It’s late in the day, but still…19 years ago today Wayne Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to LA. Some rue it as the day canada lost its national treasure. Others say it was the day hockey became a business and stopped being a sport. Others celebrate it as the day hockey found itself a place in the greater American conscience, and opened up new markets, and more importantly for players, helped open up the salary scale.
For me, it was a sad day because this was the breakup of a really fun to watch dynasty. Baseball will always be my greatest love(in sports), but no team has ever been as fun to watch for me as the Oilers of that era. When you add the wizardry Gretzky brought to the game to a team hat was still good enough to win a Stanley Cup without him, you had some of the most amazing hockey ever played, IMHO.
I was 13 at the time, and growing up, the name Gretzky had this magical aura to it, that if anyone said his name at school, we all wanted to know what they were talking about. Did they see him play? Did he have 7 points last night? what? What? Gretzky being traded was to Canadians(although I don’t like to go the nationalism thing) what Kennedy being shot was to Americans. I still remember tht afternoon, I was finishing my paper route(we were the last house), and my cousin who lived next door saw me go by and came running out onto the porch and told me, “You won’t believe it. Gretzky’s been traded.” I called bullshit on him a couple of times, then he said come on in, see for yourself.
While I have grown to understand quite well I feel the business side of sports, and can defend the trade on those grounds, the 13 year old boy in me still just doesn’t like what that trade meant to that team and to my hockey watching. It was, without a doubt, a sad day for me. Gretzky never won another Cup either, so to some degree, I’m sure it was for him as well.
Strangely, seeing hockey move from traditional locals to “Sunshine Cities”. LA, Carolina, Nashville, TB, and a pro team from Minnesota moved to Dallas (Unreal), Arizona, Anaheim, etc.
Admittingly, I was among those that ignored hockey in favor of “American” sports, but upon going to college in the South Chicago Suburbs, we went to a lot of games in 94 at Old Chicago Stadium. The posrt is awesome to watch in person (not so much on TV) and the crew of Chelly, The Eagle, and JR was exciting, especially the playoff series (96?) with Colorado where 4 of the 6 games went to OT. Shortly after that the Hawks got rid of everyone (including Chicago-native Chelios), and I went back to ignoring hockey. We still go to Peoria Riverman games quite a bit.
I completely missed out on the Gretzky stuff. But, hey, one can only be crazy about so many things. I always preferred mario to Wayne.
Gretzky being traded was to Canadians(although I don’t like to go the nationalism thing) what Kennedy being shot was to Americans.
I hapeened to be in Canada when the trade was announced, seeing it on TV in a bar in Saint John, NB. Everyone in the place just sat in stunned silence.
Can we have Gretzky post without a mention of one of the reasons perhaps that he was ok with the trade, rumor has it, was to go to LA to support his wife’s acting career. Gross miscalculation there. What career?
Here she is, sporting the latest in 80’s health club-wear, known as the “80’s sweaty, layered, arched-back look”
Don’t forget her claim to fame, American Anthem, also starring Mitch Gaylord, with music by Andy Taylor of Duran Duran, Jon Parr and INXS.
or perhaps her bright shining moment was The Flamingo Kid (that’s her in the background, with the trademark arched back, on the scooter)
** Gretzky being traded was to Canadians(although I don’t like to go the nationalism thing) what Kennedy being shot was to Americans.**
Was it really that extreme up there? I am a huge sports fan, so I can see the shock, anger, tears, or whatever other reaction. After all, I cried like a baby when Walter Payton died (see http://herniationboy07.blogspot.com/2007/02/organ-donation.html for my continued shameless pursuit of organ donors), but was it really as if someone died when Wayne was traded? Interested in hearing the Canadian perspective.
I am too young to remember Kennedy’s death, but to me there seem to be a very limited number of “remember exactly where you were and who you were with moments” as far as mouth-hanging-open-and-I-can’t-believe-that-just-happened shocked (not including good things like your favorite team winning a title, but I am talking shocking/surreal/unreal things). Aside from Kennedy, here is what I remember that way …
OJ Simpson bronco "chase"Princess Di crashChallenger explosion9/11
anyone?
I guess we can add shocking sports moments too …
1980 USABartmanFlutie to PhelanKirk GibsonDwight Clark "the catch"MJ over Ehlo (to this day, more amazing than the shot over the Jazz)
It was devastating to us. Wayne was what every young Canadian hockey played wanted to be. I remember when I was playing our league had to ban the use of number 99 on jersies because there were fights between players and parents over who got to use the number. he was beyond huge.
Mark
TT, did you ever see that espn series “The Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame …” One great episode was 5 reasons to not blame bartman for the NLCS loss.
Gonzalez error Dusty doing shit and not settling everyone down with a trot to the mound, esp. to cool off Prior - very underrated and really could have taken a lot of steam out of the situation. Either bc of the aura of prior in 03, or just bc Dusty didn’t think of it, Dusty completely overlooked that he had a very young pitcher on the mound there was still a game 7
and I think these were the last 2, which I thought were both kinda weird Alou freaking out, which in turn got everyone else riled up. I agree that he did go nuts, and it did get everyone going, but really, what is a guy to do in the heat of the moment, smile and say to Bartman “nice try, o’ chum, let’s get a pint after the game”? I am sure that 95% + athletes would be as mad Bernie Mac, a Sox fan, singing “root root root for the chaaaam-pions” rather than “Cuuuuuu-bies” in the 7th (dumb reason)
Aside from Kennedy, here is what I remember that way …
Howard Cosell announcing the death of John Lennon to Monday Night Football viewers.
“This, we have to say it, is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all The Beatles, shot five times in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead … on … arrival.”
I have only ever owned one doll in my whole life. Guess who it was? Back in those days you only got the Toronto Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada, so for Edmonton to be coming to town was huge. I remember one time getting into a big fight with my parents because we had to go to my grandparents, and I wanted to stay and watch the game. I ended up having to go upstairs in a bedroom on a little black and white TV with bad reception to watch the game.
He endorsed a cereal named Pro Stars, which I insisted on having several times. Getting any of his cards, be it the regular, the league leader, the all star card, was like gold at school. Take Michael Jordan, add Muhammad Ali, and you might be approaching the stratosphere that Gretzky was in up here.
You have to remember, here was a guy at 27, had just won his 4th cup in 5 yeras(should have been 5 in a row, but whatever), needed Mario Lemieux to have a season that was basically Gretzky’s average season for the past 6 years in order to lose the scoring title for the first time, and he gets traded! By the time he was 20 his nickname, and the only one he ever had as a pro in the media(players called him Gretz, but that doens’t really count), was “The Great One.” Who gets that kind of nickname after 15 seasons much less 3?
It was really a sad day up here. It’s almost one of those things that if you were here, I don’t have to say anymore, you just know, and if you weren’t, no amount of explaining will do it justice. The one thing that could have never happened, happened. And for better, worse, or indifferent(everyone has a different opinion), hockey’s never been the same.
I don’t one can assume that Alou makes that catch in the first place. We’re talking about “great hit, bad field” Alou here. It’s not like the Derek Jeter, Jeffrey Maier, Tony Tarasco, play where tarasco is camped under the ball and the 12yo douchebag reaches over.
Bottom line is THIS:
Florida had to beat Mark Prior AND Kerry Wood on back-to-back days to go to the WS.They did and they did. All the Cubbies had to do was win one of those games. This was in the days where facing Prior/Wood meant something, perhaps comparable to facing 2007 Schilling/Beckett.
The Cubs choked. Mark “Meow” Prior and Kerry “Broken” Wood got beat. To blame it on a fan is ridiculous, and it’s one of the reasons everyone hates Cub fans (you know what I mean). They’re so busy bumbling “I love the cubbies, I love the cubbies” or tripping over their puke-stained shoes that they never have a realistic look on anything.
LMAO! If you give me $10 I won’t make that my sig line. (I’m envisioning Lord Helmet playing with his “dolls” in Spaceballs)
I thought guys owned “action figures”?
It’s cool, I have an Ozzie and Pujols McFarlane figures (not dolls … NO, definately not dolls) on a shelf in the office, next to replica stadium, pictures at teh game, etc.
I didn’t realize how big Gretzky was in canada, perhaps because we have so many sports with so many stars and free agency has them moving all over the place, that we don’t have that star/team association anymore.
Look at ARod … he’s been the “best ever” for quite a few years now and he’s played in Seattle, Texas, NY, and perhaps somewhere else next year.
I guess if the Yankees traded Jeter after winning the 4 titles that “might” have some small resemblence to Gretzky going to LA.
How close to second place was Roy wanting the leave the Habs. That would seem to be a huge story (especially after Colorado wins a cup).
Thanks for the further, that puts it in some perspective. There have been no real national sports icons down here beloved by everyone. Jordan was maybe as close as it got, but even he was hated by Detroit.
I think you will like this book a lot.
Fever Pitch
Note: it is NOT related to the Jimmy Fallon/Red Sox movie (thank goodness), it is re a Londoner’s (the other London) obsession with Arsenal football, er, soccer. A great read, you’ll laugh out loud.
You said:
I remember one time getting into a big fight with my parents because we had to go to my grandparents, and I wanted to stay and watch the game. I ended up having to go upstairs in a bedroom on a little black and white TV with bad reception to watch the game.
The writer talks about having to come up with excuses to not go to a wedding in order to go to some random “meaningless” mid-season home game.
My favorite line in the book went something like:
“some people say that a referee is best when he is not noticed. I say that these people are wrong. I prefer to see them, to have them screw up, and to resent them”
Also funny is his shock when a girl he was dating suggsted that if they had kids and the kid was an Arsenal fan “he could just do every other game,” which he initially thought meant he could take the kid to every other, and to the other games take the wife or a friend, but she meant that he could take the kid to every other game, and SHE could take the kid to the others. wrote something like, “I’ve been a fan since 14, she went to her first game 3 months ago, and SHE is going to take half of my games away?” So he intentionally baited her into an argument claiming he wanted to go to a game rather than see friends (he really didn’t care all too much about that game), tried to get her to say “it’s just a game,” and she said it, and he told her that this is why she should not be able to get his tickets (unless he is going too) bc “you just don’t understand what it’s like to be a real fan. It’s NOT just a game to ME”. Then he says, I felt a little bad about it, but I had to do it.
I was lucky enough to see Gretzky’s first game as a St. Louis Blue. I won the tickets on the radio, giving the best “Let’s Go Blues!!!” cheer on a radio station, 105.7 the Point. I was in heaven, as I had been hoping for that moment for my teenage and adult life. I mean, the Greatest Hockey Player (besides Gordy Howe, whom I wax reverent towards his name when I even say it) coming to my favourite-est sports team (certainly hockey team EVER EVER EVER!!!), my home town team, the team I have their logo tatooed to me, hoping I would get to play even ONE NHL game for (even though it would NEVER happen)…
This day gave me hope that he would be traded to the Blues; and eventually, HE WAS!!! I know we gave up a boat load to rent him for the last month of the season, but it was worth it!!!
Yeah, but Janet was so hot that I would have done some unsavoury things with her sweaty workout wear if she asked me to. All bets are off with Wayne; though he a SUPE FRICKIN’ stud, so he could have easily done anything she wanted. She used to be EXTREMELY hot…
