Older members of HF, what was it like when Gretzky started out?

[CupInSIX]

This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:

 

[sharkhawk]

This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:

I remember they were a lot of old time guys like Dick Beddoes back then.

 

[Howie Hodge]

This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:

Bed Clothes!! It was always fun watching Dick wind people up.

 

[Killion]

Bed Clothes!! It was always fun watching Dick wind people up.

Uggh. Man did that guy ever annoy me. Dick Beddoes. All hat & no cattle. A poseur. Superficial. Superficial because?... No depth.... Overly wordy, a total "Leaf Homer". Ballard sycophant and apologist..... Snappy dresser though. But then, so was Beau Brummel and look at how he wound up Howie.... ha?.... not good.... most unpleasant.

 

[authentic]

He was a childhood prodigy, it was pretty clear he was going to dominate. I don't think anyone was aware of how good he would truly become.

 

[Sentinel]

I am reading "Facing Gretzky" now. Not a well-written book, because people interviewed are more adept at handling pucks than words, and the compiler did little to polish things. Plus it's kinda the same thing over and over again: "curled back," "always read the play perfectly," "used his teammates like no one ever has," etc. It's an OK read, but it's no Dryden's "The Game" by any means.

 

[Rick Kehoe]

There were certainly questions about how well Gretzky's game would translate to the NHL level, and I do think he benefited by playing in Edmonton for many years. Also, the superstars like Gretzky and Mario didn't have to deal with the suffocating media coverage of today, which was helpful. When you see a special talent on the ice, it's so obvious that player is a cut above everyone else. The big thing I remember about Gretzky's early years was the notion his career might be shorter because of the physical toll of the sport. Of course, a legendary player isn't that way solely on physical abilities.

 

[Howie Hodge]

Uggh. Man did that guy ever annoy me. Dick Beddoes. All hat & no cattle. A poseur. Superficial. Superficial because?... No depth.... Overly wordy, a total "Leaf Homer". Ballard sycophant and apologist..... Snappy dresser though. But then, so was Beau Brummel and look at how he wound up Howie.... ha?.... not good.... most unpleasant.

I imagine most would not know who Beau Brummel was. Who was he? lol Has to be something to do with questionable clothing choices I'd assume, but I'd be lying if I said I was familiar with him.

Beddoes was someone to be taken with a grain of salt, no doubt. He wasn't beloved like Howie Meeker was, to be certain. (And yes, "Howie Hodge" is a tribute to Howie Meeker and Dave Hodge. )

I simply enjoyed Dick, well, being a dick! I remember his winding up Punch Imlach over the Czech Ice Hockey Federation demanding compensation for The Leafs signing goalie Jiri "George" Chra. He was able to fire up Punch who exclaimed "I'll never pay any money to those damn Commies!" I know, I know, imagine Punch getting worked up....

Dick with his gap tooth smiled just grinned at the proceedings, his objective having been accomplished....

"Nickels and dimes! Nickels and dimes! Look at Perreault's deke; he left McKenny reaching for nickels and dimes!!"

 

[Killion]

... ^^^ ya, he annoyed me if I made the mistake of taking him seriously & expected to learn anything... He was a bit like Don Cherry with the wardrobe though nowhere near as loud & flamboyant as unlike Grapes he didnt shop at Fabricland buying up end-roll upholstery & drapery bolts...... no, he'd wear stuff that was actually made to be used as clothing, suit & sportjacket fabrications, but the idjeet would show up on TV in a seersucker suit and a Plantation style straw fedora in January... in Southern Ontario... when its -10 outside. Like he's Big Daddy Pollitt. Wealthy Cotton Tycoon down in the Mississippi Delta. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and its a sweltering night in July.... Your garb, manner of dress Sir.... completely inappropriate. Obviously you made the mistake of picking the wrong ancestors..... Now get out. Get off my screen.... As for Beau Brummell.... late 17th, early 18th Century arbiter of mens fashions. "Dandy" yes but understated. Once a favorite of the Prince Regent at Court, the dissolute King George IV, son of Mad King George III who lost America to.. well... the Americans.... As for Beau Brummell..... ja.... unfortunately a vacuous, vain individual, totally irresponsible man/child, fled England to escape his creditors, eventually died in France, destitute, a broke, penniless & thoroughly pickled alcoholic.... which would account for the nice looking corpse I suppose.... from what I heard tell.... read like....

Now please people... back on topic..... little patience for anyone wandering way off track here....

 

[Kant Think]

Gretzky was passed on by the first two teams in the OMJHL Midget draft - http://www.hockeydb.com/articles/wayne_gretzky_never_drafted.php

In 1978, it was becoming evident that Wayne Gretzky was going to be a superstar. Even though he was not selected by the first two teams in the 1977 Ontario Major Junior Hockey League Midget draft (in lieu of Tom McCarthy and Steve Peters), he was a highly regarded youth player, having scored 72 points with the Junior B Toronto Nationals at the age of 15 - in just 28 games!
Luckily, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds selected him with their third pick, and Gretzky went on to score 182 points for them in the 1977-78 season as a 16/17 year old, though he lost the scoring crown to 19/20-year old Bobby Smith who finished with 192 points.​

Bobby smith had a good career in the NHL, but I always thought that him outscoring Gretzky, even though he was 3 years older, must feel pretty special in retrospective.

 

[WildGopher]

Gretzky could take total control of a game, speed it up or slow it down. Not only did he create his own space & time . . .

First time I saw him play was the fall of 1980 in St. Louis. Messier was suspended by the team that game for hot dogging it in practice, I think. Left him off the flight, in fact. Significant because it's said Messier took developing himself as a player a lot more seriously after that suspension. Anyway, St. Louis had a good team that year, but each time the Blues got a two-goal lead, Gretzky would will - no I'll say WILL!!! his team back into the game. Got two goals just slicing through a good Blues defense in an immediate counterattack to a couple of Blues goals that threatened to have them run away with the game. He just was not going to let it happen. In the end, the Blues got a couple more goals and won 7-5 or 8-6; I mean, you couldn't expect Gretzky to also play on the blue line, in addition to his offensive heroics, so it wasn't his fault. Edmonton was still a couple years away from having the talent level to challenge for the top, but Gretzky showed how to take control in that game! That's how dominant he could be.

 

[Howie Hodge]

... ^^^ ya, he annoyed me if I made the mistake of taking him seriously & expected to learn anything... He was a bit like Don Cherry with the wardrobe though nowhere near as loud & flamboyant as unlike Grapes he didnt shop at Fabricland buying up end-roll upholstery & drapery bolts...... no, he'd wear stuff that was actually made to be used as clothing, suit & sportjacket fabrications, but the idjeet would show up on TV in a seersucker suit and a Plantation style straw fedora in January... in Southern Ontario... when its -10 outside. Like he's Big Daddy Pollitt. Wealthy Cotton Tycoon down in the Mississippi Delta. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and its a sweltering night in July.... Your garb, manner of dress Sir.... completely inappropriate. Obviously you made the mistake of picking the wrong ancestors..... Now get out. Get off my screen.... As for Beau Brummell.... late 17th, early 18th Century arbiter of mens fashions. "Dandy" yes but understated. Once a favorite of the Prince Regent at Court, the dissolute King George IV, son of Mad King George III who lost America to.. well... the Americans.... As for Beau Brummell..... ja.... unfortunately a vacuous, vain individual, totally irresponsible man/child, fled England to escape his creditors, eventually died in France, destitute, a broke, penniless & thoroughly pickled alcoholic.... which would account for the nice looking corpse I suppose.... from what I heard tell.... read like....

Now please people... back on topic..... little patience for anyone wandering way off track here....

No, no, like it. Sounding a bit like Dennis Miller, but that's cool......

 

[VanIslander]

This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:

I remember seeing that on T.V. 35 years ago! Wow, thanks for the flashback. I was entering junior high and we guys talked about it at school (pre-Internet, pre-cable TV). Gzowski's CBC radio show in the mornings was very popular (my dad tuned into it often) and we were all on his side. We thought the other guy was crazy talking about some Russian we hadn't heard of (at the time) as being better and saying he wouldn't make the 3rd line center for the Leafs.

In hindsight, today, having just today re-watched that interview, I see what he was saying as being not so crazy, in fact debatable, though clearly he was trying to be sensational.

The Leafs dynasty of the late 40's began when Toronto brought in Max Bentley in his prime (age 27, immediately after his two best seasons: his Hart trophy win and Hart trophy finalist season) to play behind Syl Apps and Ted Kennedy, aligning the greatest trio of centers in NHL history. Would a young Gretzky have taken away one of those three guys' jobs when they were wining cups? At age 21, Wayne would likely have been asked to wait in the AHL for Apps to retire. The point being made isn't as crazy at least as it seemed at the time Dick made it, sensational as he knew it would be.

As for that Russian... Sergei Shepelev had been an all-star at the 1981 Canada Cup and I had dug up a lot of impressive info about him for an all-time draft bio a few years back but the new format Hfboards search command shows "no results found" when I tried to locate the ATD bio. Argggh!

 

[Killion]

As for that Russian... Sergei Shepelev had been an all-star at the 1981 Canada Cup and I had dug up a lot of impressive info about him for an all-time draft bio a few years back but the new format Hfboards search command shows "no results found" when I tried to locate the ATD bio. Argggh!

I'm told migration, some technical issues still being sorted VanIsle. Hopefully you can get access to the archived threads & posts sooner rather than later. A lot of work put into the ATD's etc by yourself & plenty of others. Wonderful resource.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

I was interested to see what the media reaction was right after Gretzky's 1980-81 season, when he broke Esposito's single-season scoring record but had not started on his ridiculous point totals. According to this Washington Post story, people were already speculating about future 200-point seasons and his ability to transform the NHL:

Gretzky Leaves His Mark
By Robert Fachet, Washington Post Staff Writer
April 2, 1981

It was in 1971 in Boston that Phil Esposito scored 152 points and Bobby Orr had 102 assists, two National Hockey League records that some said would not be broken in this century.

During the last week, of course, both were broken, by someone still too young to walk into a bar and order a drink in a number of cities around the league.

Wayne Gretzky, who celebrated his 20th birthday Jan. 26, looks his age. He is 5-foot-ll and 170 pounds and looks more like a distance runner than a star in a contact sport. Make no mistake, though -- Gretzky is a galaxy, generously blessed with anticipation and reflexive moves that can only be ascribed to unmatched hockey intuition.

When Esposito and Orr were producing those records, they were helping each other, taking advantage of each other's attributes and those of their teammates on a team that had won the Stanley Cup the year before. Gretzky has received little help from his compatriots on the lowly Edmonton Oilers, struggling just to gain entry to the 16-team playoffs. [...]

Every team that Edmonton plays is aware that it can win the game by stopping Gretzky. And still, his biggest nights have come against some of the best teams, five goals and seven points in a victory over St. Louis, four goals in a triumph at Philadelphia's Spectrum.

"His wingers really don't dig the puck out for him," said Edmonton Coach Glen Sather. "He's got to do a lot of work. He seems insignificant in the whole game and it doesn't look like he's doing much, but I get spoiled watching him. Imagine if he were with an experienced team."

It is interesting to speculate how many points Gretzky would pile up if he were, for example, skating between Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt. The immediate reaction would be 200 and up, but he might not be asked to do as much with the Canadians as he is in Edmonton, where he often skates double shifts besides skating on every power play and killing penalties. [...]

Not only does Gretzky figure to rewrite the NHL record book, he promises to alter some unfavorable trends of recent years.

After the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975 with their muscle and mayhem, young hockey players tried to emulate them and free-for-alls became a common occurrence throughout all levels of hockey. Now, there is reason to believe the youngsters are more attuned to Gretzky and his skating and passing skills.

"Wayne is changing the whole game of hockey around," said Los Angeles center Marcel Dionne, No. 2 man in the scoring race. "Watch kids coming up and they'll be playing a different game. They'll be trying to move the puck like he does. I think it's great."

And here's another story from the year before — 13 games into Gretzky's rookie season — by which point doubts about his ability to hack it in the NHL had been firmly laid to rest (although he was still putting up merely great, not inhuman, point totals):

'G Whiz' -- Gretzky Faces Gustafsson
By Robert Fachet, Washington Post Staff Writer
November 13, 1979

[....]

Gretzky has produced enough in 13 other games to record five goals and 13 assists. There is no doubt, if any existed after his 46-goal, 110-point season in the World Hockey Association, that he can play with the big boys in the NHL.

"That's all I heard all summer, how it was going to be a different story this year," said the 5-foot-11, 165-pound Gretzky. "They kept telling me that I wouldn't get 110 points like I got in the WHA.

"Different guys told me how everybody was going to try and run me in the NHL. One guy bragged that it took him 10 years to run Bobby Orr, but that he finally did it. Some of it was a psych job, but most of it seemed to be serious.

"I knew I'd hear a lot of that stuff again. Every year people have told me how I was going to be in trouble moving up to a higher level. But I heard more of that talk this summer than I heard all my life."

 

[golfortennis]

I always found it interesting reading The Game of Our Lives 10 years plus after Gretzky retired. Because you see the fact people think he is awfully talented at putting up points, but you also hear about the people who want to knock him for not have the "other" skills. Particularly the fighting. Well, why do you want that guy to risk getting hurt in a fight?

I wasn't old enough when he first started to know what was going on. By the time I could figure thing out, he had reached a point where kids stopped what they were doing if they even heard his name. But reading a lot of the books from those days tells you a few things.

What is scary is if Gretzky had not been able to be on a team run by Sather, and instead by a Bowman or even Arbour. He wins scoring titles, but does he leave the same mark? He's the best player, but is he considered as transformative if he plays for a team that wants him covering and playing deep in his own zone? I don't see and Arbour telling a RW to cover the center's d responsibilities and letting the center cheat like Sather did with Kurri.

 

[Jack Tripper]

it's hard to imagine a modern player dominating his peers to the extent gretzky did immediately upon entering the nhl

he won the hart trophy in each of his first 8 seasons (along with the pearson / lindsay in 5 of those years), came in third in voting in 87-88 in his last oilers season due to missing a heap of games and mario's breakout 70 goal season, and then won the hart again in his first season with the kings

interesting how remarkably healthy he was for the bulk of his edmonton years in comparison to a modern star like sidney crosby who has battled injuries ever since he won the hart in his second season

 

[The Panther]

it's hard to imagine a modern player dominating his peers to the extent gretzky did immediately upon entering the nhl

It's quite impossible nowadays. It was also probably almost impossible in the 50s/60s. But from the mid-70s to maybe early-90s, I think there was a period where the development of offense far exceeded defense, and if a once-in-a-lifetime player came along on just the right team at just that moment... and Gretzky was that player.

interesting how remarkably healthy he was for the bulk of his edmonton years in comparison to a modern star like sidney crosby who has battled injuries ever since he won the hart in his second season

No doubt there was some good luck in Gretzky's having only two modest injuries during his first 10.5 seasons in the NHL (and 11.5 at pro-level). One cost him 6 games, the other 16.

But I also think Gretzky's style was a major factor. Obviously, he wasn't the guy to go into the corners and grind it out, but also his entire offensive strategy was based on open ice. If he was covered, he passed to a teammate in open ice, which takes the D off of him. If defencemen were stacked between him and the net, he didn't skate towards the net -- as most star forwards would -- but instead to open ice (if he didn't take a shot). When he was in a race for the puck, he would push the puck far ahead of himself and chase it down rather than carry it closely with a D-man fighting him for it.

 

[Mr. Fancy Pants]

View media item 343
Not really related to this thread but I watched an Oilers game from Jan. 1982 a while ago and thought this was just ridiculous.

 

[Noldo]

But I also think Gretzky's style was a major factor. Obviously, he wasn't the guy to go into the corners and grind it out, but also his entire offensive strategy was based on open ice. If he was covered, he passed to a teammate in open ice, which takes the D off of him. If defencemen were stacked between him and the net, he didn't skate towards the net -- as most star forwards would -- but instead to open ice (if he didn't take a shot). When he was in a race for the puck, he would push the puck far ahead of himself and chase it down rather than carry it closely with a D-man fighting him for it.

How much the somewhat lower speed of the game played part in here? Would Gretzky have to endure more hits in current era because defenseman would "finish his check" after Gretzky had passed the puck further? Gretzky could most likely adapt and move puck faster, but has there been change in the standard in the respect?

 

[Kukkunen05]

As someone who has scouted the likes of Gamache, Brad F. Richards and Birdie "Bro" Brandman, Gretzky would, in fact, be sliding all over the place in today's game, where people are constantly finishing useless checks, which he would constantly be avoiding, and thus, be like a total flubberino that has no physical control over himself, merely mental. 230 IQ. He would basically direct his comical glides to the opposing blueline, catch the puck with his fancy curvelino, and hook it back. Some of the times, he would hook it forward.

 

[Howie Hodge]

I think yoru above post is a good one for discussion.

Faster defenseman of todays game would have played him tighter, and I'd argue finish checks - but consider this:

Out of Bodyguards Curt Brackenbury, Dave Semenko, Kevin McClelland, and Marty McSorley, I'd say McSorley would be the only one capable of skating in todays game.

Also, the instigator rule was "enforced" (technically it had been in the rules many years prior) in 1992, so his protection would be less a deterrent on todays game.

Let me muse upon this a bit more and post again.....

 

[Howie Hodge]

Orr-Hull-Espo?... I was thinkin more a cross between Centers Howie Morenz & Guyle Fielder, however, like Defenceman who I always considered more Rovers than proto-typical "Defencemen" in Harvey & Orr - Gretzky could take total control of a game, speed it up or slow it down. Not only did he create his own space & time, that space & time transcendent of the era in which he played with elements of the early game pre WW2, the Golden Era of the 50's through 67, his own age of the late 70's through 90's, and hopefully to the future era's provided the powers that be start letting kids have fun again, let players play, be creative & not afraid to make mistakes, stop micro-managing every aspect of their development & play. Then maybe, just maybe we'll see another Gretzky.

Nice! Anytime you can get Guy Fielder into a post I like it! Minor League Hockey's Wayne Gretzky! One of only three professional hockey players to record 2,000 career points!

 

[tempofound]

Wouldn't Jagr be the fourth now?

View attachment 79109

Nice! Anytime you can get Guy Fielder into a post I like it! Minor League Hockey's Wayne Gretzky! One of only three professional hockey players to record 2,000 career points!
View attachment 79107

 

[Noldo]

I think yoru above post is a good one for discussion.

Faster defenseman of todays game would have played him tighter, and I'd argue finish checks - but consider this:

Out of Bodyguards Curt Brackenbury, Dave Semenko, Kevin McClelland, and Marty McSorley, I'd say McSorley would be the only one capable of skating in todays game.

Also, the instigator rule was "enforced" (technically it had been in the rules many years prior) in 1992, so his protection would be less a deterrent on todays game.

Let me muse upon this a bit more and post again.....

The importance of Gretzky's protection is always interesting question. As so often noted, I do not believe that any protection could scare Potvin or other mean but effective defensemen from hitting Gretzky, had they been able to. But considering Edmonton's power play, I firmly believe that it made sense to play within the boundaries of the rules because if one went after Gretzky too late, one presumably ended up in the receiving end of that nights high lights since the puck was played to open player (which Could and would happen also in today's game) or you could end up in the box (perhaps easier than today). And if players would generally try to stay within the rules (logical assumption in my mind), a slight change in the standard could have taken away crucial fractions of a second?