What discussion of the great game of ice hockey doesn’t start and end with Wayne gretzky? You may or may not be a fan of the Very good, but you can’t more easily deny its dominance and the impact it had on the game than you can convince Rosie O’Donnell that subtle is better.

I grew up a huge NBA enthusiast (my tenure as a fan began when I was between 8 and 10 years old with Julius Erving and ended with the retirement of Sir Charles Barkley), I was not a fan of the Chicago Bulls, but once Michael Jordan came on the scene, he just knew he was seeing something special.

And just like Gretzky (in fact, perhaps the only viable similarity to Gretzky), whether you loved him or hated him, you certainly had to give the man his place in sports history.

Over the years, many have been tempted to compare Wayne Gretzky’s dominance in the sport of ice hockey with Michael Jordan’s personal statistical dominance over professional basketball. Others are tempted to compare Tiger wood dominance in professional golf to the statistical marvel of the Big One.

Any of these comparisons is made in vain.

Yes, each of the aforementioned superstars dominated (or is dominating) their respective sport. But no one did it with the inescapable magnitude of Wayne Gretzky during his twenty-year professional ice hockey career.

To put Gretzky’s exploits in perspective, if Michael Jordan had equaled the Big One’s record for scoring a season, statistically speaking, he would have had to. average more than 70 points per game.

Gretzky began playing Junior B hockey at age 14, winning a challenge to the existing rules of Canadian amateur hockey. That first season, he won the rookie of the year award, with a total of 60 points from 28 games.

As many know, throughout his NHL career, Gretzky had more assists (1,963) than second on the all-time POINTS list (Mark Messier with 1,887).

His record of 2,857 points will never be surpassed.

All that said, Wayne Gretzky argues:

40 regular season records

15 playoff records

6 All-Star records

He won 4 Stanley Cups (Oilers), earned 9 MVP awards and was the top scorer in the 10 different NHL seasons.

Not only is he the only player to score more than 200 points in a single season, but he accomplished the feat. four times. He scored more than 100 points in a season 13 times in a row, with a total of 15. He also hit 50 hat tricks.

Arguably, there has never been a player with such a natural sense of puck flow, ice position, and the ability to create time and space. The Great One was said to have eyes on the back of his neck.

In one game, he scored with the puck head-to-head. twice, against the same goalkeeper.

His greatest attribute, perhaps, was not exemplified by his grace with a stick and a puck, but rather his presence without them. No dominant force was that humble. Rick reilly, senior writer for Illustrated Sports, once proclaimed that the biggest challenge in interviewing Wayne Gretzky was getting him to say something about himself.

Whether you loved him or hated him, denying him his place in history is impossible. He was an ambassador for the sport and reinforced the notion that hockey could be (and is) a game of grace, skill and honor.

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