Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403060013
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE NADEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the most accomplished athlete in the history of team sports, is ready to remind the world that he's still The Great One.
Soon, he will own his 61st NHL record, and it might be the greatest of them all.
Always a playmaker - he's the league's career assists and points leader by a wide margin - Gretzky is about to catch and pass Gordie Howe to become the all-time goal scorer.
That the last major record Gretzky doesn't already have is held by his boyhood hero makes it even more prominent for Gretzky.
"It's really exciting and a lot of fun, yet I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious," he said. "Gordie was such a great player and is such a good man. His record is special."
The record will be more special when Gretzky owns it.
Howe scored 801 goals in 1,767 games over 26 seasons. He was 52 when he retired.
Gretzky, who led the Edmonton Oilers to four Stanley Cups in the 1980s and now plays for the Los Angeles Kings, goes into this afternoon's game against the Blackhawks at Chicago with 798 goals in 1,109 games over 15 seasons. He turned 33 in January.
Gretzky is scoring goals 63 percent faster than Howe did. At this pace, if he matches Howe's 1,767 games, Gretzky would finish his career with 1,271 goals.
And he's far from being done.
Hank Aaron, who holds the major-league home-run record of 755; Walter Payton, the NFL's all-time rushing leader with 16,726 yards; and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's all-time scoring leader with 38,387 points were nearing retirement when they became the pacesetters of their sports.
Gretzky, who was 28 when he broke Howe's career point record with 1,850, remains great.
If he holds off Detroit's Sergei Federov for the rest of the season, Gretzky will capture his 11th NHL scoring title. Already in 1993-94, Gretzky has more points than the 103 Howe scored in his best year.
During Howe's era, NHL teams played fewer games each season, scored fewer goals and met tougher pre-expansion opposition. But those facts can't diminish Gretzky's achievements, because he has dominated his era more than any athlete since Chamberlain towered over NBA opponents in the 1960s.
For example, Gretzky's record 92 goals in 1981-82 were 28 more than the second-ranked player that season. His record 215 points in 1985-86 were 74 more than the runner-up. In a league that has produced only 39 players with 1,000 career points, Gretzky is closing in on 2,500.
Same pucks, same rinks, same rules, same league, same demographics.
Very different hockey player.
"He scored 85 more points one year than the next guy," Howe once said. "I scored 85 one year and set a record."
In recent years, the Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux has challenged Gretzky's status as the game's best player. Lemieux has been the NHL's top scorer in four of the past six seasons - the only times Gretzky hasn't been No. 1 since arriving as an 18-year-old in 1979.
Lemieux never has scored 200 points, a figure Gretzky surpassed four times. Lemieux has a career-high of 85 goals, third behind Gretzky's 92 of 1981-82 and 87 of two seasons later. And Lemieux has been set back by injuries and illness.
Gretzky is durable, too. The back injury that forced him to miss about half of last season was the only major health problem of his career.
The biggest trauma in Gretzky's life came off the ice. On Aug. 9, 1988, the Oilers traded him to the Kings for a slew of money and players. He had to leave the city he loved, the team he loved, the teammates he loved. He had to go to a strange place - perhaps the strangest place in the NHL.
Back in 1988, Hollywood and hockey definitely didn't mix.
Since then, Gretzky won two scoring titles, guided the Kings to last spring's Stanley Cup finals, was personally responsible for nightly sellouts and helped create an image that was instrumental to the league's Sun Belt expansion into Anaheim, Miami, Tampa and San Jose.
Gretzky's significance transcends statistics and trophies, including his nine MVP awards. He doesn't need to pass Gordie Howe in goal scoring to be the most important player in hockey history.
But the numbers are so awesome, they can't be ignored.
Gretzky has averaged more than 53 goals and 163 points a season. Before he arrived, only eight players had scored 53 goals in a season. And none had recorded more than 152 points.
How does The Great One do it?
He doesn't have Lemieux's tremendous size or reach. He doesn't have Bobby Hull's booming slap shot or Mike Gartner's roadrunner speed. He doesn't have Phil Esposito's presence in front of the net or Jean Ratelle's grace. He doesn't have Howe's bruising elbows or Bobby Clarke's surgical stick.
Nothing about the skinny 6-footer stands out, except his famous half-tucked-in No. 99 jersey.
Gretzky certainly doesn't look special when he's in motion.
He spends most of his time circling, circling, circling - around the faceoff areas, behind the goals, through the neutral zone. Supremely patient, he will wait behind the net for what seems like an eternity before delivering the perfect pass.
When he sees an opening and decides to go straight ahead, Gretzky skates in uneven, choppy strides.
His head is always up - the better to see the ice ahead, the goons who'd love to decapitate him, the teammates he might feed, the goalie he's about to burn.
Gretzky apparently has radar, avoiding hits, locating teammates with laser-beam passes, finding the 4-inch gap between a goaltender's pads.
He is to hockey what Joe Montana is to football and what Larry Bird was to basketball - a seemingly ordinary guy with seemingly ordinary physical attributes whose superstar status was established through intangibles that can be neither described nor defined.
Though many great players have followed, though a "next Wayne Gretzky" always seems to be entering the league, Gretzky remains singularly recognizable in a sport that ranks a poor fourth in U.S. popularity behind football, baseball and basketball.
"Thrifty. The official car rental company of the NHL, and Wayne Gretzky."
"Buy an ice cold Coke and you could face off with Wayne Gretzky . . . and other NHL players."
In a league filled with young stars, Gretzky is the only household name.
And most other players don't mind because they know that what's good for The Great One is good for hockey.
"Putting up numbers like he has . . . he's done it for 15 years and he's still only 33 . . . it's phenomenal," said the Boston Bruins' Ray Bourque, another probable Hall of Famer. "He's been unbelievable for the league, on and off the ice. The guy's been an ambassador for the game."
by CNB