This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:
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.
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.
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.
Gretzky could take total control of a game, speed it up or slow it down. Not only did he create his own space & time . . .
... ^^^ 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....
This is from 82, after he made a big splash but pretty interesting to look back on:
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!
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."
'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."
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.it's hard to imagine a modern player dominating his peers to the extent gretzky did immediately upon entering the nhl
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.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
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.
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.
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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!
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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.....