Wayne Gretzky

Wayne Douglas Gretzky (born January 26, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and head coach who spent 20 NHL seasons with four teams between 1979 and 1999. Known as "the Great One," he is widely regarded as the sport's finest player, a view supported by NHL surveys of writers, former players, general managers, and coaches. He holds the NHL records for career points and assists, and his assist total exceeds the career point totals of any other player. Gretzky is the only NHL player to surpass 200 points in a single season, which he did four times, and he recorded over 100 points in 15 professional seasons. When he retired in 1999, he owned 61 NHL records: 40 in the regular season, 15 in the playoffs, and six from All-Star Games.

Growing up in Brantford, Ontario, Gretzky developed his skills on a backyard rink and played minor hockey far above his age group. Despite lacking size and strength, his intelligence, stamina, and ability to read the game were unmatched. He excelled at avoiding checks, anticipating the puck's location, and making the right play at the right moment. He became famous for positioning himself behind the opponent's net, an area that came to be called "Gretzky's office."

After leading the 1978 World Junior Championships in scoring, Gretzky signed with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association (WHA) and was soon traded to the Edmonton Oilers. Following the NHL-WHA merger, he set numerous scoring records over ten seasons with the Oilers, leading them to four Stanley Cup championships. A trade sent him to the Los Angeles Kings, where he played eight seasons and guided the team to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final, helping popularize hockey in California. He had brief stints with the St. Louis Blues and finished his career with the New York Rangers. His trophy case includes nine Hart Trophies as most valuable player, ten Art Ross Trophies for leading the league in points, two Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP, and five Lester B. Pearson Awards for outstanding play as judged by peers. He led the NHL in goals five times and assists 16 times, and he won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship and performance five times while frequently speaking out against fighting in hockey.

Upon retiring in 1999, Gretzky was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, becoming the most recent player to have the waiting period waived. The NHL retired his number 99 league-wide. He was one of six players named to the International Ice Hockey Federation's (IIHF) Centennial All-Star Team, entered the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2000, and received the Order of Hockey in Canada in 2012. He served as executive director for Canada's men's national team during the 2002 Winter Olympics, where the team won gold. In 2000, he became a part-owner of the Phoenix Coyotes and, after the 2004–05 NHL lockout, took over as head coach. He was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Following the Coyotes' bankruptcy in September 2009, Gretzky resigned as head coach and gave up his ownership stake. In October 2016, he returned to the Oilers as a minority partner and vice-chairman of their parent company, Oilers Entertainment Group, leaving in 2021 to become an analyst for Turner Sports' NHL coverage.

Wayne Douglas Gretzky was born on January 26, 1961, in Brantford, Ontario, to Phyllis Leone (Hockin) and Walter Gretzky. The couple married in 1960 and lived in a Brantford apartment while Walter worked for Bell Telephone Canada. Seven months after Wayne's birth, the family moved to a house on Varadi Avenue, chosen partly because its flat yard could accommodate an ice rink. Wayne had a sister, Kim (born 1963), and brothers Keith, Glen, and Brent. The family often visited the farm of his grandparents, Tony and Mary, and watched Hockey Night in Canada together. At age two, Wayne tried to score goals against Mary with a souvenir stick. He first skated on ice at the farm when he was two years and ten months old.

Walter taught Wayne, Keith, Brent, Glen, and their friends hockey on a backyard rink nicknamed the "Wally Coliseum." Drills involved skating around bleach bottles and tin cans and flipping pucks over scattered hockey sticks to retrieve them in full stride. Walter advised him to "skate where the puck's going, not where it's been." Wayne was a classic prodigy whose extraordinary skills made him a target of jealous parents. At age six, he played on a team of ten-year-olds. His first coach, Dick Martin, noted that he handled the puck better than the older boys. Martin said, "Wayne was so good that you could have a boy of your own who was a tremendous hockey player, and he'd get overlooked because of what the Gretzky kid was doing." The sweaters for ten-year-olds were far too large, so Gretzky tucked the right side into his pants—a habit he continued throughout his NHL career.

By age ten, Gretzky had scored 378 goals and 139 assists in a single season with the Brantford Nadrofsky Steelers. His play drew media attention beyond Brantford, including a profile by John Iaboni in the Toronto Telegram in October 1971. At the 1974 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, he scored 26 points playing for Brantford.