My favourite hockey player of all time was known as the Great One long before the term GOAT ever came along. That's right, number 99 Wayne Gretzky was the athlete I revered. Yesterday's blog got me thinking about him. I mentioned that I got to test my driving skills in Saskatchewan on a road trip with my Dad. Not many people can tell you the exact date that they got to get behind the wheel for the first time, but for me it's stamped on the internet as August 9th, 1988.
The internet won't tell you that I got to drive as a young lad on a road trip with my dad. It will tell you though about the day that shook the foundation of professional sport when a team did the unthinkable and betrayed it's loyalty to their franchise player, the best player in the league at the time, and arguably the best that has ever played the game. It was the day that Gretzky got traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings.
I couldn't believe it when we heard it driving across Saskatchewan on our way back home to Winnipeg. We actually stayed in a motel that night and I was sure that it couldn't be true until we watched the news that night. "The biggest name in Canadian sports - the man hockey fans call The Great One - is going to the United States," Knowlton Nash announced on the National, as the show kicked off that night. "Wayne Gretzky has been traded from the Edmonton oilers to the Los Angeles Kings."
I was shattered. I and droves of other Canadians felt absolutely betrayed by Pocklington the GM of the oilers. How could this have possibly happened? I believe it opened the door to anyone being traded. I am sure that the reason that there are now over 30 teams in the NHL can be traced back to that dreadful day. The leader of the NDP in Canadian Politics actually asked the Canadian Government to intervene to stop the trade! Tell me that doesn't speak to how he was regarded as a National Treasure...and to a 13 yr old boy it was like banishing Superman from planet earth.
I'm no sports statistician and so I am sure that there is someone out there who will tell me that Babe Ruth was traded somewhere, or Larry Bird, or what have you; but in my country and in my era this changed the face of sport. Nobody was safe from being dealt after that. In fact, I am pretty sure that within a year or two, Carson the hot shot player that was included in the trade was dealt to Detroit. Soon after the trade, Grant Fuhr and Glen Anderson got deported from Edmonton. Messier ended up as a Ranger. It may have actually been the caveat that started all of the no trade clauses in todays sport. What an influence he has had and continues to have in Canadian hockey.
A single post just days ago with his belief that Russia should be banned from the World Juniors hit the internet in the morning. By the afternoon, the IIHF announced Russia will be banned. Coincidence? Maybe so, but the 13 year old boy in me is hoping that Superman is still influencing the hockey earth from afar. My allegiance to any professional team faded when Gretzky got traded. People will ask for my favourite team and my answer now is the same...Canada. No NHL favourite. I have players I love to watch, and specific line combinations, like the "Carson, Tucker, Roberts" line the Leafs had for awhile; I have friends that I root for when they play...but no favourite team.
That loyalty left with The Great One on a hot sunny prairie day in Saskatchewan on August 9, 1988.