Wayne Gretzky: On the Ice With... (3 page)

The WHA needed star players in order to succeed. The league set out to meet this goal in two ways. One was to sign players
away from existing NHL teams. The other was to sign underage Junior A players immediately. Such aggressive recruiting led
to warfare between the two leagues, which continued for the next several years.

Things were starting to calm down just as Wayne Gretzky made his international hockey debut at the
prestigious 1977 World Junior Hockey Tournament in Montreal, Quebec. The tourney became a showcase for the skills of a kid
who would come to be called the Great One — and focused the WHA’s attention to him.

In six games Wayne tallied 17 points and received All-World All-Star recognition. John Bassett, a renegade WHA team owner
who had renewed the WHA-NHL war by signing superstar Ken Linseman, offered Wayne a contract to turn pro with his Birmingham
team. The WHA’s New England Whalers also came calling, offering a long-term deal that included a $250,000 signing bonus. The
Whalers offer was of particular interest to Wayne, since his boyhood idol, Gordie Howe, played for the team.

As it happened, Wayne never had a chance to choose. Talks of ending the league rivalry by merging the WHA into the NHL had
opened. The Whalers, eager for the merger to move forward, withdrew their offer to Wayne as an act of goodwill.

Wayne was free to entertain other prospects. Enter the WHA Indianapolis Racers and their owner, Nelson Skalbania.

The Racers were a losing team. Attendance at their games was extremely poor; the likelihood of their fitting into the WHA-NHL
merger was slim. Skalbania realized he had nothing to lose by taking a chance on a talented, headline-catching teenager looking
for a place to play.

Nelson Skalbania was a millionaire real estate developer from Vancouver, British Columbia, who longed to make a splash in
the sports world. He owned or co-owned professional teams in football, baseball, soccer, and hockey. He had tried to acquire
the American League’s Seattle Mariners and a National Basketball Association franchise for Vancouver. Racquetball, distance
running, and backgammon were among his favorite hobbies. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.

When Skalbania met the seventeen-year-old Gretzky and his family in June 1978, it was evident that he meant business. He sent
his private jet to Toronto to fly Wayne, Walt, and Phyllis to Vancouver. At the airport, his Rolls-Royce was waiting to drive
Wayne to his mansion. After greeting Wayne, Skalbania took him on a six-mile run. It was Skalbania’s own personal physical
fitness evaluation.
Wayne used his old cross-country training to beat the millionaire.

Skalbania’s advisers had told him Wayne was an exceptional player, but Skalbania admitted that he had never seen him play.
For him, hockey was strictly business. What was important to him was the fact that signing Wayne could give his team a better
position in a future NHL merger. Because the WHA was interested in strengthening its overall position, too, the organization
agreed that Skalbania should sign Gretzky.

Although officials of the WHA had made up their minds, Wayne still had a tough decision in front of him. He could sign on
with the Racers, but if the two leagues merged before his twentieth birthday, the age limit would extend to him again. He
would be left with no option but to return to junior hockey.

He decided to risk it. All that was left was to work out the contract details. The circumstances regarding that process were
as strange as all the other aspects surrounding the situation.

Skalbania owned the Indianapolis Racers, but he was also negotiating to buy either the Houston or Quebec WHA franchises. He
honestly didn’t
know which team to put Wayne on once he signed him.

It was Wayne himself who came up with the solution. On board the plane en route to Edmonton to make the announcement that
he was joining the WHA, the seventeen-year-old wrote out his own contract.

It was not a standard agreement between a player and a team. It was a “personal services” contract between Wayne and Nelson
Skalbania. Though Wayne would start out as an Indianapolis Racer, the clause left Skalbania free to move Wayne to any of his
other teams. The terms of the contract factored out to $825,000 over four years, with an option to renegotiate in three years.
The deal included a $250,000 signing bonus.

When questioned about what would happen if the NHL merger occurred and Wayne wasn’t allowed to play, millionaire Skalbania
had a humorous reply. “I guess I’ve bought myself the world’s most expensive racquetball partner,” he observed.

On his arrival in Edmonton, the media circus surrounding Wayne was as wild as it had ever been.
Wayne wasn’t intimidated. After all, he had been doing interviews since age eight.

After the formal announcement of the signing, Wayne and his parents got back on the plane, bound for Indianapolis. Walt asked
Wayne one final time if he was absolutely sure about his decision to turn pro. Wayne said he was sure. Wayne was now a Racer.
His journey to the pinnacle of his sport was just beginning.

The doubts that had hounded Wayne every step of his career didn’t end when he turned professional. NHL writers and broadcasters
openly questioned his decision to go pro. At five feet eleven inches and 164 pounds, Wayne was far from an imposing physical
presence. But as had been pointed out by his first coach, Dick Martin, Wayne looked small only until he took control of the
puck. Then everyone on the opposing team looked scared.

The summer before his pro hockey debut was a relaxing one. Wayne worked on his skating and played a lot of baseball, a sport
he had always loved. Then, on September 11, 1978, exactly three months after signing his personal services contract with Nelson
Skalbania, Wayne Gretzky began his first professional training camp.

Wayne got along well with his first pro coach, Whitey Stapleton, a former standout NHL defenseman. If anything, Stapleton
seemed overly protective of his young phenom. What Stapleton and most adults didn’t realize was that Wayne had been playing
under intense pressure for years. He was used to it. For the fourth straight year he was in a different league, at a higher
level, with a new set of teammates. He was determined to give the Racers his all.

He barely got a chance. His career as a Racer lasted only eight games, during which he scored a mere 3 goals and 3 assists
for 6 points. But it wasn’t his hockey ability that was to blame.

It turned out that Indianapolis was simply not a hockey town. Nelson Skalbania’s expenses for each game were double what the
gate receipts were bringing in. Without the support of fans, no team — no matter how many good players it has — can survive
for long. Before the end of the season, the struggling team folded. Wayne’s Racer career was over almost before it had begun.

Desperate to recoup some of his losses, Skalbania made a logical business decision. Regrettably, Wayne Gretzky and his big
salary would have to go.

Wayne was officially informed of the impending midseason trade by Coach Stapleton. He was placed in the enviable position
of choosing where he would go. The choices came down to Edmonton or Winnipeg. Edmonton, an oil boomtown in Alberta, seemed
like the smart choice. The franchise was solid. It was leading the WHA in attendance. The Oilers would undoubtedly join the
NHL in the event of a merger.

Wayne’s preference was clearly Edmonton. But suddenly, final financial questions in the negotiations between Oilers owner
Peter Pocklington and Nelson Skalbania arose. As a result of these questions, the deal was held up. In fact, when Wayne boarded
a plane with two other players who had been traded, their destination was still up in the air! Only after clearing customs
in Minnesota did the nervous players learn where they were going: next stop would be Edmonton. The Racers were to become Oilers
after all.

In order to secure Wayne’s services, Peter Pocklington had paid Nelson Skalbania $850,000. He had also agreed to assume the
four-year personal services contract Wayne had signed with
Skalbania less than five months earlier. Nelson Skalbania, the man who had been so instrumental in bringing Wayne to professional
hockey, would soon be completely out of the game.

Wayne, still only seventeen, lived briefly with Edmonton head coach Glen Sather before settling in with Ray Bodnar and his
wife. Ray was the brother of Jim Bodnar, the man who provided Wayne with a home in Sault Sainte Marie while he played for
the Greyhounds the previous year.

When he took to the ice the first time with his new team, Wayne was ready to play. Unlike Indianapolis, Edmonton was a hockey
town — and Number 99 was determined to conquer it. He set high goals for himself: to play a full eighty-game schedule to demonstrate
his durability and to hit the 20-goal and 40-assist marks.

It took only a couple of weeks of observation for owner Peter Pocklington to realize what he had in his new center. Pocklington
contacted Wayne’s agent, Gus Badali, to offer Wayne a twenty-one-year deal. If accepted, Wayne would be an Edmonton Oiler
until 1999, when he would be thirty-eight
years old. It was basically a lifetime contract, in terms of hockey.

Pocklington had a good reason for wanting to tie the rookie star into such a deal. The NHL-WHA merger was very close. He didn’t
want to risk losing Wayne to an NHL team if Wayne was placed back in the draft after his twentieth birthday.

Wayne talked to his agent, carefully weighed his options, then decided to take the offer. He would earn a staggering $280,000
per year for the first nine years guaranteed, along with a $100,000 signing bonus. Following that, there were two six-year
options.

The Oilers were delighted that Wayne had accepted their offer. The WHA was very happy to have the budding superstar secured
in its league. An elaborate ceremony was planned to celebrate Wayne’s signing.

On his eighteenth birthday, January 26, 1979, Wayne signed his Oilers contract at center ice at the Northlands Coliseum, home
of the Edmonton Oilers. The house was packed, and unknown to the youngest and richest Oiler, his entire family was part of
the crowd.

Some of the veteran Oilers players advised Wayne not to sign his name to such a long-term contract. But thirty-three-year-old
Ace Bailey, Wayne’s road roommate, told him not to listen to them. The veteran felt that the rookie should sign, then play
to the best of his ability and try for a new, bigger contract in a few years. As it turned out, Ace’s advice was sound. Two
years later Peter Pocklington tore up the old contract and gave Wayne a new one.

Though the Oilers lost the game that followed the signing ceremony, Wayne Gretzky’s dream of playing professional hockey had
come true.

The WHA style of play matched Wayne’s personal style. At 165 pounds he thrived on the fast pace. And the WHA was a cleaner
game than Major Junior A. The fears that the lightweight Oiler would be a target for physical abuse in the pros turned out
to be unfounded. If anything, the opposite appeared to be true.

At the junior level, every player is trying to make it to the pros any way that he can. Cheap shots directed at the other
team’s top offensive player are common.

At the pro level, players assume roles in order to stay in the game. Loyalty to teammates is a most important attribute to
success. There are always tough guys ready to protect their team’s scorers and finesse players. Throughout his career Wayne
has had tough players on his side, allowing him to concentrate on playing his creative, improvisational game.

Wayne reached the goals he’d set for himself at the beginning of the season. He played the full eighty-game slate, not missing
even one matchup in the transition from Indianapolis to Edmonton. His scoring totals far exceeded all expectations. He finished
third in the WHA scoring race with 46 goals and 64 assists for 110 points. He also gained Rookie of the Year honors.

Unquestionably the biggest thrill of Wayne’s rookie season was his selection for the WHA All-Star team. Chosen as the second-team
All-Star center behind Cincinnati’s Rob Ftorek (who would later coach Wayne in Los Angeles), Wayne finally had the opportunity
to play on the same line with his idol, fifty-one-year-old Gordie Howe! With Wayne at center, Gordie on the right side, and
Howe’s twenty-three-year-old son, Mark, playing left wing, their combined ages made them the “oldest line in hockey,” as Gordie
pointed out.

The 1979 WHA All-Stars swept a three-game exhibition series against a Russian touring squad. But
something was missing from Wayne’s game. It was the only game of his career that “the Tuck,” the distinctive way Gretzky wears
his jersey, wasn’t on display.

The Tuck has become as much of a Gretzky signature as his number 99. The origin of the Tuck dates back to Wayne’s first season
of organized hockey. As a six-year-old competing against ten-year-olds, Wayne was faced with the problem of wearing a jersey
sized for an older boy. Every time he shot the puck, his stick caught in the billowing material. Walt tried to tuck in the
whole jersey (or sweater, as hockey jerseys are most commonly referred to), but it proved to be too uncomfortable. Then it
struck him. Why not tuck it in one side, his shooting side?

Thus the Tuck was born. During Wayne’s entire career the Tuck has played a major role. When Nike provided the Oilers jerseys
in the late 1980s, the Nike “swoosh” logo was shifted from the right side to the left side of the Edmonton sweaters, thus
preserving the sanctity of Wayne’s ritual. But in that 1979 WHA All-Star Game, Gordie Howe
stepped in and actually sewed Gretzky’s jersey in place. Wayne couldn’t argue with his idol, but the next game, the Tuck returned
and remains to this day.

In his first playoff experience as a pro, Wayne helped lead the Oilers to a winning season of 48 wins, 30 losses, and 2 ties
(48-30-2). With 98 points total, they took first place in the league and won a chance to compete in the Avco Cup championship.
The WHA equivalent of the NHL Stanley Cup, the series was a best-of-seven-games. Though they played well, in the end the Oilers
bowed to Winnipeg 4 games to 2. Wayne could still boast a solid postseason, notching 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points
in 13 games.