Wayne Gretzky matches his age with his records, 60! How (and why) I met the great one with 9 factoids about #99.

WAYNE GRETZY HITS ANOTHER MILESTONE

GRETZKY MATCHES UP HIS AGE WITH THE NUMBER OF RECORDS HE HOLDS

Wayne Gretzky turns 60 today. Wow. I guess it would be more of a freak out event if I wasn’t a year older! He’s aging like a fine wine isn’t he? Happy birthday to the Great One. The singular greatest offensive force in sports.

I first met Wayne in 1998. A meeting was set up by his younger brother Glen who was part of our Labatt-Sportsnet crew that were travelling Canada for 26 consecutive weeks doing promotions for the Sportsnet national game which in 1998-99 was Tuesday nights. My job was to entertain the crowd that had assembled early for the taping of the between-period hit from the bar. At one such event in Oshawa I told the story on the microphone of the Wayne Gretzky connection to the number 1851. 18:51 of the third period was the time of his first goal in the NHL, October 14, 1979 vs Vancouver, goalie Glen Hanlon; assisted by Blair Macdonald and Brett Callighen. Ten years and one day later Wayne passed Gordie Howe for the career point lead in NHL history. October 15, 1989. He was then with the LA Kings, playing his old team and he scored a goal to tie the game, just like he did with his first goal ten years earlier and it gave him a career point total of 1,851, the exact same number as the time of that first NHL goal.

So I say all this on the microphone and Glen Gretzky looks at me like I have two heads. He then proceeds to call, ‘bullshit.’ To which I reply, are you kidding, have you not seen me on stage for the last few weeks? This is what I do bro. It’s not BS. Glen then marches right into the bar’s office, asks to use the phone and gives his Dad a call. Walter ( Wally ) does not believe it either. So he phones Wayne. Wayne doesn’t believe it either. So, the search was on by the Gretzky family for verification and although the internet then was only a few years old within short order it was confirmed that my stats and facts were correct and within a couple of days and before our next sojourn across Canada the word came from brother Glen; The G-man wants to meet you. Cool!

We had a Toronto visit scheduled for November 24th. Wayne’s team, the NY Rangers were scheduled to play in Buffalo the next night, Wednesday November 25, 1998 and we were told Wayne had purchased a suite for us all for the game. Fantastic! But wait, it gets better! Glenn then said our small group were invited to the Gretzky homestead in Brantford for the afternoon where we would get the ‘tour’ and hang with the parents before embarking in two vans to make the drive to Buffalo for the game. Amazing! We were there for four hours. I sat in the Gretzky kitchen and had a cup of tea with his late mother, Phyllis and talked about the situation in 1974 in Brantford where Wayne was basically forced out of his home town by jealous parents and he went to Toronto to play Bantam hockey. Then I went downstairs to thee greatest basement of memorabilia probably in the history of the world. You may have heard about it recently with a couple of unscrupulous people stealing several of the items for the purpose of selling them. Sad. Anyway, on we went to Buffalo. I believe we were seven or eight in total including Wally and a best friend of his. Wayne’s mother did not come.

We ate and drank like Kings, watched the game and then post-game we were led downstairs to a private room. We waited and then in he came, number 99, Wayne Gretzky. I’ll always remember he went right up to his Dad and hugged him. Then a big hug for his Dad’s buddy. Obviously a man he knew well. After some small talk with them he turned to us and it was our turn. He came to each of us shaking hands and when I said my name he said, ‘ ahhh, Mr. stats.’ Yep, I am Wayne and did you know our line in Bantam finished 1-2-3 in league scoring, Phil Byrne, Mark Martin, Liam Maguire? Pretty big stuff pal. Bet you never did that…….lol…..No, I obviously did not say that but I proceeded to give him a bit of background on what I did for a living and my role with the group and we had a nice chat.

So it’s time for Wayne to go and he had a small package under his arm so he asks our small group, the ones he did not know, if any of us were parents. To which we replied, yes, in fact we all were with young children. He then says,’ would you guys like a signed program from Nagano ( the Olympics ) We sputter out a yes, Wayne opens the package brings out a handful of programs, takes them over to his father, has his Dad sign them all then he comes to us and asked each one of us our children’s names and signed them to each child! Who does that?? It was a surreal moment. Once he was done signing I grabbed a picture (below) and he was off. The Great Wayne Gretzky.

Post script; I spent a fantastic weekend with Wayne and a group of men in 2012 in Ft. McMurray for a fundraiser. Wayne was the headliner. His support group was Bryan Trottier, Darren Langdon, Kelly Chase, Marty McSorley, the late Dave Semenko and yours truly. One of these things is not like the other. My job (stop me if you’ve heard this before) was to provide the entertainment as we rolled to signing after signing for Wayne and also prior to the main gala event. What a fantastic weekend. What came out of that was Wayne agreeing to write the forward to my third book. Four books, four forwards written by Dick Irvin, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Bob Costas. Somewhere back in time as I rolled through my formative years at St. Leonard’s elementary the hockey Gods must have smiled on me. I could never envision some of the good fortune I’ve had.

So here’s to ya Wayne, on the 60th anniversary of your birth. May God bless you with many more and may our paths cross again so we can talk endless hockey like you, Bryan Trottier and I did that Saturday night in the hotel bar in Fr. McMurray. Cheers!

My top nine Gretzky factoids

1) Has more careers assists than any other player has points. Meaning, if he had never scored one goal in the NHL he’s still the all-time leader. Think about that……1963 assists. Jaromir Jagr #2 in career scoring, 1921 points.

2) 50 goals in 39 games was accomplished with Wayne scoring nine goals in games 38, 39. I mean, come on.

3) Wayne Gretzky led every single tournament in scoring that he played in from 1968 until 1996.

4) One weekend in minor hockey Wayne scored 50 goals helping two teams to the final of their respective tourney’s. The problem, there was an overlap for the final games. He was perplexed. His Dad said Wayne, play the first game with your age group. When it’s done just race off the ice we’ll rip over to the other rink ( 20 miles away) and jump into the game when you get there. He scored 9 helping his age team win 10-0. They raced to the other game, end of two periods, they were down 6-0. Wayne played the third, scored 7, they won.

5) Wayne finished 65 points or better than the 2nd best scorer in the league for six consecutive seasons.

6) Wayne scored 1000 points in 424 games. The second fastest to 1000 points is……….Wayne…his second 1000 points it took him 433 games. By comparison next is Mario Lemieux taking 513 games.

7) Wayne once scored 100 points in a season before Christmas….I mean…I’m writing these and you just have to shake your head. December 18th so not just before Christmas, a week before Christmas he got his 100th point in Edmonton’s 34th game.

8) Wayne played twenty seasons, recorded fifteen 100pt seasons; 4-200 point seasons. His goal scoring went down 21 goals in from 1982-1983…..and he still scored 71 goals lol…

9) Wayne is one of six players to wear #99 in NHL history. Leo Bourgeault, Des Roche, Joe Lamb, Wilf Paiement and Rick Dudley are the other five. No one will wear it ever again. It has been retired league wide.

: The two official records of Wayne’s that have been broken are; Gretzky’s record of 15 regular season overtime assists has been passed by three players. Mark Messier-18, Adam Oates-17, Nick Lidstrom-16.

: Gretzky’s record of the most career all-star assists, 12, has been passed by Joe Sakic-16, Mark Messier-14 and Ray Bourque-13.

That brought him down to 59 records but then when Mario Lemieux made his comeback his PPG (points per game ) went down from 2.05 to 1.883 meaning Wayne’s 1.921 (same number as Jagr’s career pts by the way…just sayin’) went to #1 giving him, sixty official NHL records. Gidday!