The Trade Which Changed The LA Kings And The Hockey World

He had just won the Stanley Cup for a fourth time and was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP but he felt something was off.  Because of it, he asked his teammates to sit with him on center-ice and let the photographers take pictures of them with the Cup.  Everyone followed and didn’t question him about it even though it wasn’t tradition to do so but not many people questioned him at anything anyway, they just agreed.  He was that respected.

They sat there and he looked around the arena.  The fans were ecstatic and in full celebration mode and why not?  This was the 4th Stanley Cup victory in 5 seasons.  The Edmonton Oilers and it’s fan base were the Kings of the hockey world.  He saw his finance on the ice, beside his parents and siblings.  She had joyful tears in her eyes and this made him emotional.  In a couple of short weeks they were to be married and the media frenzy already surrounding it was overwhelming.  Maybe that was why he was feeling a bit uneasy and nostalgic but he brushed it aside as quickly as he thought of it.  They were deeply in love and the media and national attention they were receiving was just background noise.

The flashes from the cameras exploded in rapid succession and he sat there, with his arm around his old friend named Stanley and smiled as genuinely as he could.   He looked around to his teammates, his brothers and enjoyed their happiness.  They had worked so hard to get to where they were and there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for one another.  This long epic journey to 4 Stanley Cup victories started out as just a bunch of kids that wanted to play in the NHL.  Kids, they were just kids.  Now they were men.  Men who had waged war against the best that the NHL had to offer and  conquered them all.  They did it together.

When the photo shoot ended, the team continued to celebrate on the ice before making their way back to the dressing room to celebrate even more.  Once there he sat down on his stall and took in the sights and sounds that come with a championship winning team.  Everyone was laughing, cheering, singing and champagne was showering everyone from everywhere.  In the controlled chaos, he saw the owner of the team, Peter Pocklington, staring right back him but with a crooked grin.  At that moment, a feeling of dread started to come over him.  Hockey experts had always expressed that they felt that he had a sixth sense of the game when he played, as if by some magical force, he always knew where the puck or a teammate was at all times, even before they knew.  He could see the full ice in his mind and see the plays develop before they even happened.  He wasn’t sure about any of that, he just played the game the only way he knew how but if he did have some sort of psychic sixth sense, he might be experiencing it right now in this moment and he didn’t like what it was telling him.  For a moment, a very brief moment, Wayne Gretzky felt that this could possibly be the last time he ever played for the Edmonton Oilers.

On August 9th, 1988 the hockey world was stunned when it was announced that the greatest player to ever play the game, weeks after winning another Stanley Cup and playoff MVP trophy, and having his “royal wedding” to actress Janet Jones that was broadcast live from one coast of Canada to the other, Canada’s favorite son, “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky, had just been traded to the Los Angeles Kings.  An entire nation was shocked, Oiler nation was devastated while many others were outraged and started burning their Edmonton jerseys and cursing the Hollywood starlet wife and blaming her for “Yoko Ono’ing” their beloved player and team.  Meanwhile an often ignored fan base, tucked far away in southern California was quietly rejoicing at the tremendous news.  The King of hockey was now a Los Angeles King and the organization and hockey world changed forever because of it.

The NHL is the highest level of professional hockey that an athlete can play for but for most of its history, it was unofficially a six team regional hockey league.  The “original six” teams of the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers were all north-eastern teams, surrounded by the great lakes that could easily and quickly be reached to one another by car, boat, train or plane.  There wasn’t much travel needed at all.  By the 1960’s the NHL finally woke up and realized they were losing money by sticking to the “old boy’s club” teams and the owners agreed to allow expansion to 6 more teams by the 1967-68 season to increase exposure and revenue.  This was when the Los Angeles Kings were formed.  Expansion grew even more as the years went on and the NHL, even defeated and then allowed their main rival, the World Hockey Association, to merge 4 teams into the NHL (one being the Edmonton Oliers) and by 1988 there were 21 teams overall.

Some expansion teams such as the St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers, New York Islanders and Vancouver Canucks were quickly financial successes but not all became overall successes.  The NHL took a huge gamble when expanding to the more southern American cities that had little to no exposure to the sport of hockey or even ice and snow for that matter.  The California Golden Seals were placed in Oakland, California (mainly to be the Kings number 1 rivals) but that was a disaster and the Seals disappeared.  Expansion teams in Denver, Atlanta and Kansas City also crashed and burned but despite being isolated in SoCal especially after the Seals and Colorado Rockies folded, hockey survived in Los Angeles.  With a very small but extremely loyal fanbase, the Kings were able to survive long enough through the years despite the lack of playoff success.  Due to this, the team was mainly ignored by most of the media in the NHL, especially in Canada (heck, even in LA) but they survived anyway.  This all changed when the “trade” was made.

Now all the eyes of the hockey world were on the Kings.  Many were excited by what this would do to the sport as Los Angeles is one of the biggest media markets in the world and they were now giving the Kings and the sport of hockey their full attention.  Others were curious to know if Gretzky was truly the “Great One” or not, and wanted to witness if he would shine or fail now that he was out on his own and without the help of Edmonton teammates Mark Messier, Jari Kurri and Grant Fuhr.  Gretzky had been a star on a team full of stars but now in LA, he was on his own to make this work.  There was potential of course as the Kings had the 1987 rookie of the year Luc Robitaille and the scoring stud Bernie Nicholls but the Oilers were a well oiled and experienced fighting machine.  They had bonded and bleed in wars to win the Stanley Cup. They had a championship core.  They were a team.  The Kings were … well … not so much.  Gretzky knew he had to change that if this was going to work out.

Gretzky’s feelings of uneasiness turned true when shortly after his wedding he received a call from LA Kings owner Bruce McNall.  Gretzky was shocked but not surprised that Oilers owner Peter Pocklington had allowed McNall to call him and ask him to come to Los Angeles and personally talk to him about playing for the Kings. In the previous season, Gretzky’s close friend and teammate had been traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins.  That was the first crack in the core of the team.  Gretzky was angered by McNall even considering this and answered with a polite and strong, “no.”  Little did Gretzky know that McNall wasn’t going to give up that easily.  In time, Gretzky agreed to go to Los Angeles and meet with McNall and found that he enjoyed being with the Kings owner.  McNall  had a vision to make the Kings a hockey power and to do that, he needed the greatest player that ever played.  Los Angeles had legendary players play for the city in other sports such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Sandy Koufax for MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Kings previously had Marcel Dionne playing for them for years.  He was a massive talent and would eventually go on to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame but he couldn’t lead the team past the second round of the playoffs, mostly due to the cartoon like incompetence of the Kings previous ownership, management and coaching departments.  McNall was in charge now and he needed someone who could help the team be more competitive for the Stanley Cup while also getting more attention from the media and help create more fans.  The only player who could possibly accomplish this was Wayne Gretzky himself.  With Gretzky on board, other talented players would want to come to Los Angeles too.  It would be a game changer.

Gretzky liked what McNall had to say and thought about it but still turned him down. He had envisioned himself to be an Oiler for life.  McNall then came clean and let Gretzky know about why Pocklington wanted to trade Wayne.  Pocklington’s other business interests, including his Rolls Royce car dealership and his food processing company in Alberta (that kept going on strike) were losing him a lot of money.  The only thing keeping him afloat financially were the Oilers, but with his sinking profits he needed to balance things out more evenly before things got worse.  McNall and previous Lakers owner, the legendary Jerry Buss had always joked with Pocklington about the possibility of trading Gretzky to Los Angeles but Peter “Puck” would always politely decline.  After the Oilers had won the Cup a fourth time and with his other business ventures failing, Pocklington desperately needed some money fast so he called McNall up and asked him if he still wanted to acquire his number one asset, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky was stunned with disbelief.  This wasn’t so much a trade, it was a sale.  He was being sold to the highest bidder, which was McNall and his LA Kings.

To prove to Gretzky that he was telling the truth, McNall called up Pocklington and put him on speaker phone but didn’t tell him that Gretzky was there in his office.  McNall started speaking about the possible trade and asked if Gretzky would even accept a trade to the Kings?  Pocklington answered him by saying he would because Gretzky was a selfish diva who changed after marrying that Hollywood actress.  The Oilers would be better off without him.  Then McNall and Pocklington discussed trade details such as what players would be added to the trade but all Peter “Puck” wanted to talk about was the $15 million dollars he wanted for Gretzky and how the Kings were the only ones who can come up with that much money.  Gretzky couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  After the phone call, Gretzky was feeling betrayed and told McNall he had to think about all of this and talk to his wife and father, plus his teammates and Oiler GM Glen Sather, who Gretzky hoped wasn’t apart of this betrayal (he wasn’t).  McNall expressed to Wayne that there was no pressure for him to make a quick decision.  He could take all the time he needed and if he needed anything, Bruce would be there for him.  What made Gretzky appreciate and respect McNall even more was when he mentioned that if Wayne wasn’t comfortable at all with playing for Los Angeles, he didn’t have to.  Bruce wouldn’t take offense and would understand.  McNall was the opposite of Peter Pocklington and that was appealing to Gretzky.

Gretzky went home (to… Los Angeles as Gretzky and his wife were already living there at actor Alan Thicke’s house (who is Robin Thicke’s father).  As an actress, Janet worked in and around Hollywood so after the wedding they had moved to Los Angeles.  The plan was for Gretzky to continue playing in Edmonton despite already moving to SoCal but playing for the Kings would make things a lot easier travel wise.  Still, Gretzky was an Oiler at heart but a bit of that heart was broken from the things that Pocklington had said.  After thinking about it some more, Gretzky knew he didn’t want to play with any team associated with Peter “Puck.”  They were done.  His wife Janet thought that if Wayne was done as an Oiler, maybe he should push for a trade to the Detroit Red Wings, which was Wayne’s favorite team as a child because of his idol Gordie Howe.  After talking to his father, Walter, Gretzky was convinced that LA was were he needed to be.  He wanted to become a King.

Glen Sather was furious at Pocklington.  Normally trades are done between the team’s General Managers and not by the owners but Pocklington went over Sather’s head and did the deal anyway.  He had his mind made up to trade Gretzky and Sather thought this was a huge mistake and just pure insanity.  Who trades the best player in the game when he’s still in his prime?  It didn’t make sense until Sather dug deeper and found out about this being more of a sale instead of a trade.  This made Sather even more furious.  He was against the trade and told Pocklington so but if this trade was going to happen regardless of what he thought or felt then he had to make sure the Oilers benefited by getting quality players in return.  He had to look out for the best interests of the team, not the best interests of Pocklington’s wallet.  He wanted Luc Robitaille in return but the Kings refused the deal immediately.

Gretzky’s Oiler brothers were crushed when they heard the news.  Even the toughest and baddest of them all, Mark “Moose” Messier was in tears begging Gretzky to stay but they all understood if he felt he needed to leave. It’s never easy to see a brother leave home.  Family is family.

Gretzky talked to both McNall and Sather and wanted to make sure that Oiler defenseman Marty McSorley and forward Mike Krushelnyski were traded along with him to add some toughness and grit to the Kings. If he was to play for the Kings, he needed to do what he does best and some on ice protection by McSorley and Krushelnyski would allow him to do that.  The details of the “trade” were worked out and the announcement was made.  Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley were traded to the Los Angeles Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, the Kings’ first-round draft picks in 1989, 1991 and 1993 and …. $15 million dollars in cash!

Just before the official press conference in Edmonton, Glen Sather was still trying to get Gretzky to change his mind about the trade.  Feeling hurt and betrayed by Pocklington, Gretzky declined the offer and then thanked Sather for everything he did for him and his family.  Choked up and emotional they embraced and Sather respected Wayne’s final decision.  McNall witnessed this and waited until Sather walked away so he could approach Gretzky.  Most owners would take advantage of the situation and go back to convincing the player that this is the right thing to do but Bruce didn’t.  He knew how much it meant for Gretzky to play for the Oilers and how much this was hurting him so he let Gretzky know that it wasn’t too late to change his mind and back out of the trade. It would be okay if he did.  Gretzky smiled and made it clear that he really wanted to do this and Bruce didn’t have anything to worry about.  He was now a King.

During the press conference, Pocklington spoke loudly and proud about how Gretzky was the son he never had and the Oilers would always be thankful for everything Wayne did for the team, city and province of Alberta.  After he was done, it was Wayne’s turn to talk.  Gretzky had made an agreement with Pocklington that at the press conference, Gretzky would make it sound like the trade was more his idea than Peter’s.  Gretzky was going to take the heat but as soon as he sat down, leaned towards the microphones and started speaking, it all finally hit him all at once.  He was leaving the Oilers, forever.  He started to cry and had a hard time speaking.  All he could muster up was to say that he had promised “Mess” that he wasn’t going to cry.  Saying that out loud made him cry even more and he couldn’t continue.  He walked away from the microphones as everyone applauded and flew to LA.  Pocklington watched on and fumed.  Fearing that after Gretzky’s emotional breakdown, no one was going to truly believe that the trade was Gretzky’s idea instead of his so he told the Edmonton press that Gretzky had put on a great show with his crocodile tears.  Big mistake.

After feeling better when he arrived in Los Angeles and completing a press conference there (which revealed the brand new LA Kings jersey and (then) LA Raiders’ color scheme) Gretzky found out what Peter had said.  If he wasn’t sure about it before, he was sure of it now.  He had made the right move by coming to Los Angeles and he was going to get his revenge.  As the full details of what really happened started emerging in the Canadian press,  Edmonton fans were now seeing Pocklington as the true villain and not Gretzky’s wife Janet.  Peter “Puck” was now seen as the evil greedy corporate devil who cared more about money than the good of the team.  They were ready to lynch him and many tried as Pocklington had to hire bodyguards to protect him as he started receiving death threats.  Many fans even made life-sized mannequins with Pocklington’s likeness only to burn them in front of his home or at the Northlands Coliseum (now Rexall Place) were the Oilers played.  It was pure chaos.

Meanwhile the arrival of Gretzky to play in Los Angeles took the city by storm and became an explosion that had everyone’s attention.  The media frenzy was unheard of for hockey in not only LA and the southern regions of the United States but in the sport itself as media from all over the world started covering the Kings and every move Gretzky made.  The city of Los Angeles embraced the “Great One” with open arms as he was marketed everywhere imaginable whether on television, on ads, on magazines, he was the hottest ticket in town.  Kings’ games were sold out immediately and even the top celebrities of the time were bothering, even begging McNall for tickets to games.  Gretzky fever had arrived.

For those waiting for Gretzky and the Kings to fail were greatly disappointed.  If Marcel Dionne put the Kings on the NHL map, then Gretzky made the Kings automatic Stanley Cup contenders.  To add to his myth, Gretzky even scored on his very first shift on his very first shot of his very first game! The Forum erupted as if they had just won the Stanley Cup!  It was glorious.

To add to his legend, the Kings qualified for the playoffs and in the first round they had to face a team that only the Hockey Gods and their scriptwriter could come up with, Gretzky’s former team and defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Edmonton Oilers.  This was going to be a story worthy of Hollywood!

Playing the Oilers was tough on Wayne (as it was tough on his former teammates and friends in Edmonton as well) but losing to the Oilers and the thought of Pocklington grinning like a moron, with a told you so expression on his face was motivation enough for Wayne to will his inexperienced team against the Champs and win.  Down 3 games to 1 in the series, the Kings made an explosive come back and shocked the world to eliminate the champs in the 7th and deciding game!

Gretzky and his band of misfit Kings had just done the impossible, all the while lifting an imaginary middle finger to Peter “Puck” himself.  “The Great One” made sure to give him a sly grin the next time their paths crossed.

The Kings were eliminated in the next round but it didn’t matter as they were the darlings of the NHL.  Hockey Night in Canada even started broadcasting Kings games right after the Leaf games which made this die-hard Kings fan very happy.  The ratings were huge.  It was unheard of at the time for Canadian television to regularly follow an American team.  The trade changed all that.

Gretzky went on to win the Hart Trophy for MVP that season which was the first and only time a Kings player had ever won it and even went on to win some more Art Ross trophies as the player with the most points in a season.  As a King, Gretzky broke Gordie Howe’s all time goals and points records (the points record was ironically and fittingly broken against the Oilers in Edmonton),

these are records that Gretzky still owns today.  Records that may possibly never be broken.

Even if the fans hadn’t, the Oilers organization and team eventually moved on and with still having a lot of the championship core still intact they won another Stanley Cup in 1990 (eliminating the Kings in the second round after the Kings eliminated the Cup Champion Calgary Flames).  Most Canadians moved on too as many were angry at first with their favorite son for leaving for an American team but all was forgotten and forgiven when Gretzky continued to play for the Canadian National team for the rest of his career, He won the Canada Cup (now World Cup) with Kings teammate Luc Robitaille and former Oiler teammates Mark Messier and Paul Coffey against the Americans in the final.

Even with the $15 million he received in the trade, Pocklington was still having financial troubles and he soon started getting rid of the rest of the Oilers core for short time fixes.  In time he was forced to sell the team all together and still went bankrupt.  The Oilers were never the same again.  He even went to prison for committing perjury during bankruptcy proceedings.  In an ironic twist of karma, he pleaded guilty in a California court.

The Kings never won the Stanley Cup with Wayne Gretzky but came close in 1993 when they made a run for the ages before losing to Montreal in 5 games in the final.

After 1993, things soured in Los Angeles for Gretzky.  McNall went bankrupt himself and went to prison for conspiracy and fraud.  McNall lied to many people but he didn’t lie to Gretzky or the Kings.  He truly wanted to team to rise and win the Cup and for this, McNall is still celebrated in the Kingdom with a Robin Hood type status.  Gretzky and him remain close friends to this very day.  So close that Gretzky still paid McNall visits in prison when everyone else had abandoned him.  Gretzky even waited years after he was retired from the game to have his number retired and raised at the Staples Center because he wanted Bruce there to witness it.  As soon as McNall was released from prison, Gretzky allowed the ceremony to happen and the Kings legend was honored forever in the rafters.

With McNall no longer running the team and the Kings in bankruptcy, the team had declined sharply and Gretzky’s contract was nearing its end.  He hadn’t accomplished what he had set out to do and that was to win the Stanley Cup in LA but time was running out.  Gretzky let the new ownership know that the team needed some better players if they were to make one more run at the Cup.  SEG, the new company owning the Kings and their executive who ran the hockey department, Tim Leiweke understood what Gretzky was saying but did nothing.  Frustrated at the lack of improvement by the new management, Gretzky came to realization that his time as a Kings was coming to an end.  He requested a trade instead of waiting to become a free agent because he wanted the Kings to get something for him in return.  He felt he owed it to the team and the fan base but he also made it clear that he could easily change his mind to stay if management were committed to building a team to win the Stanley Cup. They weren’t.  Ownership was new to the sport of hockey and were still feeling their way through the business.  Sadly it was time for Gretzky to leave and on February of 1996 he was traded to the St. Louis Blues for Patrice Tardif, Roman Vopat, Craig Johnson and 2 draft picks that turned into nothing.  In other words, the “Great One” was traded for who, who, who and who?  It was a quiet and sad end to his reign as a King.

As sad as it was for Gretzky to go, his legacy and the ripple effects of his trade to Los Angeles is still felt to this day. Before Gretzky went to LA, player salaries were kept secret.  Once Gretzky signed a new contract with Los Angeles and it was public knowledge, many (if not most) NHL players came to the realization that they were being heavily underpaid.  This led to the downfall of the long time head of the NHL player’s association Alan “The Crook” Eagleson.  Salaries than soared throughout the league and became more at par (or at least closer) to the contracts of other players in other leagues for other sports.  The success and attention that Los Angeles received allowed the NHL to try expansion again but this time with a lot more success.  The iron was hot in California and teams were placed in San Jose and Anaheim.  Teams were also placed in Florida and in Nashville and Ohio.  The rise in player salaries and a drop in the Canadian economy forced teams such as the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques to seek shelter and greener pastures elsewhere in Arizona and Colorado (well in Colorado at least).  The NHL had now become big time and had secured television deals with Fox, NBC and ESPN.  The sport had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to the Gretzky trade.

And the Kings … well the Kings suffered for a while.  Okay a long while but as I wrote earlier, Los Angeles already had a loyal fan base before Gretzky arrived.  That fan base naturally increased when Gretzky arrived but even after he had left and all the fair weather bandwagon fans had left too, there was still a larger number of loyal fans than there had been before.  In time, SEG started to figure things out when it came to the business AND sport of hockey.  The Staples Center was built and management started bringing in people with a passion and determination to win and build a winning culture and environment.  Players were drafted like Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Jonathan Quick and Drew Doughty to be the team’s core.  Veteran players were brought in to help the younger player’s develop and grow.  By 2010, the team was making the playoffs and in 2012 they finally won the Cup, and then won again in 2014.

Gretzky made the Kings respectable and even feared when he was there.  It was a lesson the Kingdom took in and (slowly) applied to its nature and core that led them to future great success.  He is the reason why the Anaheim Ducks and the San Jose Sharks even exist to begin with.  He is the reason why grassroots hockey has exploded in California and why many of Cali’s young prospects with immense potential are being drafted into the NHL.  He is the reason why all 3 California NHL teams now have minor league teams close to home instead of being outside of California.  All this was unheard of or not even dreamt of back in 1988. The arrival of Gretzky was the Big Bang that set everything in motion. When Bruce McNall thought that getting Gretzky to play in LA was going to be a game changer, he really wasn’t kidding.

In honor of everything Gretzky did for the Kings, his number was not only raised to rafters but a statue of him waving and wearing his Kings armor was created and it was placed in a spot where it could greet all of the Kings fans as they enter into the Staples Center, an arena Gretzky never played for as a King as it didn’t exist back then.  That alone shows how well-loved and respected Gretzky was and still is to the organization.  He was a King and the King and all Kings.  Kings fans of all ages know his name and know what he had done for their beloved team, but how much Gretzky meant to the Kingdom, how much did the Kingdom really mean to Gretzky?

It was no secret that he loved being an Edmonton Oiler and after retiring, he finally got to play for them once again in 2003, except it was for an alumni game against the Montreal Canadiens alumni team in an outdoor exhibition (old timers) game in Edmonton before the real “heritage classic” game between the Oilers and “Habs” began.  Still he was in an Edmonton uniform again and skating along with his old friends and teammates.  They even won the game.  The smile he had on his face while playing that game was painful for the Kings faithful but we were all happy for him anyway.  We all knew, deep down … that he was an Oiler at heart.  Family is family.

Yet as the years went by, Gretzky still kept a home in Los Angeles.  Most, if not all of his children were born and had their roots there.  Gretzky would show up to Kings games and clap when the Kings scored and won, or sink in his chair with nerves if they were scored on or lost.  Gretzky was interviewed by Hockey Night in Canada during game 6 of the 2010 first round playoff game between the Kings and the Canucks and he excitedly talked about the Kings being back in the playoffs and about how much he liked the young core of Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick and most of all, Anze Kopitar. Since then, he still continues to talk proudly about the Kings.

In 2012 and 2014, he gladly dropped the puck in the pre-game ceremonies when the Stanley Cup finals returned to Los Angeles and the Kingdom roared in approval when seeing him.  Even though he wasn’t playing on that ice anymore, it was as if he was still with us in the conquest of winning the Stanley Cup … and he truly was.  He admitted this to Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times,

“I’m a huge L.A. Kings fan. I really admire what the organization has done for not only hockey in this town but for hockey in general. I think Dean has done a wonderful job and Darryl is the best coach in hockey and until somebody beats them, that’s the way it is. It’s really special. I feel like a fan, like everyone else. I enjoy watching them play.”

With all of Wayne Gretzky’s Hall of Fame accomplishments, broken records and 4 Stanley Cup rings (not to mention all of his international accomplishments with Team Canada as a player and the executive director), there was one thing Gretzky wanted to do really bad but like Marcel Dionne before him, he couldn’t and that was to win the Cup with LA.  When the Kings won their 2 Cup victories, Gretzky spoke about how proud he was of them and how happy he was for the fan base.  “They deserved it,” he said and he meant it but little did we all know that he felt a little sadness as well.

Gretzky told legendary hockey writer Al Strachan for his book “99 Gretzky : his game, his story,” that he was burnt out with the NHL and it’s commissioner Gary Bettman after the fiasco when Gretzky co-owned and was head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.  It soured him on being anything more than a fan of the NHL, at least for now but many teams were still offering him jobs to be apart of their team and organization.  He declined them all but there was one job offer he declined that he admitted to regretting.  As told to Al Strachan, Gretzky said,

“The Kings wanted me to get involved with their team the summer before last, and I didn’t.”

He was referring to the summer of 2011.  Gretzky continued,

“Maybe I should have.  I could have got my name on another Stanley Cup.”

Yes family is family but a Kings a King forever.  Happy Wayne-iversary everyone.

 

Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Kings and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time!

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