Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Despite a rather large outcry from the “hockey establishment” (and that can mean media, management, players, starry-eyed fans..actually, really any hockey sycophant, and there are many up here north-of-the-border), I think it’s great that the Vancouver Canucks have named All-World goaltender Roberto Luongo as their captain.

About time a team took this step.  What took so long?

Apparently there have been almost a half-dozen goalie captains in league history.  Most of us know that Hall-of-Famer Bill Durnan was captain of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1947-48 season, but lost that distinction when opposing teams complained about length of time it took for Durnan to skate out to the officials, and beef about a myriad of calls.  It seems the netminder was giving his team a TV timeout decades before it’s actual implementation.  Butch Bouchard would wear the C for Montreal the following season.

No doubt those teams had a legitimate point, but in this age of seemingly every player whining to the referee, what harm would there be in allowing a goaltender to wear the C?

As I understood it, the Captain or Alternate Captain was assigned the right to be able to engage with the on-ice officials and register a complaint or an objection.  The funny thing is, I don’t recall seeing a big bold capital letter on the front of the sweater of most of the guys who are crying a river during a stoppage in play.

I have always wished that a referee would turn around and call an unsportmanlike penalty or a delay-of-game penalty on one of these letterless whiners, thus handing the responsibility of officially complaining back to the proper players.

The whole notion of a team captain has always seemed a tad overblown to me, particularily living here in the city of Toronto.  Once Doug Gilmour abandoned the good ship Maple Leaf and engineered his move to New Jersey, management saw fit to anoint Mats Sundin as the next captain.  In a city where hockey fans practically worshipped a talented, yet two-dimensional player like Wendal Clark, one would have thought someone just gave women the right to vote, the manner in which the average hockey fan (male, Anglo-Saxon, middle class) reacted with shock and disgust.

That is not meant to be taken as a shot at Clark.  If anything, he was a throwback to the old-time N.H.L. captain; tough, respected, maybe not the most gifted player on the team, but he led by example.  And he was as friendly with management as he was with the guys in the dressing room

Clark fit all those attributes, and the Leafs’ captain was, more-often-than-not,  one of the few shining lights during a rather dark period for the franchise during the late 1980′s.  The thing is, most teams saw fit to make their best player, their franchise player, the captain.  Following that trend, it was only fitting that Sundin be given the C.

It took years for the fickle fans of Toronto to warm up to the big Swede, and the current cry to have Sundin return for one more year in the blue-and-white would have been unimaginable back in the mid-90′s.

Regardless, what does a captain do, besides vent at the on-ice officials?   Take the draw during ceremonial faceoffs.  That’s a big one.  Represent the team in the community.  That’s a good thing, though one doesn’t have to wear the C in order to contribute.  How about take charge in the dressing room?  No doubt true, but many ex-players will tell you that a successful team has a number of leaders in the room, and they can lead in a number of ways.  Some may use words, some may use intimidation, others talk softly and carry a big composite stick.

So why can’t goaltenders be part of that club?  When one thinks of a stellar goaltender who thought he knew more than anyone else on the ice, the name Patrick Roy leaps-to-mind.  He would have made a great captain, not that the Avalanche were hurting for leaders.  Still, imagine Roy leaving his crease to partake in a mid-ice scrum with the ref.  Folks, we have may missed some must-see TV.

And hey, it’s not like some goalies haven’t already tried to take matters into their own hands.  Remember Curtis Joseph leaving the Toronto net and accidently taking the feet out from under the referee Mick McGeough during a game against the Ottawa Senators?  Cujo wanted to discuss the finer points of crease interference with the ref, and his exuberance to engage in conversation got the better of him, as he went barrelling into McGeough.  For his efforts, Cujo got a misconduct penalty, but was not suspended, as his intention was not to take out the ref…though many over the years probably have harboured that desire.

The hockey world won’t stop spinning because Luongo is the captain of the Vancouver Canucks.  The games will still take place.  The thing is, Captain Luongo doesn’t get the wear to extra C on his sweater, and he won’t get to take any ceremonial faceoffs, which frankly disappoints me.  Nor can he take any extra-long bathroom breaks just because he’s now The Man.

In keeping with naming your best player the team captain, the Vancouver Canucks haven’t so much broken with tradition as they have followed it.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Live From Wayne Gretzky’s is back for a sixth season, providing the best hockey talk on radio.

The first two shows are in-the-books.  Time to take a quick look back at who’s graced the stage at Gretzky’s.  If you’re in the Toronto-area on a Saturday afternoon this season, drop by the restaurant, grab a bite to eat…and sit back and enjoy the show.

Week One – Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Former Toronto Maple Leafs’ GM, and current morning man for The Fan 590, Gord Stellick, sits in the host chair.  He’s joined by former NHL sniper Rick Vaive.  Among their guests is Mike Van Ryn of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Week Two – Saturday, September 27th, 2008

Sean McCormick of Sportsnet is the host this week, and he’s joined by former NHL GM/Head Coach Doug McLean, currently co-hosting a show on The Fan 590.  Among the guests they spoke with this week…Don Waddell, GM of the Atlanta Thrashers, Brian Burke, GM of the Anaheim Ducks, NHL coaching legend Scotty Bowman, and Hockey Hall-of-Famer Phil Esposito.

(all photos by Mr. J.P. Leblanc, esquire)

Here we go again!  Listen to our first, brief, conversation with the Coach:

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Fox Sports Arizona is set to air a special 30-minute program that will give fans an unmatched inside look at the Phoenix Coyotes’ upcoming  2008-09 season. The show is entitled Phoenix Coyotes Preview and it debuts on Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 8:30 p.m.

Other airings:

• Sept. 30 – 2:00 p.m.
• Oct. 1 – 7:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
• Oct. 2 – 6:30 p.m.
• Oct. 6 – 6:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.
• Oct. 7 – 6:30 p.m.
• Oct. 9 – 7:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
• Oct. 12 – 4:30 p.m.
• Oct. 15 – 5:00 p.m.

More to come.  Stay tuned!!!!

- Todd

…That Changed Hockey Forever

By Terry Jones, SUN MEDIA

EDMONTON — When Wayne Gretzky returned to then-Northlands Coliseum as a King on Oct. 19, 1988, fans held up a banner which seemed to sum up how the city of Edmonton was dealing with the trade.

It was Wayne Gretzky’s wedding day.

Eddie Mio was doing his duty as best man, getting the groom to church on time.

“We were on the way to the church when Wayne looked at me. ‘Eddie, I’m getting traded out of here. I’m not going to be here,’ Wayne told me … on the way to the church,” said Mio. Mio looked at Gretzky and played it perfect, considering the situation.

“Wayne, you’re getting married. Don’t even think about it. Enjoy the day,’ I told him. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was possible to take Wayne away from Edmonton. I just didn’t think anything like that could happen. No way.” Don Metz, the high profile Edmonton video maker who filmed the so-called Royal Wedding, couldn’t believe his ears either.

“A few days after their wedding, I drove Wayne and Janet to the airport. They were in the back seat of my Suburban,” said Metz.

“I was chatting with Wayne, looking at him in the rearview mirror. ‘When do I see you again?’ I asked.

“How does Oct. 5 sound?” said Gretzky.

“‘Oct. 5? What about training camp?”

“‘I don’t think so,” said Wayne looking out the window.

I asked him who he’d play for. He kept looking out the window. For those five or six seconds it felt like time stopped. And I knew better than to ask again.

This past week Metz has here. I’m not going to be here,’ Wayne told me … on the been putting the finishing touches on a one-hour show entitled A Day The Game Changed, revisiting a date that became infamous in Canadian history, Aug. 9, 1988.

It will run for the next two weeks on the NHL Network. “It was John Shannon’s idea,” Metz said of the NHL’s VP of broadcasting.

“His idea was to use this as the pilot for a 12-part series on days that changed the game in hockey, to tell cultural stories about hockey like (those that) have been told so often about baseball.”

“I see A Day That Changed The Game as being a concept I’d like to franchise to other sports.”

“If you’re doing days that changed the game of hockey, though, you definitely have to start with this one.”

The Day That Changed The Game?

“It’s pretty hard for me to comprehend that. I don’t look at it that way,” said Gretzky this week from his summer place in Idaho.

“Mark Messier going to New York was great for hockey there. Brett Hull doesn’t get enough credit in Texas. Th ere were lots of guys. I think I was maybe the first piece of that puzzle.”

There may have been 11 other days that changed the game in hockey. But this was the day that changed the game and what probably says it more than anything else is that Gretzky, 20 years later, is coaching the Phoenix Coyotes in the NHL.

“Would I be in Phoenix doing what I’m doing today? No. No chance,” laughed No. 99 when he returned the Sun Media call.

“I’d probably still be in Edmonton going to lunches and dinners on behalf of the Oilers.”

Still, there are mixed messages on what hockey means in the U.S. 20 years after the Gretzky trade.

On one hand, in the last few years teams called the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Anaheim Ducks have won the Stanley Cup.

But on the other, the NHL’s TV numbers in the U.S. are as low as most cult sports and there are plenty of good seats to be had in most of those rinks. As for Gretzky’s legacy with the Kings – during the last two years, the Los Angeles Times didn’t send a beat writer on the road with the team.

“There’s probably some credence to that,” said Gretzky.

The impact is open to great debate, but there is no debate on a couple of other items. Gretzky, until that day, was effectively the league’s salary cap. When somebody wanted more money, all the GM had to say was: “I’m not paying you more than Wayne Gretzky.”

Earlier this week, Gretzky said: “I was making $400,000 and there were a couple of guys getting up to a million. I had a year left on my contract and I was going to play hardball, but I wasn’t thinking of leaving. I wanted to catch up and I felt there were other guys on our team that needed to catch up, too.”

Salaries went up in a hurry. Who knows if it would have made any difference, eventually, in where they ended up today.

Today, players from California and other Sun Belt cities are showing up in the Western Hockey League and getting drafted into the NHL.

On that front, at least, Gretzky has no hesitation to say today that the trade definitely had an effect in a good way.

“I’m ecstatic about it,” said Gretzky. “Absolutely. Kids are playing hockey in California and Arizona, Texas and a lot of those places. Back when I went to Los Angeles, there were maybe six or seven good kids on most of the teams.

“Now, at just about every level, there are teams which can compete with teams of that same level in Canada. And some are making the NHL. There’s such a huge population in those areas and kids are playing the game. And when kids play this game they see how good it is. I’m proud of that.”

TRADE WAS A TOUGH DAY

Aug. 9 isn’t a day Gretzky celebrates. For years after when he came to play in Edmonton, he insisted the bus driver take a route where he couldn’t see his statue in front of the building. From several perspectives, financially for one, his life has turned out better. But that day still isn’t an enjoyable exercise in nostalgia for anybody involved on this side of the border.

Twenty years ago Wayne’s dad Walter said it was all telegraphed to him.

“I knew Wayne was getting traded days before he did because Nelson Skalbania phoned me and asked, ‘How much does Wayne make?’ I said ‘Why?’ He said ‘Because Peter’s shopping him to the highest bidder. I said ‘No he’s not.’ He said ‘Yes he is.’ That was during the 1988 Stanley Cup finals.

“The day after they won that fourth Cup, Wayne said ‘You know, dad, I’m going to shop for a house in Edmonton.’ And I told him ‘You better forget that, they’re shopping you.’ ”

Many people figured Gretzky knew he would soon leave Edmonton when he gathered the team on the ice and posed with the Cup, something that had never been done before and now is a tradition with Cup-winning teams.

Gretzky denies that, saying it was kept from him until after they’d won the Cup. And the first thing he’d heard was that he was going to Vancouver, although over the years he discovered, “(the trade talk) went back to the second round of the playoffs.”

The trade rumours actually first surfaced the year after he’d entered the league.

Then, the year he won his first Stanley Cup, there was the rumour Gretzky was going to the New York Rangers for $15 million US ($18 million Cdn at the time).

Gretzky’s agent Mike Barnett said he’d heard it “six or eight times” in the same day.

“Nonsense,” said Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, who blamed the Calgary Flames for starting the story.

A few days later, Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard told me that Pocklington pitched Gretzky to him for $18 million to bail out of bad business deals.

“Happy Harold has obviously lost all his marbles,” said Pocklington. “Wayne Gretzky belongs to me and he always will. That’s absolute rubbish.”

Again the story went away. But it kept coming back and always the number was $18 million. The last time the story was emphatically denied was Aug. 4, 1988.

“There’s nothing to it,” said coach and general manager Glen Sather. “Every summer it’s a different rumour. This one goes in the same bin as all the others. If there’s anything like that I’m sure Peter would let me know. There’s nothing to it.”

FIVE DAYS LATER …

On Aug. 9, 1988, Wayne Douglas Gretzky was sold to the Los Angeles Kings for $15 million US, $18 million Canadian. And like Americans, who remember exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated or when man landed on the moon, most Canadians can tell you where they were that day.

Shock. Outrage. Anger. None of those emotions quite covered it, especially in Edmonton where the reaction was not unlike a death in the family, a death not by natural causes.

The Edmonton Sun coverage was incredible the next day. And the front page headline, written by then-sports editor Phil Rivers, will be remembered for almost as long as the day will be recalled: 99 TEARS.

On the cover there was the picture of Gretzky dabbing his tears, the headline and the only other words on the page were: “Pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 18, 19, 23, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46 and 47.”

It was called a trade, but it wasn’t.

“It was not a trade,” says Sather. “It was a sale. It was about money.”

Sather, with Pocklington out of the picture, on the 10th anniversary of the day the dirty deed was done, finally spilled the story from his side and tells it the same another decade later.

“I took Wayne into a room with just the two of us at Molson House. I talked to him and said I’d stop the deal. I told him I’d tell Peter I’d resign if he didn’t stop the deal. But Wayne decided not to because it was all beyond repair at that point.”

The way Gretzky remembers it today is: “Glen had me in there a whole hour.”

Sather was in the dark all the way until Pocklington finally told him, allowing him to at least have an influence in getting some players and picks.

“I was the last to know. We went to the Arctic fishing. I think everybody on the Arctic trip knew about the deal except me. Peter was afraid to tell me. And I don’t blame him,” said Sather.

The only thing Sather adds to the story 20 years later is when Pocklington finally told him, he now says he physically pushed his owner.

“I gave him a big shove. I thought about decking him.”

Gretzky had tears in his eyes during the press conference and couldn’t get any words out other than the ones most hockey fans remembered … “I promised Mess I wouldn’t do this.”

Pocklington, who was being hung in effigy in Edmonton, claimed at the time that Gretzky was just pretending to cry, but now admits those were real tears.

At the press conference, he also suggested it was because Janet wanted to live in Los Angeles, but now he admits he said that to try and make himself look better. Now, 20 years later, he says the mistake he made “was not putting my arm around him and saying to the press, that if you don’t want the deal to go through…”

It’ll be interesting to see what Pocklington says on the 25th anniversary.

“I regret doing it and wish I hadn’t done it,” would be nice.

—

THE TRADE

TO LOS ANGELES: Wayne Gretzky, Marty McSorley, Mike Krushelnyski

TO EDMONTON: Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, $18 million (Cdn), L.A.’s first-round pick in 1989 (later traded to New Jersey for Corey Foster; the Devils picked Jason Miller), L.A.’s first-round pick in 1991 (Martin Rucinsky) and L.A.’s first-round pick in 1993 (Nick Stajduhar).

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

What makes an arena or a stadium special?  Why do we attach any emotion to them?

They are, after all, just buildings.  A collection of bricks-and-mortar, or more likely these days, reinforced steel and other space-age materials.

They are the places where we congregate for a variety of social activities, be it your workplace, your place-of-worship or the place you go to escape the daily grind.  When it comes to sports arenas, stadiums and ballparks, we ask that they cover all the bases.

First-and-foremost, they must be functional.  The game must be able to be played within its confines.

Second, sports is entertainment, regardless of the best efforts of many of us to turn it into a secular religion, though the worship of a Supreme Being and the worship of a Supreme Team often share many of the same rituals, prejudices and passions.  As sport is yet one choice on the vast palette of entertainment choices, a sports arena/stadium must be able to offer the latest creature comforts, in an effort to lure the family to the ballpark, and then to separate them from their cash.

Third, and in the end most importantly, we ask that this temple of sport transcend the everyday, that it become the vessel into which we pour our hopes and dreams.  We ask that this collection of bricks-and-mortar become the physical embodiment of that we cannot easily define, that we cannot so readily grasp, that fleeting feeling of magic, the shared ethereal experience.

Of these three qualities, the third is the most difficult to capture, and impossible to manufacture, despite the dogged efforts of the in-house entertainment crew to burst your eardrums by piping in loud, unimaginative music choices during every break in play.

There have been a long line of sports stadiums since professional sports took ahold of North American sports fans during the late 1800′s.  Yet only a handful have transcended their sports.

Any die-hard college football fan can rhyme off the names of the temples of football, there are zealots who speak in reverential tones of certain minor league baseball ballparks, many long since gone, and the same thing applies to minor league hockey over the last century.

With all due respect, it is the stadia of the major league teams that have etched their way into the consciousness of a sporting-mad continent.  It’s an economy-of-scale thing; the bigger the canvas, the bigger the bang.

Even the most casual sports fan knows about Wrigley Field or Lambeau Field.  Even the non-sports fan is familiar with Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden.

These structures stand head-and-shoulders over their more mundane cousins, the aptly-named “cookie cutter” stadiums.  These buildings of lore may not all be aesthetically wonderful, but they’ve all hosted an impressive resume of big time games and once-in-a-lifetime events.

But that in itself does not mean the humbler arenas/stadiums are shut out of the sepia-tinged memory department.  First-and-foremost is the first category of why we continue to flock to these places.  The action on-the-ice, or on-the-field.  This is truly where magical memories are created.  And that can happen anywhere.  But it helps when the building itself is special.

An arena such as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto was a wonder when it was very quickly built during the early days of the Great Depression, and the Stanley Cup winning teams that called that barn home added to its legend.  The advent of Canada-wide radio broadcasts, with Foster Hewitt calling the play-by-play, cemented the Gardens special place in hockey lore.

Even when the Toronto Maple Leafs stumbled through some dry years during the 1980′s, there was still an electricity in the air when one took their grey-and-white ticket stub, and pushed their way past the turnstiles.  The aging lady was always kept in great shape, and while the action on the ice didn’t always live up to one’s expectations, the ghosts of the past hung heavy in the air.

Which only underscores the sad condition the Gardens is in today.  The likes of Eugene Melnick wanted to purchase the arena and install his OHL St. Michael’s Majors as the main hockey tenant, which would have worked nicely with the junior hockey tradition that runs through the veins of the place.  The Maple Leafs ownership balked at that idea, no doubt worried that a refurbished MLG would compete with their fancy new Air Canada Centre for lucrative concert dates.

Canadian supermarket giant Loblaws came along next, and planned to turn the building into a combination Superstore and hockey museum, but as of this moment, none of that has come-to-pass.

Many were upset at that prospect, arguing such a fate was worse than death for the hockey shrine.  Many pointed out what became of the Montreal Forum, now a glitzy entertainment/movie complex.   At least they thought to keep a bit of the old Forum around; a statue of the Rocket and supposedly the spot where centre ice was.

Still, many would rather these places just be bulldozed, instead of reduced to mere shadows of their once glory.  But would having a parking lot or some faceless office building built on the grave of our memories be a better shrine?  Should we just pack up the ghosts and get out of Dodge?

At least there’s a nod to the past, a place where fathers can take their sons (or mothers and daughters), and point out where Johnny Superstar scored that big goal or hit that big homerun, and made the world safe for democracy.

With few exceptions, almost every place we inhabit is built upon the past.  This past summer, after a particularily nasty last June rainstorm, there was a mini Lake Ontario between my house and the neighbours.  There’s not much worse than a flooded basement, so with bucket-in-hand, we bailed out what we could before the neighborhood cavalry arrived, all clutching shovels and pitchforks, like some Gothic lynch mob.

As we dug a makeshift drainage ditch, I struck an area next to a basement window that held the remnants of a coal dump.  The house was built circa 1946, one of the new suburbs of Toronto, as servicemen returned from Europe, looking for their piece of post-war prosperity.

Before there was central heating, the house was heated with coal.  I have no idea when that conversion would have taken place, but the modest house I inhabit holds its own ghosts, the majority of which I am unaware of.  This long-abandoned coal dump was a reminder of that past.

As we dug further, someone mentioned that the entire area was once a flood plane for the nearby (now pretty much buried) river, which explains the heavy clay around the house, and the manner in which the entire area is sloped.

As I struggled to dislodge the stubborn clay, it made me think of places such as Nashville.  During the 1971 excavation of the area where their arena now stands, the workers came across a long-lost cave.  There they found a foreleg bone and nine-inch fang of a sabre-toothed tiger, which had been extinct for thousands of years.

It was only natural that when Nashville joined the National Hockey League in the late 1990′s, they took the inspiration for their name from that find, a great example of acknowledging your past.

I once read that each of us walk with seven ghosts at our heels; for every person alive on Earth today, there are seven souls from the past.  I’ve never had those numbers verified, but the point is haunting nonetheless.  The past matters.

In sports, the past throws a huge shadow over everything.  It’s unimaginable for any sports fans not to become immersed in the history of whatever game they follow.  The past informs the present, which directs the future.

The constant dance of different corporate names for arenas strikes me as short-sighted.  Yes, a number of teams need that sizeable cash infusion, but they’ve mortgaged off some of their days of future passed for mere cash.  Filthy lucre that won’t last.

Do the Buffalo Bisons play at Pilot Field, or at NorthAmerica Park, or at Dunn Tire Park?  The Montreal Canadiens skate at the Molson Centre.  That I’m sure of.   Though I think they changed the name.  Yeah, that rings a Bell.

So what exactly makes an arena/stadium special?  In the end, it’s your personal memories.

Maybe your father took you there for your first game.  Maybe it’s when the Curse of (insert Curse here) whatever was lifted, when your team finally vanquished the enemy.  Maybe it’s all the championship banners hanging from the rafters, or all the near misses that made you love your team even more.  Maybe it’s the way the building feels before a game, as you feed off the electricity of the crowd, or maybe it’s the way the building sounds after a game, as the echoes of the just-completed game continue to bounce around the place.

I’ve always thought the New Year should begin the day after Labour Day.  It’s when we put aside the illusion that life is leisurely, and we return to school or work..and the weather begins its slow, inevitable march towards winter, at least in this part of the continent.

Each autumn I can feel the clock tick a little louder; another step towards the grave.  The closing of Yankee Stadium is yet another small step in that direction.  Just another part of my past that now is gone.

Add it to the roll call of other great buildings.  Maple Leaf Gardens, the Detroit Olympia, Chicago Stadium, Boston Garden, the Montreal Forum.  And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.  No doubt you have your own arenas/stadiums to add to that list.

For me, it’s Clarke Stadium in Edmonton, the Montreal Expos, the Calgary Cannons, the St. Catharines Stompers, and Ottawa Rough Riders.  The Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, and Quebec Nordiques.  The Atlanta Flames at the Omni.  The Winnipeg Arena, though I never saw a game there, but once peered in through the windows and caught a glimpse of the seats.  10 cent chocolate bars at the corner store, milk in glass bottles, Saturday morning cartoons, and playing outside without sunscreen.

The past is a great place to visit, but a lousy place to live.  For someone, the Air Canada Centre, or the new Yankee Stadium will be their shrine, their holy place.  And that’s how it should be.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Wayne Gretzky has been behind the bench for the 2 game rookie tournament against the LA Kings rookies, and it was business as usual for he and his coaching staff. When you look around the NHL during the rookie camps and tournaments, you don’t always, in fact you rarely, see the head coaches behind the bench, for one reason or another.

Not with Gretzky and the Coyotes as he and Ulf Samuelsson took care of the bench, while newcomer Doug Sulliman sat in the pressbox with goalie coach Grant Fuhr to take notes and get a feel for the young players. Gretzky knows that the prospects he has will be a big part of the present and the very near future, not just players that have potential, and may be 3 or 4 years away, if at all.

He is on the bench and on the ice in practice grooming them through drills and systems that will be employed from Day 1.

Its also good for the players to be around Wayne. Its natural to be in awe of Gretzky, so the players have to get used to how he handles the bench, drills in practice and also his demeanor. He laughs a lot, observes most things that no one else even sees happening. He is serious, but knows when to lighten things up and more importantly, has been a player before and understands you will make mistakes.

There are plenty of negatives when you don’t make the playoffs. You lose that winning culture, that expectation that you will win every night. On the other hand, it allows you the opportunity to draft the best of the best in that years draft. A team like the Red Wings haven’t had top picks since Yzerman and Primeau, when they were not a very good hockey team. They have done well with later picks like Datzyuk and Zetterberg.

Pittsburgh had a rough stretch that resulted in Fleury, Staal, Crosby and Malkin to name a few.  The Coyotes have Peter Mueller, Kyle Turris, Mikkel Boedker, and Viktor Tihkonov to go along with a slew of good draft picks that have resulted in picks like Chris Summers, Nick Ross, Brett MacLean and Kevin Porter to name just a few.

Its no wonder Gretzky and Samuelsson are preparing the young players with the same intensity and attention to details as they would be doing with their regular line-up. They know they will play for them, and sooner rather than later.

The unique thing about this collection of players is they all have different games.  The puck follows Turris and he just makes smart plays. He gets plenty of chances and doesn’t need much time to make a play. He has very quick hands and can snap the puck. He is a self motivated athlete that knows what he wants. Its just a matter of time and experience for Kyle.

Boedker is a horse. He has big strong legs and has lots of jump. He checked in around 200 lbs and doesn’t mind the physical part of it. He is a left shot that plays the right side, and has a great one timer.
Tihkonov intrigued many teams. He grew up in Los Gatos CA around the Sharks as his father Vasiliev was a coach with the Sharks and also with their farm team. He only recently got his Russian passport and was asked on several occasions to play for USA Hockey. He was not going to do that as his legendary grandfather, Viktor, is the President of Red Army. Young Tikhonov is a big strong kid that loves to drive to the net, and can play all 3 forward positions. You can tell he has been around pro hockey all his life, as he just fits in, he looks and acts like he belongs in the NHL.

Porter is a well rounded, smart player. He won the Hobey Baker and I get the sense it wasn’t just the point total. He is a leader. There were several times during the rookie games vs LA that he got hit or slashed on a shift, and instead of retaliating, he took a number and made sure he got a piece of that player. He is smart with the puck on both sides of the ice. He was the most mature player in the 2 games and appears to have a real bright future.

Another piece of the line up that has to excite Gretzky is his top line. He finally has a big centerman that can go up against the big boys in the Pacific.

With Ollie Jokinen, at 6’3 220 lbs, he also has a center that wants the puck in his own zone to begin the breakout. Jokinen doesn’t have to be the captain in the desert. He just has to play his game.  This is Shane Doan’s team, and Doan will patrol the LW on the top line with Peter Mueller likely on the RW.

That brings us to Bryzgalov. He is without a doubt the key to the process for Wayne and the Coyotes. He can be an All-Star. He can win a Vezina. He can be a Hart Trophy winner.  That’s what kind of upside he has. He has that potential for sure. He is athletic, mobile and large.  He will have to handle this team the right way. He will have to deal with adversity and have the maturity to handle some of the rough nights. He has shown he can do that and now must know how massive the responsibilty is.

Every player will make mistakes, especially the young ones and its so important in this situation for the older, veteran players, like Bryzgalov, to give his teammates confidence, no matter what happens out on the ice. What a year this should be.

Gretzky is going to have the time of his life behind the bench, in the room and on the plane with these guys. I can’t wait to be a part of it, the beginning of something real special in the desert.

For gretzky.com, I’m Darren Pang.

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

With the Montreal Canadiens set to celebrate their 100th season as a hockey franchise, they’ve gone out of their way to make the year special for not only followers of the club, but also hockey fans in general.

To that end, the Canadiens have cornered the market on most special events happening during the 2008-09 National Hockey League season, with the notable exception of the outdoor game January 1st at Wrigley Field, though whispers continue that the Habs are interested in staging such a game at Olympic Stadium.

Part of their centenary celebrations includes the salute to their impressive roster of Hall-of-Fame players, and fourteen of those men have had their sweater number retired. The names are familiar to every hockey fan; Plante, Harvey, Beliveau, Geoffrion, Morenz, M. Richard, Lafleur, Moore, Cournoyer, H. Richard, Savard, Robinson, Gainey and Dryden.

Half of those retirement ceremonies have come in the past three years, as the Canadiens have made a conscious effort to reconnect to their glorious past.

Which is important to point out, as the team is often lauded for being the classiest when it comes to celebrating its past. The fact is, Montreal Canadiens pride had become somewhat frayed around the edges, as the team not only struggled on the ice, it also lost its way in the management suite and in the boardroom.

Despite the sizeable outcry when American businessman George Gillett took over ownership of the franchise, he has shown an understanding and appreciation of the Canadiens’ place within the cultural fabric of Montreal, the province of Quebec, the country of Canada, and most importantly, the history of hockey.

The Canadiens have successfully reconnected to their past, which at least now is not merely a smokescreen to cover up the fact that they’ve been dismal on the ice. That the Habs have been, mostly from the mid-90′s on, until the 2003 hiring of Bob Gainey as general manager, and their Eastern Conference first-place finish last season is proof that something is finally working.

The good folk of Montreal talk about the Stanley Cup drought that has persisted since 1993, which might rub the good folk of Chicago (1961), Toronto (1967), Boston (1972), and Philadelphia (1975) the wrong way, not to mention all the teams that have never won the Cup, but the standards in Montreal have always been a bit higher.

Those same good folk often point to the statistic that boasts Montreal has won at least one Stanley Cup in every decade.  For example, Cups were captured in 1916, 1924, 1931, 1944, 1953, 1965, 1971, 1986 and 1993, so that’s nine straight decades of at least a taste of success.

Of note are those last two dates…1986 and 1993.

The 1986 Montreal team was an interesting mix of veterans (Larry Robinson, Mario Tremblay, Doug Soetart), players at-or-near the peak of their career (Bobby Smith, Mats Naslund) and a bunch of raw rookies, most of whom had won the Calder Cup with the Sherbrooke Canadiens the year before (Brian Skrudland, Stephane Richer, Patrick Roy).

In retrospect, the 1985-86 Montreal Canadiens were a very solid team, and their record that year reflects that…87 points…good enough for second place in the Adams Division, and seventh overall in the league.
Regardless, when they hoisted the Stanley Cup that season, it was regarded as a surprise, and still is. Newcomers like Claude Lemieux made their mark in those playoffs, but it was goaltender Patrick Roy that stole the headlines.

In his first full NHL season, Roy proved to be the money goalie a team usually needs in order to survive the post-season grind. For his efforts, Roy was given the Conn Smythe Trophy, the first of three he would win over his Hall-of-Fame career.

That Montreal team was a good team, but they don’t sniff the Final unless Roy stands on his head. One playoff game in particular, against the New York Rangers, best illustrated that point. The Rangers, a team that earned all of 78 regular season points, had dominated Montreal in the overtime, but were unable to slip anything past Roy, which bought Montreal enough time for Claude Lemieux to finally bury the winner.
The funny thing is, that team, with some changes, matured into an NHL powerhouse the next three seasons, but were tripped up each time.

The 1987 Habs lost to rookie goaltender Ron Hextall and the Flyers, the 1988 Habs (103 points) were the second best team that year, but were finally upended in the playoffs by the Boston Bruins. The 1989 edition of the team was even better (115 points), but fell in six games in the Stanley Cup Final to the best team in the regular season with 117 points, the Calgary Flames.

By then, Roy was established as Montreal’s starting goaltender, and teamed up with backup Brian Hayward, the Canadiens had the stingiest defence and won a trio of Jennings Trophies.

As good as Roy was in the 1986 playoffs, the next season, he faltered enough in the post-season that Hayward took over, and was in net when the Canadiens edged their bitter rivals, the Quebec Nordiques, in a spirited series.

Roy was outplayed in 1988 by Reggie Lemelin of the Bruins, and the entire Montreal team were just a half-step behind the Flames in 1989.

As good as Roy had been in the regular season, he was unable to translate that into playoff success. Some critics pointed out that his impressive regular season numbers were somewhat artificially inflated, as he started almost every Montreal home game, while Brian “The Road Warrior” Hayward got the road starts.

The Legend of Saint Patrick has its roots in the 1986 playoffs, but it really took hold during the 1993 playoffs (and it was cemented during the 1994 playoff series loss against the Bruins, when Roy returned from the hospital, after he had appendicitis, and started the next game).

After the loss in the ’89 Cup Final, the Canadiens slipped a bit in the regular season, and for three straight years (1990-1992), were beat by the Bruins in the playoffs, including a four-game sweep in 1992.
By the time the 1993 playoffs rolled around, the Canadiens were once again not expected to challenge for the Cup. There were much stronger teams; Mario Lemieux and his Pittsburgh Penguins had 119 points to lead the league that year, and coming off two straight Stanley Cup wins, were picked by most pundits to make it three-in-a-row.

Montreal finished with 102 points that year, slightly inflated by it being an expansion year (the Lightning and Senators joined the league), but all teams benefited from that.  Those 102 points were good enough for sixth best record in the league, so Montreal were hardly underdogs.  For comparion sake, the Toronto Maple Leafs had 99 points that year, while the Los Angeles Kings racked up only 88.  In anything, the fact the Kings made the Cup Final is more of a surprise.

All that being said, Montreal entered their first-round playoff matchup, with their friends the Quebec Nordiques, on a low note. They had not played all that well to end the season, and then dropped their first game against the Nords, blowing a lead late in the game, and then losing in overtime.

Overtime.

That would be the buzzword of the ’93 playoffs, and Montreal would not lose another overtime game that spring.

After dropping the second game to Quebec, the Canadiens rebounded to win the third match in overtime, and took the next three games to wrap up the series in six.

The five teams that finished in front of Montreal that season all experienced breakdowns in the postseason. Montreal took care of Quebec, Buffalo dispatched Boston in four (Mayday Mayday!), St. Louis upset Chicago in four, Toronto shocked Detroit by winning the seventh game in Detroit in overtime on a goal by Nikolai Borschevky, while only Pittsburgh made it through to the second round…

…where they lost to David Volek and the Islanders in overtime in Game Seven.

From round three on, Montreal had the best record of the teams still standing.  But even then, they rode their overtime magic and the money goaltending of Patrick Roy all the way to the Stanley Cup.  Most hockey fans either remember, or have seen the footage, of Roy winking at the Kings’ Tomas Sandstrom, after having once again stymied the L.A. attack.

The Canadiens’ magic continued in Game Two, thanks to the infamous stick measurement on Marty McSorley, and Eric Desjardins’ hat-trick.  A couple of overtime goals by John LeClaire before he became John LeClaire, and a dominating home-win in Game Five garnered the Habs the 1993 Stanley Cup, and Patrick Roy his second Conn Smythe Award.

And from that moment on, the Myth began.

That the 1993 Canadiens were a poor team.

The late, great Jim Hunt once went on the Fan 590 in Toronto, talking about Roy being traded to the Colorado Avalanche, and said that the ’93 Habs were a “horrible team”. He wasn’t alone in that opinion. Somehow, it became fact.

Wrong.

Stats prove that.  So does memory, which is suspect at best.  But common sense also proves that.

The ’93 Canadiens would certainly have not won that Cup without Roy in net, but the very nature of hockey dictates that your goaltender had to be above-average in order to win.

Examine any of the rosters of the past forty Cup winning teams, and the goaltenders on those squads had to have been good, or there’s no parade.

Yes, you have the Roy’s and Cam Wards, and the 1971 Ken Dryden.  But you also have to have a decent performance from the 1976-79 Dryden and Billy Smith during the Islanders’ run and Grant Fuhr/Andy Moog with the Oilers.

Any of those gentlemen slip up, and the very talented teams in front of them collapse like a house-of-cards. Just ask the Ottawa Senators during their time with Patrick Lalime in net. The most damning word in the English language, if, can be applied to the Sens, in particular if Lalime could have stopped a couple of beach ball shots lobbed his way by the Maple Leafs’ Joe Nieuwendyk.

But he didn’t, and a vastly superior team was bounced by Toronto.  Again.

Your goaltender doesn’t have to stand on his head the entire time, but he’s got to be consistently good, and have flashes of brilliance.

Patrick Roy in 1986, and in particular 1993, was exactly that.  That has led many to proclaim him the best goaltender of all-time, and his regular season stats bear that out.

Personally, Roy is in my Top Ten of all-time, but he’s behind Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall, Terry Sawchuk, Dominik Hasek, and my pick for best goaltender of all-time, Martin Brodeur.

Regardless, Roy is a blue chip Hockey Hall-of-Famer, and was given that honour in 2006.  He won two more Stanley Cups with the Avalanche, and won his unprecedented third Conn Smythe Trophy in 2001.  His number was retired by Colorado, but his greatest individual accomplishments were with Montreal.  Roy’s three Vezina Trophies were won with the Canadiens.  His legend, his myth, began in Montreal, and in this year of wall-to-wall Canadiens’ festivities, it would be folly for the team not to invite him to the party.

Of course, there was that messy public divorce back in December 1995 during a blowout loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Roy burnt his Jacques Cartier bridge by informing team president Ronald Corey that he would never again play for the Canadiens.

And he never did.

And the team slowly slid into mediocrity.

And many blamed Roy for that slide.

But, like most things, it isn’t that simple, nor is it true.  A litany of bad management decisions, poor coaching, and poor drafting dropped Montreal into the second division, while at the same time, Roy and the Avalanche were winning a couple of Cups.

It’s been suggested by a number of parties that once the proud/arrogant Roy cooled down following that December 1995 game, he recanted his declaration.  Montreal head coach, and former teammate, Mario Tremblay had never coddled Roy to the same degree that former skipper Jacques Demers had.  That special treatment rhad ubbed some players, and media, the wrong way, but when a guy can walk the walk, such things tend to be overlooked somewhat.

Tremblay, the new sheriff-in-town, was having none of that, and Roy’s meltdown handed him the lever he needed to pry the legend loose.

Yet the Second Roy Myth persisted, even to this day; Patrick Roy quit on his team.

Many in the media, and some fans, still cling to this belief, to the point of objecting to the Canadiens’ announcement last week that they would retire Roy’s iconic number 33.

As if the Second Myth wasn’t enough, many of the dissenting chorus piled on by bringing up the unsavoury on-ice junior hockey incident this past spring involving his son attacking an opposing goaltender.

As if they retire sweater numbers, or put a player in the Hall-of-Fame, based on someone being a good guy.
No, they recognize and honour what happened on the ice.  And with that, and only that criteria, the Montreal Canadiens had no choice but to acknowledge the contribution Patrick Roy made to the team, and to raise his number to the rafters along with the other legends.

To not do so would leave a large gaping hole in their 100th anniversary celebrations.  Unlike Dave Keon and the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Canadiens and Roy were able to put the damage of the past behind them, and embrace their shared glory of yesteryear.

There really was no other choice.

Welcome home.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Wayne’s Charitable Work Making A Difference
By TERRY JONES, Sun Media

PHOENIX — Recently, Christopher Kowie collapsed of cardiac arrest during a dog show at the Civic Centre in Brantford.  A public access defibrillator, donated by the Wayne Gretzky Foundation, saved his life.

“He was having a heart attack in my home town” Gretzky said. “The doctor said that had a defibrillator not been there, he would have died. The defibrillator was there because of money raised by my foundation. Those kind of things are very rewarding.”

Much has changed in Gretzky’s world since he made the transition from player to coach. Saving people’s lives with defibrillators is one of them.

“I think the biggest thing that’s changed in my life is the explosion of my foundation,” he said.

“What’s changed is how much I try to do and how much money I try to raise. I’m always thinking what we can do to get more money for the foundation.

One of the things we’re trying to do is get as many defibrillators out there as possible,” Gretzky said.

It was his brother Glen who told him about the life-saving story.

“I phoned Wayne right before a game to tell him about the defibrillator in Brantford,” said Glen, who is the executive director of the foundation. “Right then, four years worth of work was worth it just with that one man. He still keeps in touch with us. He’s fine now.

“We bought a bunch of (the defibrillators), worth about $100,000. It works out to about $4,000 each, including the training. We put them in arenas and community centres.”

Gretzky has a long history of putting his name on charitable events.

But the creation of his own foundation is relatively recent.

“To be honest, the foundation was created to make my life easier in so many directions,” he said of the charitable things he was involved in “helter skelter” as he put it.

“It started around the time I retired, but itís really taken off in the last three years.”

While Wayne and his name raise the money, Glen and dad Walter get to experience the rewards first-hand. Like flying a plane-load of hockey equipment to Iqaluit, Nunavut.

“That went great. They went crazy. I loved it,” Glen said. “People don’t see the work Wayne puts in. My dad and I have the time. We get to feel like Santa Claus.”

“It was incredible,” Walter said. “To take everything up there was such a big thrill. They have nothing.”

Gretzky remembers the first time he took on an event to raise money for charity.

“It was in 1979 sitting on the back step with my friend John Mowat,” he said of his childhood pal and the tennis tournament they invented for Brantford.

“My dad and his dad took over the whole event, otherwise it would have been a complete mess,” he said of raising money for the CNIB and Down Syndrome.

It’s a long list of things the Wayne Gretzky Foundation has done already.

The foundation funds an after-school program for those with autism, purchases ice time, provides equipment and even paid for a national sled hockey team to go to a championship in Sweden.

“It’s not just for hockey, but kids in general,” Wayne said. “It all makes you feel so good about what you do.”

Part of No. 99′s deal with his partner Peter Jensen in the Wayne Gretzky Estates winery is that a six-figure sum be forwarded to the foundation every year.

They already did a Gretzky wine bottle signing in Los Angeles — not part of the foundation — which produced more than $100,000 toward building a local school playing field.

Ford and Samsung are also a big part of the foundation.

For six years now, Gretzky has run his own fantasy camp, contributing well into six figures to the foundation. For several years, Gretzky played host to a Wayne Gretzky & Friends golf day, usually involving Mike Weir and two other NHL players, such as Brett Hull and Jarome Iginla.

But coming this year is a new, massive event which is hoped will raise a half million dollars for the foundation. Gretzky is getting involved with golf in a bigger way by hosting the Nationwide Ford Wayne Gretzky Classic in Collingwood, Ont., July 10-13.

“(It) came about as a result of Wayne attending the event in Greenville, S.C., three years in a row,” Gretzky’s business manager Darren Blake said.

“A good friend of mine ran that tournament. We sat around last year, talking about taking the event to Canada. Wayne decided to run with it and see what we could do. It kind of grew in a hurry. We decided to make it like the AT&T Pebble Beach and the Bob Hope. We’ll have 160 players and as many amateurs and celebrities ó probably 30 celebrities and 130 paying amateurs.

“We decided on $8,000 an amateur for the first year but we should have made it $9,999 like the fantasy camp. We will the next year. It’ll raise a half a million for the foundation for sure.

“The celebrities will all be ‘A’ list. John Elway and George Brett have already confirmed. And of course weíll have a large contingent of hockey stars. All four days will be on The Golf Channel. This will be the Nationwide Tourís marquee event. They want to grow it to a very high level.”

Gretzky said he didn’t need his arm twisted.  “I just decided ‘I’ve got to get one of these for Canada.”

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