't imagine anybody having done more in terms of selling his sport,
30:58and being an ambassador for his game, and being accessible to Wayne Gretzky.
31:03He is the single biggest reason why this sport expanded the way it did.
31:09It is a sunbelt, west coast, warm weather sport now because of Wayne Gretzky.
31:26While Gretzky popularized hockey on the west coast,
31:29the Kings failure to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs
31:32led to a clash with his first Kings coach, Robby Petorek.
31:38Robby had issued a rule that no one was allowed to show his temper at a mistake.
31:45Gretzky had missed, missed the puck on a goal right at the end of a period.
31:50Then as he went by the net, he whacked his stick over the crossbar and went to the bench
31:55and got benched for the rest of the period.
31:58Robby announced that he considered himself a teacher and that this was a rule
32:02and that people had to be taught things.
32:05And Wayne said, if you want to teach, go to New Haven.
32:08Petorek was fired following the season.
32:11At 31, a back injury threatened Gretzky's career.
32:15But he returned in January of 1993 and led the Kings into the conference finals against the Maple Leafs.
32:22Scoring the winning goal in overtime of game six, Gretzky forced a deciding contest.
32:28People were like, well Wayne Gretzky's too old, he can't leave his team,
32:31the team's not good enough, and those types of things Wayne feeds off of.
32:34I knew he had the ability to win a game by himself.
32:38At that point in his career, with his ability, he showed the world he was going to do that.
32:44He forced himself into game seven with Toronto to ensure that the Kings would go to the finals.
32:51And he made it happen.
32:53He tells the story about riding down the elevator at the hotel and the security guard talking about
32:59how he was going to get overtime that night because there'd be people partying in the streets
33:04and he'd have to be out front of the hotel watching.
33:07And Wayne said to him, he says, don't spend that overtime money yet because you might not be working later
33:12tonight.
33:25He just played one of those games where he just took over.
33:28I mean, he scored three goals, but it was not really his goals that were amazing.
33:32It's the way he played that game.
33:34He had to control the puck almost the whole game and it was something nobody could believe.
33:39I believe that year and that playoff run was the most rewarding part of my career
33:44because the game seven we played in Toronto, I always said that because of the situation,
33:50because of the game, because of where we were,
33:53I always felt like it was the best game I ever played in the National Hockey League.
33:57You know, they might have gone all the way to the cup.
33:59I mean, they were beating the Canadians, they were leading one game to nothing,
34:03they were winning the second game and then McSorley late in the third period,
34:08they find out that he's got an illegal stick and everything went wrong.
34:13One of the only regrets that I have in my whole career was the final against Montreal where we didn't
34:20win the cup.
34:21And if had things gone more our way, we could have easily been the champions.
34:25So I was devastated because I knew that team may never get back to that level again.
34:30And we were so close yet so far.
34:32But after almost eight years in Los Angeles, Gretzky realized just how thin the local ice had become.
34:40With team owner Bruce Bignall headed for prison on fraud charges,
34:44and the Kings on the way to a third straight losing season, the great one grew restless.
34:50I think the game of hockey never let Wayne down.
34:52But I think the owners of hockey did. His own owner in Edmonton sold it. His own own.
35:02Turned out to be a crook.
35:04Everything seemed to fall apart.
35:07The owners were getting in trouble. The franchise was changing hands.
35:11Wayne could not deal with not going forward and trying to make it better. So he had to move on.
35:19Mike Keenan had coached Gretzky in the 1987 Canada Cup.
35:24Now in St. Louis, he seized another opportunity to have Gretzky on his team.
35:29They asked me, is there anything we can do to improve the team again quickly?
35:33And I said, I think that I can get Wayne Gretzky. Well, I had no idea whether I could get
35:38Wayne Gretzky or not.
35:39But I started negotiating. That process took almost four months of daily phone calls to Los Angeles
35:48to finally get them to say, yes, we'll trade him.
35:52The idea of having hockey's greatest playmaker on a line with a great sniper like Brett Hull
35:58had Blues fans salivating.
36:01You thought that was the match made in heaven, the finisher with the arranger.
36:06And it just didn't work all that well.
36:08Brett's a different sort of player. He's not the same type of player as Curry was with the same speed.
36:14He didn't play the same style. I think they just weren't mentally on the same page on the team.
36:20Wayne needed a player, I believe, to come from behind a little bit, just as he had with Curry.
36:27Brett was a lead winger. He liked to get out in front and get the pass on the fly,
36:32drive wide, and get those opportunities. So it took some adjustment for Brett to learn
36:38and to get his read from behind rather than from in front.
36:42The combo didn't work and the Blues stumbled after Gretzky's arrival going six, ten, and five.
36:49Keenan was critical of Gretzky's play as the Blues were knocked out in the second round of the 96
36:54playoffs by the Detroit Red Wings.
37:08Oh, that's a great ball.
37:09Later in 1996, Gretzky landed in New York in search of that elusive fifth Stanley Cup.
37:16For the first year, the Detroit Red Wings.
37:20Gretzky had it, blocked it.
37:22Isleman picks it up. Isleman moving, blue line, chance.
37:26Stevens!
37:27Detroit Red Wings!
37:31Later in 1996, Gretzky landed in New York in search of that elusive fifth Stanley Cup.
37:37For the first year, Wayne's, I think, role changed a little bit from what it was in the past in
37:44that
37:45he wanted to take a little bit of a secondary role. He was always the captain of the team.
37:51He went into New York. He didn't want to be the captain. He realized this was Mark's team.
37:56The reunion was the talk of New York. Gretzky's hat trick in Game 4 in the opening round playoff
38:01series against Florida sparked a run to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost to the Flyers.
38:07When the Rangers refused to meet Messier's demands for a new contract, the revival ended after a single season.
38:14Mark had an expectation of signing and coming back from New York, and the management didn't want him.
38:23Mark had an expectation of a new contract for a new contract for a new contract for a new contract
38:27for a new contract for a new contract for a new contract for a new contract.
38:28In 1999, his age began to show.
38:32Wayne, at times, looked like he was still 30, and then at other times, he looked as though he was
38:40feeling his age, which at the end he was 38.
38:44The team that he had didn't have the Curious and Messiers and Anderson and Coffey around him.
38:51It's always difficult to see a great player.
38:53The struggle to score goals. Wayne Gretzky's last year was difficult for me to watch.
39:03I wanted him to continue to play because I felt like he didn't do what he came to New York
39:09to do.
39:09He had just nine goals and 49 assists, fueling rumors that he would retire at season's end.
39:16They said, why are you quitting? You can still play.
39:19He said, you don't understand, Dad. Every year when I go to camp, they're bigger, they're stronger, they're faster, and
39:27I'm a year older.
39:29My dedication in the off-season was always solid.
39:32And I just felt that I was getting to a point where maybe that wasn't my top priority.
39:38When that happens in your mind, it's time to step back and say, maybe it's time.
39:56There were guys in the press box with tears in their eyes.
39:59All along, I thought to myself, don't do it. Don't quit.
40:02And then it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn't thinking about me.
40:06And I was thinking about all the hockey fans who wanted to stay, because if he didn't stay, we wouldn't
40:11see the miracles anymore.
40:13His final game drew the largest audience in the history of Hockey United Canada.
40:18After 20 NHL seasons, Gretzky left more than 61 records on the ice.
40:24After everyone had asked and had their questions answered, he sat there in his jersey.
40:31He was so reluctant to take that jersey off for the last time.
40:35He was still sorry to see the party over.
40:42Gretzky, looking, Gary Curry, McSorley, to Gretzky, scores!
40:48He did it! He did it!
40:50The greatest goal scorer in National Hockey League history is playing Gretzky!
40:57Gretzky is the Babe Ruth of his sport.
41:01Gretzky, as an individual, stood above his contemporaries to an even greater extent than did Michael Jordan.
41:08If you compare a statistic to any other sports, somebody would have to come next year and hit 95 in
41:17a month or something like that.
41:19This is definitely the greatest player to ever play the game.
41:21He was more driven than just about any other player.
41:27And he was able to conceal his drive behind the sophisticated style of play.
41:34But to be able to maintain this high level of excellence, game in and game out, for such a long
41:45period of time, to me that transcended the numbers.
41:49He could almost see a smile come on his face the minute he stepped on the ice.
41:53Because that's where he could be, Wayne Gretzky, do what he enjoyed the most.
41:59I think what Gretzky did for hockey can never be forgotten. He changed the game.
42:04He gave it grace. He gave it space. He gave it speed. He gave it artistry.
42:08The further he gets from us, the more we'll see what he did never be accomplished again.
42:13He basically took a league on his shoulders and carried them to a place that nobody, and I mean nobody,
42:2020 years ago would ever have thought hockey would be right now.
42:23He was the last hockey player who came from the game that was part of us.
42:30The focus of the entire hockey world is on Edmonton tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now say these words for
42:37the last time ever in this building.
42:42Hockey fans, tonight's first starter, number 99, Wayne Gretzky.
42:49I've always said that, and I'm not the first person to say this, but he's always been a better person.
43:01He has been a hockey player. When you really get to know him, then...
43:06When Wayne Gretzky first saw the driveway that climbed steeply to his new home in Los Angeles, he remarked,
43:13I'll never get up there in the winter. Clearly, the Great One's spirit had not left the snowy environs of
43:18Edmonton.
43:19But Gretzky seemed to have made the adjustment by 2001, when he became part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes.
43:26Canada, meanwhile, awaited his return, believing that national treasures only leave their country on loan.
43:32In 2002, Gretzky demonstrated that part of him never left his homeland, when, as executive director,
43:40he helped Canada win Olympic gold for the first time in 50 years.
43:44For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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