It’s been 25 years now since Wayne Gretzky, the Edmonton Oilers‘ hockey player, many consider the best in the game, said good-bye to Canada.
Wayne Gretzky wiped tears from his eyes, and found it difficult to speak, as he tried to convince Canadians it was his decision alone, to move to Los Angeles and play for another team. Canadians were stunned!
Many blamed the owner of the team at the time, Peter Pocklington, for simply wanting to cash in on his major asset. Others said it was Wayne Gretzky’s American, Hollywood-starlet wife, Janet Jones wanting to pursue her career. But Wayne said it was his decision alone, and he was intent on bringing the game to Los Angeles, a place hockey personality, Don Cherry, described at the time, as the “black hole of hockey.”
Cherry also said it would be tough playing the game “with a sunburn” and predicted that Wayne Gretzky would wallow in the shadows of Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
It didn’t quite work out that way. The National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings team did struggle, but with the Canadians in Hollywood, such as the late John Candy and actor Alan Thicke who is a great friend of Wayne Gretzky’s, tickets were bought and shared and the game was introduced to a new and growing audience in Tinseltown.
The Los Angeles Kings finally took home the trophy in 2012, and the training camps for little kids are growing yearly in popularity. And Wayne Gretzky’s trade 25 years ago changed the way business was done in the National Hockey League; gone were the days of living out a career with one team.
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