Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Bruce Boudreau said it’s like traveling with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

“I’ve seen a lot of documentaries on the Beatles — and it looked a lot like this,” the Washington Capitals head coach said yesterday, describing what it was like in Vancouver the night before the game.

“The Canucks had just beat us and yet people are 100 deep around our bus chanting ‘Ovie! Ovie! Ovie!’ We couldn’t get up the road.

“I know it was like this with Wayne Gretzky … I’m guessing this was very Gretzky-like.”

Boudreau was asked if he ever thought he’d see this kind of reaction to a Russian hockey player in Canada.

“No,” he replied.

And he says he’s not quite sure if he wants to see it again.

Full Story

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Edmonton Sun Special Report: When Glory Was Born

It was fourteen years after the fact, when the old war horse on defence retired, after a 19-year career which included six Stanley Cups.

Somebody asked what was his greatest thrill.

“May 19, 1984,” responded Kevin Lowe.

And then the tears came. In a flood. He looked at his wife Karen – the double bronze medal-winning downhill skier from the 1988 Olympic Winter Games – while his brother Ken, the trainer, brought him a bottle of water before he was able to go on.

“When Dave Lumley scored the empty-net goal …,” Lowe said, his voice breaking. “It was pretty unbelievable. When the puck went in the net – that moment will forever be in my mind.”

That’s now 25 years ago.

Kevin Lowe just turned 50.

Jari Kurri turns 49 the day before the anniversary.

Grant Fuhr and Kevin McClelland are 46. Paul Coffey is 47. Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson are 48.

Charlie Huddy and Andy Moog are 49. Ken Linseman and Pat Conacher are 50.

Dave Semenko and Dave Hunter are 51. Don Jackson is 52. Randy Gregg is 53. Dave Lumley and Pat Hughes are 54. Lee Fogolin is 55. Jaroslav Pouzar is 57. And Willy Lidstrom is 58.

Most of them were barely old enough to grow playoff beards back then. And now they’re celebrating the silver anniversary of winning the big silver trophy.

Funny what you remember about May 19, 1984.

I remember driving home from the Coliseum that night and getting pulled over by the cops in a checkstop. When I rolled the window down, the police officer was knocked back by the reek of champagne.

I hadn’t had a sip.

I was headed home to change clothes and drive back to the NHL’s post-series party.

Owner Peter Pocklington, with whom my popularity was not particularly high at that precise point, had taken the trouble to write my name on a bottle of champagne then proceeding to see that I wear the entire bottle.

Pocklington – who would later have his father Basil’s name engraved on the Stanley Cup only to have it XXXXXed out by the NHL – then proceeded to provide a quote to the drenched scribe.

“This is the most incredible high I’ve ever had in my life,” said the owner, who will be celebrating Tuesday’s silver anniversary under house arrest in California on million dollar bail provided by coach Glen Sather prior to going to trial on tax fraud.

“When I said we’d win the Stanley Cup in five years the day we got into the league, I said it because I was a naive fool. But that’s what I believed. And then that’s what we all believed,” said Pocklington.

To see Gretzky carry the Stanley Cup around the ice in front of a gone-mad Coliseum crowd after only five years of the team being in the NHL following the WHA merger was one thing. But to see what the Oilers had done to a dynasty in their first step toward becoming the league’s last dynasty, was something else again.

It wasn’t that long before that the NHL was a million miles away for Edmonton, the voice of Foster Hewitt on radio and then TV with the game coming on midway in the second period.

The closest it came was when the Detroit Red Wings held training camp in Edmonton and you could watch Gordie Howe and Terry Sawchuk play their Edmonton Flyers farm club.

Then one day Bill Hunter and pals invented the WHA and Howe was playing in games here. Then Gretzky showed up and then one night in Chicago, Gretzky, Messier, Fogolin, Hunter, Lumley and Semenko were playing their first game in Chicago Stadium.

And now it’s 25 years ago since they won their first Cup?

So much has happened since. But those five years before they won that Cup, were hardly uneventful either.

There was Gretzky, first and foremost, breaking all those records, including scoring 50 goals in 39 games, the team making the playoffs that first year, losing out to the Philadelphia Flyers who virtually lined up to testify about the fabulous future in front of these kids.

SINGING ON THE BENCH

There was sweeping the Montreal Canadiens the next year and singing on the bench in their second round series in Long Island against the Stanley Cup-winning Islanders.

There was the weak-kneed wimp Miracle On Manchester setback, blowing a 5-0 lead and the series against the Los Angeles Kings the following year.

And there was getting to the 1983 final, and losing to the Islanders in a four-game sweep, a lesson which taught them how to win – Gretzky later recalled walking by the Islanders room and noticing that they were exhausted and wounded while the Oilers felt fine.

Fogolin transferred the captaincy to Gretzky in the fall of the 1983-84 season and when they started the playoffs, Sather not only had John Muckler and Ted Green as assistant coaches but, in a moment forgotten by many, he added the temporarily unemployed Roger ‘Captain Video’ Neilson to work the film room for the playoffs.

The Oilers easily disposed of the Winnipeg Jets in the first round but were pushed to Game 7 during a fabulous playoff series against the Calgary Flames with Gretzky declaring: “There’s going to be a rivalry now for sure.”

After sweeping the Minnesota North Stars in the third round, the Oilers had earned a rematch with the Islanders in the Stanley Cup final.

It was the Islanders’ ‘Drive For Five’ vs. the Oilers’ ‘Run For One.’ Or Billy vs. ‘The Kid,’ named for goalie Billy Smith vs. Gretzky.

Fuhr was great, stopping 34 shots and McClelland scored the goal to win 1-0 in Game 1 on the Island.

While the Oilers lost 6-1 in Game 2, the series involved the 2-3-2 World Series format that year so the Oilers headed home for three.

Led by Messier with two goals, the Oilers won Game 3 by a 7-2 count.

“I’ve never heard a crowd like this in Edmonton for a constant 60 minutes,” said Messier of the inspiration.

It was 7-2 again in Game 3 with Fuhr out with a shoulder injury and Andy Moog in the rest of the way.

The Oilers won Game 5 by a score of 5-2.

During the three games in Edmonton, the Oilers outscored the Islanders 19-6. The defending champions had not only been nudged off the throne, they’d been blown away and the sign on the dressing room wall said it all: “The Drive For Five Is No Longer Alive because the Thirst For First shall be quenched tonight.”

In that dressing room when it was over were more people than a dressing room can hold. It was an insane scene of family, friends, politicians and the nation’s sports media.

And everybody was drenched. Those who weren’t were taken care of by Gregg, who went around the room looking for candidates, shouting ‘You’re too dry!’

MESS WAS A MESS

Messier was crying.

Not only had he won the Stanley Cup but he was such a force they gave him the Conn Smythe Trophy too.

“Messier’s goal in Game 3 turned us into the team we had to be,” said Coffey.

“The Calgary series made all the difference,” said Lowe. “Right there. That was the time and place. That’s where we grew up. That’s where we acquired the mental toughness to win the Stanley Cup.”

Sather mentioned the World Hockey Association.

“I’m proud to have been in that league. People like Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson showed us a lot about creative hockey. It started there.”

Edmonton went crazy. The oil capital of Canada became the hockey capital of Canada. A crowd of between 100,000 and 200,000 (Police told Mayor Laurence Decore it was the latter) attended the biggest single parade ever held in Edmonton.

And thanks to the Oilers and a bet between mayors, 36 Long Island Ducks were moving to Edmonton’s Storyland Valley Zoo.

In the column I wrote while dripping with champagne that night was the following paragraph:

“Edmonton had tasted winning before but never like this. The Grey Cups were great. But uh-uh. No way. Not even close. That was the greatest single sports experience the unbelievably fortunate sports city – Canada’s City of Champions – has ever seen.”

Soon there would be signs on the outskirts of town declaring Edmonton the City of Champions.

After all that’s happened in Edmonton over the years, it’s hard to top what we witnessed that night on May, 19th, 1984.

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Article by Don Schwartz, WG Authentic / Watch Video

It’s been 15 years since Wayne Gretzky set a new standard for scoring with his 802nd goal, but the memories are etched in stone for those in attendance that night on March 23, 1994.

The Los Angeles Kings had just returned home from a game in San Jose where Wayne had tied the NHL’s all-time goal scoring mark, held by his boyhood idol and legend Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe.  Anticipation filled The Forum, the Kings’ home at the time, as fans prepared themselves to witness hockey history.

Not that anyone “really” knew that the record would be set that night vs. the Vancouver Canucks.

“I was on that trip,” said Terry Jones, the long-time sports columnist for the Edmonton Sun, who was assigned to follow Wayne until he set the new scoring mark. “It started with him playing two or three games in the Los Angeles area. I remember going over to Anaheim one night and he was really struggling to get that key goal. There was a lot of banter between the two of us, a ‘you know, don’t keep me out here too long’ sort of thing.”

“So when he scored it in the game against Vancouver, I think it was more of a relief for Wayne than anything just because it was a bit of hockey’s version of the Babe Ruth thing going on with Henry Aaron.”

Despite the magnitude of the record, Wayne had already surpassed many of the NHL’s all-time marks, including assists and points. The challenge for Kings’ TV Play-by-Play voice and Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller with the goal record came down to capturing history in the proper light and being prepared for the moment.

“It was four or five years previous when he passed Gordie Howe (for the all-time record in points), when a friend of mine that summer had asked ‘what are you going to say when it happens?’” Miller recalled. “I said ‘well, I never really thought of saying anything except describing the play. Then I thought ‘maybe they expect me to add a little something to it.’ So when he passed Howe in points, I just said ‘the Great One has become the greatest of them all, the all-time leading scorer in the history of the National Hockey League.’

“Now on this night I thought ‘well, I’ve got to come up with something else to say because he was going to pass the goal scoring record.’ So when it happened, I said ‘the Great One’s NHL record book is now complete, he’s the all-time leader in points, assists and now in goals with his 802nd goal.’”

That goal would finally come with the assistance of teammates Luc Robitaille and Marty McSorely, sending the sold-out and celebrity-filled crowd into a frenzy.

“Kirk McLean, the Vancouver goaltender, was so far out of the net that it was just a wide open net for Wayne to score,” Miller said. “You would think he almost can’t miss this. And he didn’t miss it. There was a tremendous ovation. I remember Wayne with his hands in the air kind of doing a little dance.”

Though he became the all-time leading goal scorer in NHL history that night, the moment overshadowed the all-around game of Wayne and the pride he took in assisting his teammates and the greater team good.

“To be honest, I wouldn’t put (the goal record) up there with some of the others,” Jones said. “The record he broke as a King in Edmonton, the points record, I’d think that probably meant more to Wayne because it was points and he was more about points than goals, even though we all remember that night he scored five to make it 50 in 39 games and breaking Phil Esposito’s single season record and all that stuff.

“At the end of the day, Wayne was about being a playmaker more than a goal scorer, so I think those records probably meant more to him.”

Wayne would go on to tally 92 more goals beyond 802 before his retirement after the 1998-99 season. The current active leader in goals is New Jersey’s 40-year-old veteran Brendan Shanahan with 654. So while the memories of 802 for many are etched in stone, hockey fans wonder if 894 is a record that also needs to be set in stone.

“The way things have gone in the league, it’s a record that, I know it’s been said before, may never be broken,” Miller said. “I don’t think players nowadays are going to play long enough to score that many goals. Everybody that night was feeling that it was going to be a night we’d remember because of the anticipation of seeing an NHL record.”

Article by Don Schwartz, WG Authentic / Watch Video

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Other banner-raisings have been more momentous.

And others were more emotional than when Glenn Anderson’s No. 9 finally went up to the rafters at Rexall Place last night.

But what made this one extraordinarily memorable was the players from the past who showed up to be there for the player who had to wait the longest to get there.

“Everybody was there,” said Anderson when it was over.

“It was tough to hold back the emotions. They were right there with you,” said Anderson.

No. 9 said he’s glad he didn’t have the banner-raising before his Hockey Hall of Fame induction.

“If it had been the other way around, I don’t think I’d have been able to go through my speech.

“It was amazing to have them all there. I think we showed the strength of the organization and the team we had and what we meant to each other. Everything was overwhelming,” said Anderson.

“It was a real good feeling,” said Glen Sather of being out there with all his players of the past.

“It’s nice to see everyone back here. This is what it’s all about,” said Wayne Gretzky.

The Oilers do banner-raisings better than anybody, but after you’ve done Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri, Grant Fuhr and Al Hamilton, how do you top that with the one guy who had been overlooked by the Hockey Hall of Fame for so long?

Simple. Play the theme from the Magnificent Seven and introduce them one by one. Then cut to the Zamboni entrance where No. 9 stood in the dry-ice fog, his back to the crowd.

Except that wasn’t Glenn Anderson.

It was the Edmonton Oil Kings’ Drew Nichol.

“I got to be Glenn Anderson. And I get to keep the uniform,” said the Oil Kings tough guy.

The spotlight then hit the Oilers bench. And the real Glenn Anderson stood up, jumped over the boards and began a slow trip around the rink, waving to the crowd, many of whom were sitting in the same seats when he was scoring more game-winning goals, than any player in Oilers’ history.

There were lots of little touches, like Anderson stopping to pick up his six-year-old daughter Autumn, and to have a special moment with wife Susan and his dad Magnus who, despite his health, was able to make it after not being able to attend his Hall of Fame induction in November.

Anderson shook hands with Sather and John Muckler, who Gretzky put to work behind the Phoenix Coyotes bench as a coach for the occasion.

One by one, he did the same with every former teammate.

Eventually, Anderson took his place to watch No. 9 make the slow trip to the top of Rexall Place, the crowd standing from beginning to end when, taking a page from the Coffey banner-raising, they called on Messier to send Anderson a pass on the right side to break in on the net and score.

The only thing that might have made it better was if Billy Smith had been in the goal in a New York Islanders uniform, slashing him with his goal stick as Anderson crashed the crease to score.

Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe gave the banner-raising speech.

“Glenn, it’s nice to see you back in that uniform,” he said.

“And it’s terrific to see all these other guys. We haven’t had as many of these guys on the ice at the same time since the Heritage Classic.

“I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get to have this celebration,” he said of the time Anderson had to wait to finally make it into the Hockey Hall.”

He spoke of Anderson’s “courage, guts and bravery” and how “when it came to crunch time, there was never anybody any better.”

“As much as Glenn marched to his own drummer, when the chips were down, we knew Glenn would deliver.”

Lowe ended it by saying, “Tonight, I hope this makes your dream come true.”

Messier’s eyes were wet as he listened to Anderson start his speech.

“It was a lot easier watching someone else,” said Messier, who was the focus of the previous banner-raising.

“He was nervous before it. As we waited for it to start, you could tell the moment got bigger and bigger.”

Messier said he wouldn’t have missed this.

“We played on the same line, roomed together on the road, lived together here in town.

“To me, he’s my brother.

“We’re all like brothers. To look out there at all our guys together again, it felt like we should still be playing,” he said.

Anderson told the crowd, “It’s great to be back in this uniform again. This jersey represents home and home is where the heart is. Right here is where my heart is.”

His last comments he saved for the fans.

“You are the greatest hockey fans in the world,” he said. “We had the time of our lives here.”

Last night was another of those times.

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

No matter where he played or who he played with, Anderson always made it fun.

Glenn Anderson didn’t get the date wrong. He didn’t mistakenly think his banner-raising was this Sunday, not next.

But he showed up here yesterday. For the event.

Right off, you get the idea that his Edmonton Oilers Hall of Fame banner -raising, like Anderson himself, is going to be a little bit, well, odd … unusual … out there …

Anderson got off the plane and proceeded directly to sign and be photographed for collector authenticity with 300 unique concept hockey jerseys that will be on sale at a kiosk at Rexall Place tonight for the San Jose Sharks game.

“I received approval from the league last night in New York at the Rangers game. Also, I have a collector’s hockey stick.

“The hockey sweater is an artist design picturing my life from the first backyard rink to the Stanley Cups.

“Instead of being on canvas and framed, it’s all on a hockey sweater. It’s really cool. Nobody has done it before. It’s different.”

Kind of like the person.

After years of fighting his space cadet, skate-to-the-beat-of-a-different-drum image, you may have noticed, watching the telecast of the Hockey Hall of Fame inductions that Anderson has come to embrace it.

The latest of the glory gang to be honoured arrived 10 days early because it’s not just the Glenn Anderson banner-raising, but Glenn’s Global Games Raising The Rafters Weekend.

“I’m a little bit behind the eight ball with some stuff,” he said of organizing his own personal hockey fantasy camp, modelled after the highly successful Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier camps — “except more fun.”

It’s an extension of a project Anderson and Igor Larianov worked on during the Hall of Fame weekend in Toronto.

“It’s a fantasy camp featuring three-on-three hockey. It’s first-class all the way.

“The players will be outfitted head-to-toe. Each team will have uniforms from a team I played for in my career, home or away — an NHL team, a Canada Cup or All-Star team. They’ll have sweat suits and team jackets. We’ve rented a restaurant for an evening. They’ll be part of the Oilers function with the Don Metz videos and everything.

“We’ll start the tournament at the rink at the River Cree Resort & Casino on Friday and then move to Rexall on Saturday and Sunday.”

The price tag is $20,000 per four-man team or $6,000 per player to be placed on a team.

There’s still room for another team or two, and another player or two.

“Each team will get a girl,” he said.

Huh?

Anderson laughed, explaining that he’s arranged with Hayley Wickenheiser to provide a female member of Canada’s national women’s hockey team for each team.

And each team will get an Oiler great.

“Jarri Kurri, Dave Semenko, Dave Hunter, Ken Linseman, Craig Simpson, Kevin Lowe, Paul Coffey, Bill Ranford and, hopefully Mark Messier,” he said.

On Thursday, Anderson will present a cheque for $10,000 to the Cross Cancer Institute, which made him an honorary chairman during his Oilers career.

And what else?

Oh, yeah.

The banner-raising.

That’s at next Sunday’s game, with Wayne Gretzky’s Phoenix Coyotes in town as they were in 2007 when Mark Messier’s No. 11 went up.

The Oilers have led the league with their banner-raisings for Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Coffey and Grant Fuhr.

And this one, says Anderson “will be different.”

It took a long time for No. 9 to go up there, but Anderson said it isn’t going to take a long time for him to sit down.

“I’ve been to a lot of banner-raisings and the best ones are the ones that don’t go on and on.”

He’s seen Mark Messier bawl and doesn’t think he’ll do that.

But will he shed a tear?

“I hope I do,” he said. “If I don’t have the tears, I want to show people how much I cared about the city.”

And a message?

“I plan on telling the players on both teams how we bled the Oiler colours here and came to play for the crest on the uniform. And that it’s one thing to say it and another thing to do it.”

I don’t know about Gretzky’s guys, but that’s a message that Kevin Lowe’s modern-day Oilers need to hear.

Terry Jones appears courtesy of the Edmonton Sun

Anderson’s eccentricity hasn’t left him as he prepares for Hall

By Terry Jones, SUN MEDIA

Glenn Anderson doesn’t do it often anymore. But he’s still capable of morphing back into Mork. He did it yesterday in his Hockey Hall of Fame conference call interview session.

“I heard there’s ghosts in the Hall,” he said. “I can just imagine my picture probably looking right at Father Bauer or Glen Sather.

“I’m thinking about it as the plaque – I don’t know what kind of picture they’re going to use for me, but as the plaque is hung and if our ghosts at some point in time, when we’re no longer around and the lights are out and nobody’s there … well, I can hear Slats going ‘It’s past curfew, you better go to bed.’ ”

Anderson was responding to a question from your correspondent which had, trust me, nothing to do with ghosts or anything else involved in the answer.

It was tough not to pick up on it. And a Toronto writer followed suit.

“So there’s the whole space cadet thing that goes on as a young guy. Was that all justified, you know, the space cadet image, sort of, you know, the different drummer, and in a way do you kind of relish it now?” the scribe asked.

The writer was reacting to Anderson allowing that he’d been hung with the Mork nickname (from the alien character played by Robin Williams in the Mork and Mindy sitcom) in a column by the Edmonton sports columnist with whom he had a frosty relationship for the first few years of his career as a result – a relationship which would go on to warm up considerably in later years.

OLD WOUNDS

“Relish it? Well, I don’t know about that! I think Terry would have a different opinion of me after spending some great quality time together. And I’m sure that’s true with a lot of other people as well.

“The only way I could say I relish it is the fact that I’m really glad that I’m an individual and that I’m a little different than your average hockey player; which I think all players should be unique in their own way and beat to their own drummer. I mean that’s part of life. I think, if anything, it’s an attribute.”

You can see how on occasion the deep-from-inside and the way-out-there Glenn Andersons could get confused. There were those on the conference call who were fishing to see if the Oilers’ great would bite on the idea that the off-ice Glenn Anderson had kept the on-ice Glenn Anderson out of the Hall until this late date.

Fair question. In 16 seasons he played 1,129 regular-season games, recording 1,099 points on 498 goals and 601 assists, won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton in the 1980s and 1990, and one with the New York Rangers in 1994.

He appeared in 225 playoff games, which is his seventh on the all-time list and also ranks fifth in playoff goals with 93, seventh in assists with 121, and fourth overall all-time in playoff points with 214. And then there are perhaps his most impressive numbers, being tied for third in overtime playoff goals and tied for fifth with 17 playoff game winning goals.

He should have been an automatic inductee.

When Anderson spoke to that it definitely wasn’t Mork speaking.

NO DEFINED STANDARD

“It’s tough to judge on what determines what gets you in and what keeps you out,” he said. “They don’t say ‘The criteria for getting in is this, and you meet this, this and this or what you do off the ice is material or immaterial.’ I mean it’s been over 10 years for me. It’s a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t know. Is it the stats? His championships? What is it exactly? It’s not written in stone. So I don’t know the answer.

“Of course you think about it, but I didn’t dwell on it. As I get closer to the day we now get to reflect on a life history of what transpired. I’ve had a little time to think of it, more than your average person. So I’m savouring the moments and seconds as they go by.”

Definitely not Mork.

But who shows up to the induction Monday? Mork? The other guy? Or both, like they did yesterday?

The Great One Wants To Coach For Years To Come

By Terry Jones, SUN MEDIA

PHOENIX — Coach Wayne Gretzky. Get used to it. Not just for now, but for far into the future. He has decided that’s who he is. “My forte is coaching. I’m in it for the long run, for a long time. Hopefully, I’ll spend another 10 or 15 years coaching. I just want to be a coach,” he said.

His dad Walter displayed an animated combination of expressions at that revelation.

“He does? He said that? He told you that? That would sure be shocking to his mother. He always said he’d never, ever coach. He said as a coach, you can’t keep everybody happy. Wayne has always tried to keep everybody happy. “It’s like when he told his mom he was going to coach the Coyotes three years ago. She said ‘Pardon?’ ”

But Walter Gretzky said he can see it.

“He loves it that much. He really does. When he quit playing, despite everything he had, he had nothing after hockey. Coaching filled a void. It’s just stunning how much he loves it. He thinks coaching all day long.”

His brother Glen sees it, too. “It’s remarkable how seriously he takes coaching. He just cares so much.”

While his motivations were questioned for becoming coach when he was already a minority owner and managing partner of the Coyotes, Gretzky admits he came to realize there was something major missing in his life.

“I was no different than any other retired player. I definitely felt I was missing out on something. I didn’t see the same challenge.

“It was my wife who sat me down and told me ‘you should coach.’ She convinced me I should try it. It’s the next best thing to being a player.”

Many predicted that Gretzky would fail as a coach. And going into this season, most of the so-called experts who make pre-season predictions had his Phoenix Coyotes picked to finish dead last.

Gretzky had survived the purge that cleaned out most of the organization — including former agent and friend Mike Barnett, who was replaced by Don Maloney as general manager — but hockey people questioned what he had done here to coach and, indeed, if he could survive behind the bench much longer.

Now, with the Coyotes in hot pursuit of a playoff position, they’re suggesting Gretzky could win the coach-of-the-year award.

“Right from the start of the year, you could see he was much more relaxed and in his element and really enjoying it,” Oilers GM Kevin Lowe said of his former teammate.

Ex-Oilers goalie and current Coyotes assistant Grant Fuhr said you could see right from training camp that he was in control.

“The first two years there was more feeling out by him as a head coach. He was coaching and learning. Now he’s totally coaching and doing it with the same competitive fire with which he played.”

Darren Pang, who has spent the past three years as a colour commentator on Coyotes broadcasts, said now there’s no doubt.

“He’s engaged. It’s his team,” Pang said. “The organization went and got him the kind of players he can play exciting hockey with, his kind of players, guys who are young, hungry and self-motivated.”

Gretzky said it takes time.

“You have to learn what’s going on,” the Great One said. “My first year or two coaching I was really less in charge in the sense that I really delegated a lot more of everything. There is a much bigger comfort zone in what I want to get across now and the style I want our team to play. We’re less complicated as a team.

“Going into this year I knew the system and the style we want to play. We just said ‘look, here’s how we’re going to play, this is how we want to play. We’re going to forecheck, we’re going to go north, we’re going to attack, we’re not going to turn the puck back, we’re not going to trap.’ These guys have bought into exactly the way I want them to play.

“We’re fast, we play hard and our kids are playing really well. When your top guys like Shane Doan, Ed Jovanovski and Derek Morris buy in, it makes it so much easier as a coach to get everyone else to buy into it. And the other thing is that our younger guys played better than we anticipated. We knew they were going to be good. We knew Martin Hanzel was going to be good. We knew Peter Mueller was going to be good. Mueller is 19 years old and he’s playing the point on the power play and doing a pretty good job. And Hanzel is 20 and he’s out killing penalties and taking faceoffs, so it has been really interesting.

“We just weren’t good enough to be successful before. Now we have younger guys playing more my style and more of what I believe in. It’s really fun and exciting for me. After all the tough things we went through, the positives started to outweigh the negatives.

“Now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel that this organization didn’t see until now.”

Previous: Wayne’s New World
Next: The Business Of Being Gretzky

One week at Wayne’s Fantasy Camp: $9,999; Unbelievable memories: Priceless

By Terry Jones, SUN MEDIA

PHOENIX – It’s an open house to Wayne’s World, a one-stop study of today’s No. 99, nine years removed from playing and three years into coaching a team making a push for a playoff position.

It’s the Wayne Gretzky Fantasy Camp, and participants have paid $9,999 each for the pleasure of watching Gretzky coach three games with the Phoenix Coyotes and playing six games themselves on the same ice surface. During a span of six days, the Great One also is host of opening and closing banquets, golfs with them, signs their stuff and hangs out with them like a regular guy in the lobby bar.

Gretzky involves all the people from his company, his foundation and his associations with Ford, Samsung, Pepsi, his new wine label, etc., getting business stuff done at the same time. He had also planned to shoot a commercial for Ford here this year, but the new car didn’t arrive in time. The best part, says his dad Walter, who coaches one of the teams, is on the ice at the camp itself, seeing the boy come out in his body again.

“Watch him out there. He enjoys it so much. He has been like this since the first time when he was five years old,” Walter said.

“I don’t know how he does it. Not just this week. It’s like this continuously,” Walter said of the juggling act of everything involved, including having some of his kids underfoot and 15-year-old Trevor (Gretzky) playing goal for one of the teams.

“It’s the most amazing thing,” business manager Darren Blake said of watching Wayne bring all of his worlds together.

“This week is maybe the most fascinating because it illustrates Wayne’s uncanny appreciation of who he is and what it means to be Wayne Gretzky, the impact he has.”

Mike Brown, who runs the camp, said he’s flabbergasted there still is a camp.

“The hardest part of the whole camp since Wayne started coaching is finding a time to hold it. It gets tougher and tougher.

“I thought last year was going to be our last year, but at the final banquet Wayne tossed in three spots to next year’s camp. We all looked at each other and said ‘I guess we were having another one.’ ”

Bruce Saville, a member of the Edmonton Oilers outgoing ownership group which saved the franchise, has come to six camps as a goaltender. That’s $59,994. He stopped Brick Warehouse founder and Mike Comrie’s dad, Bill, on a shootout to win the first one. Priceless.

“It has been more important to me than the owner meetings. Right from the first year, it was so obvious that Wayne was having as much fun as we were. That’s what makes it perfect.”

Gretzky has his campers play in different uniforms every year.

“The first year it was the Oilers. Then the Rangers, Kings and Coyotes. Last year, it was Campbell and Wales Conference all-star uniforms,” he said.

“This year I decided to go with ’72 Team Canada uniforms. I thought it would be an opportunity for the American players to see what it’s all about … I have five American kids, so I can say that. We have so many guys who keep coming back. I think it’s to collect all the uniforms.”

The winners even get their names engraved on the Wayne Gretzky Cup.

“I put it in my restaurant in Toronto. If they go there to see it, they get a free lunch. It’s pretty cool.”

This year they had 66 players, pros, sponsors and guests of Gretzky.

With an auction raising $68,000 included, the event probably came close to collecting $500,000 for his foundation.

Every player received two Team Canada ’72 sweaters, red and white practice jerseys, pants, socks, gloves with their names on them, sticks and a hockey bag loaded with jackets, golf shirts, sweatsuits and all sorts of other stuff.

At the opening banquet, they all got Walter Gretzky bobbleheads. Wayne had his dad sign them all.

“See dad, what it’s like?” he said with a smile.

At the closing banquet, they all received a special etched bottle of Gretzky wine, numbered 1-to-99.

Bruce Bennett, the noted hockey photographer, took several action shots of each player and an individual portrait with the player and Gretzky in uniform. Don Metz of Edmonton’s Aquila Productions, put together a DVD with a full production crew.

“The thing I marvel at every year is that, to a man, these guys can’t believe the amount of access and personal contact they get with Wayne,” Metz said.

No. 99 said they keep trying to improve it.

“The thing I loved this year was that the entire camp was shown on Gretzky.com, so families at home could watch dad play.

“Bruce Saville is the first guy every year to sign up. I think Bruce has more fun than anybody in the history of my event. He loves it.”

Gretzky said Saville, at age 63, is the oldest player.

“I keep coming back mainly because it’s Gretzky, because it’s so much fun and because it’s for a great cause. His foundation does great work,” Saville said.

Don Ducasse, a Toronto dentist, said it has meant more than that to him.

“Wayne Gretzky and this camp changed my life,” he said. “I was just coming out of receivership. I had blown a million dollars. My wife said ‘What’s another $9,999? It has always been your dream.’ I told her no one dreams of having a cup of coffee with God.

“It changed my dentist practice entirely. Because of the experience with Wayne, I went home and let myself be excellent. It was like he gave me permission to be excellent. It’s hard to articulate. It was something like shock therapy for a Catholic upbringing and an inferiority complex mixed in with hockey, not building character but revealing character.

“It really did change my life.”

Gretzky brings in a host of huge hockey names from the past. But this year he offered something new.

With the Buffalo Sabres in town for two days during the camp, coach Lindy Ruff agreed to play one day. He enjoyed it so much he came back and played the second day, on the morning of the afternoon game in which Gretzky’s Coyotes scored a 6-2 win over the Sabres.

“I came because Wayne asked. I came back because I saw how many of the campers came from Alberta, from Fort McMurray and all those places. That’s my home province. And I had fun,” said the native of Warburg, Alta.

“It’s three hours before game time and Wayne and Lindy are sitting on the bench together with these great big grins on their faces. Three hours later, they’re going to go head-to-head as coaches,” Metz said.

Brown said when the camp started it was 50-50 between Canadians and Americans.

“Now it’s about 75-25 Canadians and half of those are from Alberta. This year we had nine guys from Fort McMurray alone,” Brown said of all the Oilers fans who want to reconnect with the player they grew up watching.

Dale Unruh, who was born and raised in Fort McMurray, first came last year.

“Wayne made it such an unbelievable experience. I started telling friends when I got home and all of a sudden there were nine of us coming this year. I brought my dad as a way of thanks for taking me to Edmonton when I was a kid to watch Wayne play.”

Terry O’Flynn of Edmonton paid $7,000 to be here after Gretzky donated the trip to the silent auction at the Jackie Parker Memorial Golf Tournament.

“Being around Wayne is everything, but it’s not the only thing. I sat beside Bobby Hull watching the entire first half of an NFL playoff game at the bar, just the two of us,” O’Flynn said.

This year, one of the players came from England. Jonathan Wilson spent two years living in Canada as a kid where he became a massive Gretzky fan and got hooked on hockey.

“My aunt sent me over here as a Christmas present. I took a puck on the kneecap, but it’s all good. It has been pretty amazing to be around Wayne like this.”

Last year with Wayne’s son Ty playing, one camper was able to go away saying he scored a goal assisted by Gretzky and Gretzky.

Every camper has a story.

Jamie Shand of Calgary said Gretzky, with assists from Shand’s wife, Amber, and Kirk Muller, made it unbelievably special one year.

“My wife phoned the hotel and got through to Muller. She found out she was pregnant while I was at the camp and asked if he could get to Wayne and find a special way to let me know at the banquet.

“That was the year Wayne brought the Stanley Cup, complete with the Cup guy with the white gloves. Wayne called my name out, told me about my wife being pregnant and presented me with champagne. I celebrated my wife being pregnant by drinking Dom out of the Stanley Cup poured by Wayne Gretzky.”

The first year Gretzky stood up at the opening banquet and told everybody that it wouldn’t be a Fantasy Camp without Mr. Hockey. One camper confessed to briefly thinking that was a bit egotistical sounding.

Then Gretzky pointed to the back of the room and there was Gordie Howe. Everybody received a framed picture of themselves with Gretzky and Howe.

“The first year, we had one guy who had four Wayne Gretzky tattoos on his arms, one in the uniform of each NHL team he played,” Saville said. “The guy could barely skate. Wayne wanted to get him a goal. I don’t know how many times he skated around five guys getting him in position to make the pass to deflect one in.”

They’re all happy campers.

“The first year I came because I wanted to live the dream for a few days. Wayne set me up for a couple of breakaways,” said Derek Mori of Oakville, Ont. “The next year I showed up and he remembered me. He said ‘You’re the breakaway guy!’ ”

Another is Guelph, Ont., car dealer Gord Dennis.

“The first year I came it was a chance to play with the Babe Ruth of hockey. I enjoyed it so much I keep coming back,” he said.

Kevin Mack of Regina said he couldn’t believe how he turned back into a kid.

“I was so nervous before the first game I had trouble sleeping. Growing up in Saskatchewan, I never got to see him play in person.

“Mostly I just wanted to meet him. But being around him like this has been a thousand times better than whatever I expected.”

This year’s camp was more intense than the ones in the past and resulted in a scattering of injuries including a serious one to Gretzky’s wine business partner, Peter Jensen.

“I blew out my knee and his reaction was ‘Thank goodness it wasn’t his hands. He’ll still be able to pick the grapes!’ ”

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