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  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Wayne Gretzky

  Originally published in Canada by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Canada 2016

  First US edition published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 2016

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  US edition eBook ISBN 9780399575488

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  Version_1

  dedicated to all the hockey parents and grandparents, especially my own

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One THE FIRST HOCKEY STAR

  Two IN THE BEGINNING

  Three TEX’S RANGERS AND THE LEAFS

  Four THE BRUINS

  Five THE HAWKS

  Six THE WINGS

  Seven THE ORIGINAL SIX

  Eight THE STANLEY CUP

  Nine THE VEZINA

  Ten THE LADY BYNG

  Eleven THE FIRST ALL-STAR GAME

  Twelve FIRE IN HIS EYES

  Thirteen THE FORGOTTEN MIRACLE

  Fourteen THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL

  Fifteen WILLIE O’REE

  Sixteen STAND FIRM

  Seventeen THE SECOND SIX

  Eighteen BLACK, WHITE, AND SILVER

  Nineteen THE ST. LOUIS BLUES

  Twenty THE MINNESOTA NORTH STARS

  Twenty-One THE OAKLAND SEALS

  Twenty-Two THE PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

  Twenty-Three THE PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

  Twenty-Four THE WORLD HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

  Twenty-Five THE SUMMIT SERIES

  Twenty-Six INSIDE THE MIRACLE

  Twenty-Seven THE 1984 CANADA CUP

  Twenty-Eight THE 1987 CANADA CUP

  Twenty-Nine THE 1991 CANADA CUP

  Thirty THE 1998 WINTER OLYMPICS

  Thirty-One THE CULTURE OF WINNING

  Thirty-Two HOCKEY ON THE ISLAND

  Thirty-Three ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

  Thirty-Four THE LAST DYNASTY

  Thirty-Five YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

  Thirty-Six “I JUST LOVE TO PLAY”

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  Photo Credits

  Index

  PROLOGUE

  A lot can change in ninety-nine years. When I think of how different the world is today from the way it was when my grandparents were growing up, it seems as though just about anything that feels permanent could change beyond all recognition over all that time.

  But some things really don’t change. Probably the most important things. And to me, hockey is one of the most important things. I have always loved the game of hockey. I love the old stories, and the personalities that make the game great. I love the speed, and the grace and athleticism, of course. But behind every big play, there’s a guy who grew up dreaming of making that big play. He’s got a story, and he was inspired by someone else’s.

  One of the truly amazing things about coming into the NHL as a rookie is that you are pretty much guaranteed to find yourself in the dressing room with, or lining up against, a guy you grew up idolizing. For me, that was Gordie Howe—I think that is a well-known fact. But there is not a player in the league who didn’t take a look around on his first day and realize that the guy he wanted to be one day is right there in front of him.

  That’s why these stories I’ve brought together here are so important to me. They’re not just a list of things that have happened in hockey over the past ninety-nine years. These stories are what keep the game going. They record what the game is really about.

  We talk a lot about how the game has changed over the years, from the golden age of the Original Six, through the wild violence of the 70s and the high-scoring “river hockey” of the 80s, through the defense-first 90s, and so on. We talk about how coaching and fitness and goaltending styles are different now. And we talk about how players are so much bigger and faster today. And that is all true. But none of this means that hockey itself has changed.

  When we look at old photos of players from the league’s early years, with their slicked-back hair and woolen sweaters, it’s easy to forget that they were someone’s heroes. But that is exactly who they were. Just as Pavel Datsyuk and Steve Stamkos are some kid’s heroes today. They played the same game, with the same passion, and thrilled their fans in exactly the same way.

  Those guys in the black-and-white photos or grainy old footage are no different from the players we see in today’s NHL. Sure, guys today are bigger on average. But biggest never meant best. You don’t have to look very hard to find a smaller guy among the top scorers in the league. And sure, the game is faster now than it has ever been. But faster doesn’t mean better either. Or not exactly. There have always been the Guy Lafleurs and Glenn Andersons and Alex Ovechkins who could kill you with pure speed. But I can think of a couple of guys who were not the greatest skaters who scored more goals than any of those three.

  As for toughness, as you’ll see in the chapters that follow, some of the things that went on ninety-nine years ago would have made the Broad Street Bullies blush.

  Yes, hockey is fast and rough and tough. But being faster and rougher and tougher doesn’t necessarily make you better. I have been on a team that came out on top in a game even though we knew that the guys in the other room were more skilled. It happens. Some teams that look great on paper don’t work out on the ice. I’ve been part of that side of it too.

  It happens in part because no one knows exactly what makes hockey hockey. It’s not just the rules. Those change. It’s not the equipment. God knows, everything is a lot different today. (But it is fun to imagine Bobby Hull stepping into a slap shot with one of the composite sticks Shea Weber uses, or a speed demon like Howie Morenz wearing ultra-lightweight custom Bauers like Taylor Hall’s.) What makes hockey the greatest game on the planet is something else. Something you can’t quite put your finger on. Coaches and GMs would be invincible if they knew exactly what makes a team more than just names on a roster. But even the Scotty Bowmans and Pat Quinns had their share of losses. The fact is, greatness is not captured in statistics. It’s captured in stories.

  It seems to me that part of the secret of what makes our game so great can be found in the origins of the precursor to the NHL—the first professional league, which was started up in northern Michigan, of all places, in a town called Houghton. That’s right. We always think of hockey as a Canadian sport, but the first professional hockey league was started in the United States—though it was founded by a Canadian, a dentist named Jack Gibson.

  Gibson was a really good player, but he received a lifetime ban from one of the most powerful and influential hockey organizations in the country, the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), when his team won the provincial intermediate championship and each of the players accepted a ten-dollar gold coin from the mayor of the Ontario city of Berlin, which is now called Kitchener. That was considered a violation of the
spirit of amateurism. If Gibson wanted to play hockey, it was not going to be in Canada.

  After dental school, Gibson moved to Houghton, a working-class town full of copper miners who loved the toughness of the game. People called Houghton “the Canada of the United States” because of the long, harsh winters. A young reporter noticed Gibson had a few articles about his hockey-playing days in a binder in his waiting room. Some businesspeople in the community got together and persuaded him to captain a professional team, the Portage Lakes. Towns around Houghton formed rival teams and together they created the International Hockey League (IHL) in 1904–1905. Even though the OHA forbade Canadian teams from playing in the IHL, a team from Sault Ste. Marie did it anyway. It was game on.

  It can’t have been very fun playing against the Portage Lakes. It was seven-man hockey, played sixty minutes with a ten-minute rest at halftime. There were no substitutions unless a player was knocked out cold. And slashing wasn’t slashing until you hit above the knees. Goalies were not allowed to go down, but that may have been for the best, as they also didn’t wear masks. That season, the Lakes piled up 258 goals for and only 49 goals against in 25 games, an average of more than 10 goals per game.

  In 1904, Jack’s team challenged both the 1902 Stanley Cup winner, Montreal’s AAA Little Men of Iron, and the 1903 and 1904 Stanley Cup champion, the Ottawa Silver Seven. Both said no. But that same year during a Stanley Cup challenge series between Ottawa and the Montreal Wanderers, the owners of the two teams got into a fight over a tie game and the Wanderers dropped out of the playoffs. Jack Gibson jumped on the opportunity and challenged the Wanderers to a two-game “world championship.” It wasn’t even close. That March, the pride of a small mining town in northern Michigan smoked the Montreal Wanderers 8–4 and 9–2.

  Some of the best players from Canada had been playing in the States because they were paid openly. There had always been some secret payments to get players to stay in Canada, but by 1906 professionals were allowed into the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association, and that opened the door to professional hockey. The Lakes lost their goalie, Riley Hern, to the Montreal Wanderers in 1906. He would go on to win three Stanley Cups with them. As fewer and fewer Canadian players migrated to the IHL, the league found itself starved for talent and eventually folded. Jack Gibson packed up and moved his practice to Calgary in 1909.

  The league hadn’t lasted long, but it had captured what is so exciting about the game. It brought together a bunch of guys who wanted to see how they stacked up against the best opposition they could find. The fact that the rules against professionalism quickly changed is a pretty strong sign that the IHL was onto something. Getting paid to play hockey doesn’t mean you love it any less. In fact, it may allow you to love it more.

  The Portage Lakes were going out of their way to look for a challenge. They had to go knocking on doors to prove they were the best in the world. Today, there is only one route to the top of the hockey world, but it is generally considered the most grueling route to the top in any major sport—as many as twenty-eight games played at white-hot intensity. In the 2013 Stanley Cup final, Patrice Bergeron played with a broken rib, a separated shoulder, torn muscles, and a punctured lung. He wasn’t earning his regular salary to do any of this, and after the last game he lined up and shook hands with the guys who had put him through all this pain.

  To me, that echoes the spirit of those first pro players. They didn’t love the game because they were professionals—they became professionals because they loved the game. That is what makes our game great, and I can’t imagine that ever changing.

  I don’t think I am all that different from the kid I used to be, who was fascinated by the stories of hard-nosed guys from small towns who took on the world and made their mark. And I don’t think that kid was any different from the kid down the street or across town. We all love these stories, and we are all shaped by them.

  This year is the league’s 99th anniversary. And 99 is a pretty special number to me. It’s special not because I wore it. It’s special because someone who came before me wore number 9. All I wanted to be when I was growing up was Gordie Howe. It was the same for Gordie. He idolized the guys who came before him, and I know it’s the same for the guys who came after me. Without these stories, I would not have been the player I was, and the NHL wouldn’t be the league that it is today. This past June we all came face-to-face with what the history of hockey means to us when one of hockey’s greatest stories came to an end. People around the world paused to acknowledge what Gordie Howe had meant to them when he passed away. I was at the visitation myself, and I met people who had flown in from Russia, Finland, and even France. Gordie played at a time before hockey was truly international, and yet there at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, I saw with my own eyes that his legacy means something wherever the game is played.

  I don’t think there will ever be a better ambassador for the game or anyone better suited to the name Mr. Hockey. Gordie was everything we love about this sport we play and cheer for. Our game is about grace and toughness, about unyielding courage and complete humility. That’s what it is at its best, anyway. And that was Gordie. There were people at the funeral who were proud of the scars he had given them, and there were many more with stories of Mr. Hockey’s legendary kindness.

  For me, though, the best Gordie Howe memory I have is when I met my idol for the very first time. I was just a kid, and he was even greater than I had hoped he would be. I told all of my friends about it then, and still talk about it today. It’s just like when you watch a bunch of kids playing road hockey or practicing the shootout moves they saw on Saturday night. Stories are as important to the game as ice and pucks.

  Imagine being a hockey fan and never having heard of, say, Mario Lemieux or Bobby Orr, Jean Béliveau or Bobby Hull. It would be a bit like not knowing the game at all. They changed the game in ways we can only be grateful for. And the same goes for the guys that came before them, the guys who played our game ninety-nine years ago.

  So, to the builders like Gibson and the Patrick brothers, to Howie Morenz, hockey’s first star player, to all the superstars from around the world who have lit up the league, and to all the third- and fourth-line guys who played just as important a role—this book is a thank-you.

  One

  THE FIRST HOCKEY STAR

  When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I’d head down to Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, pay a buck, go to a Blue Jays game, and then walk around the Hockey Hall of Fame just staring at everything for hours. My friends used to say, “You’re going to the Hall of Fame again?”

  I’d say, “Yeah.”

  They’d say, “Same stuff there as last week.”

  That was the point. I’d look at Howie Morenz’s stick and think, “How did he score so much with that stick?” It was so straight and heavy. On some of the old sticks you could even see the nail that joined the blade to the shaft. As a kid, I couldn’t get over how different everything looked from the equipment that I was using at the time.

  By the time I was playing in the NHL, I was using the best sticks in the world. But today kids look at my sticks and wonder how we ever played the game with lumber like that. Put it this way: you can pick up a goalie stick today and my wooden Titan would’ve been twice as heavy. The two guys with the stiffest and heaviest sticks in the league in my era were Mike Bossy and me. In fact, he and I used pretty much the same stick for a long time. We might not have had the hardest shots, but we both knew exactly where the puck was going to go. Fans will probably remember the way Bossy and Guy Lafleur would wind up and take a slap shot off the rush at full speed. I used to do the same thing. With a stick that stiff, you needed that windup to get a heavy shot.

  With today’s whippier sticks, guys can load up quickly and shoot off the back foot, which takes a lot less time. In my experience, the game changed considerably between 1987 and 1997 in that there was less t
ime to get off a slap shot with a full windup. Mark Messier was one of the first guys to shoot off the back foot to catch a goalie napping. I remember Owen Nolan did the same thing in the 1997 All-Star game—though he wasn’t trying to catch Dominik Hasek napping. He actually pointed at the corner he was aiming at and still beat Hasek. But those are big, strong guys. Now everyone is using a whippy stick, and using the release to fool goalies into misreading the angle. A guy like Phil Kessel uses his stick like a slingshot. The only time you see a slap shot now pretty much is when a defenseman has time to tee one up from the point. And it’s no surprise that the guys with the hardest shots use the stiffest sticks. Shea Weber, Zdeno Chara, and Brent Burns use sticks that a lot of guys couldn’t even bend.

  In 1989, Jim Easton, who was a good friend of mine, came to me and said, “Wayne, we have this stick for you. It’s a product you’re going to love. We were able to make the stiffness that you like, but it’s only a third of the weight.” It was a two-piece stick with an aluminum shaft. I loved it. It was still very stiff—a slap shot seemed to explode off the blade. But it was so light that all the weight was in the blade, so you could feel the puck better.

  I thought, “Okay. That sounds good.” Because, believe it or not, as a kid I always used a light stick. My dad always said, “You gotta have a light stick.”

  The other thing I did with my wooden sticks was round the shaft so it was more like a lacrosse stick. Paul Coffey did the same thing. It made it easier to roll your hands down the stick and it was much more comfortable. So Easton made me this stick that was stiff and had a rounded shaft but was much lighter. The first time I used it I thought, “Wow! Where has this been all my life?”

  In L.A. our equipment manager Peter Millar taped my sticks. A lot of people have a tape knob, but I liked a pre-cut knob on top. Every stick was dated. So if you think you’ve got one of my game sticks, have a look at the end of the stick and there’ll be a date on it written with a Sharpie. By then I was using the Easton aluminum two-piece so Peter would tape up the blade, heat it up, put it in the shaft, and then add the knob and mark the date.