I hate blogs like this and I have no idea why I'm writing one.
The Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky, or something, 25 years ago. Why people get excited about 25th anniversaries more than, let's say, the 24th or 26th anniversary is something I'll never understand. Actually, the whole concept of recognizing any anniversary of any sort has never made sense to me, because the past is in the past. Wherever you go, that's where you are. But I digest.
I still remember the day it happened. I was 17 years old. I just came in from a bike ride when my phone rang. It was my buddy Dean calling.
"Dude, Gretz got traded!"
"No way," I said.
What else was I suppose to say? "Wicked, we're finally getting a good player?" Edmonton-area newspapers had been talking about a potential deal for a few days before, but I wasn't paying any attention to the news that summer. I was working at a golf course, and golfing whenever I wasn't working, so sticks and pucks didn't concern me. The news of the Gretzky trade was a complete shock to me.
I hung up the phone on Dean and ran downstairs to my TV room. I turned my old beast of a TV on, and there he was: Gretzky, crying his eyes out on national TV. Everyone involved made it sound like the deal was his idea. Gretzky was too classy of a guy to call out Oilers ownership for what they did to him, so we believed he wanted out. Many, many people blamed Gretzky's new wife Janet for pulling a Yoko Ono. I doubt she sings that badly.
The deal sucked in every conceivable way.
The return was terrible. Jimmy Carson couldn't turn left. I'm not joking about this. I remember going to watch him play for the Oilers after the deal, and the guy couldn't turn left. He had to turn to his right going the entire way around if he wanted to go left. I know dogs with more talent on skates than Carson had. He was Zoolander.
Martin Gelinas turned into an OKAY hockey player. Just okay. The draft picks the Oilers got from the deal could have been named Ricky, Bubbles and Julian. No one cared.
As for the loss of Marty McSorley and Mike Krushilwhateverthehellwashisname, again, no one cared. Still don't care. Truth of the matter is, the only player fit to carry Gretzky's jock in the NHL was Mark Messier...and eventually, the Oilers sold him too for a box of dish soap.
Oilers owner Peter Pocklington got $15mil for Gretzky from the Kings, I believe. Used the money to secure a loan on a dairy company? I remember Gretz talking about what a wonderful guy his new owner Bruce McNall was. He and Pocklington likely shared a jail cell with each other at some point, because, as we all know, all businessmen are evil and bad. Pocklington got shot in the arm once. True story.
As for Gretzky, no one actually considered him a member of the Los Angeles Kings. He didn't stop being an Oilers player to us fans until he went to the St. Louis Blues for about 20 games. Do you remember those awful blue and yellow jerseys with the red stripe? Yuck. What the hell was that.
After the trade, I was thankful for Gretzky's hockey cards to go up in value, because I had about 100 of them. My buddy Richard lost six Gretzky rookie cards when his parents moved out of town. True story. He put them in a purple Crown Royal bag and never saw them again. That's $12,000 just walking out the door. I'd be crying in my soup if that happened to me.
Apparently, the Gretzky trade had some sort of impact on ice hockey following in California? Someone told me that once.
Why people bother reliving these sort of moments makes no sense to me. All that happened that day happens every day now: A rich, evil business owner sold out his most valuable asset for some pocket change. We were all so naive in 1988 about what hockey was set to become. I can remember when Gretzky's contract was around $300,000 for the Oilers. $300,000. For the best hockey player who ever lived and ever will live. Sure, Gretzky made the bucks, but mostly from endorsements than from the game itself. It was fairly disgusting how the Oilers owner raped and pillaged the players from that dynamite team, using them like characters in a freak show. But back then, no one cared about the economics of the game; they just cared about the game itself. Therefore, it was somehow better. Don't believe me? Watch a clip of the game when Gretzky scored his 50th in 39 games. No advertising on the boards. None on the ice. Just a "Season's Greetings".
Why the hell were the Flyers playing Bob Froese? Better question: Why did the pull him in the last minute after being down about 12 goals? 50 in 40 still would have been acceptable in the history books.
Looking back on it, the Gretzky trade was just a thing. Not that important at all. People say, "hockey wouldn't have taken off in the US without that trade", but do I actually care if it did? Sorry, I'm not trying to be an ass.
In Canada, hockey is and always will be the only sport that mattered, and I'm Canadian. Why would I care if other people like the game we do? Curling is an institution in Canada, and it's the dullest sport in history. It is very Canadian; therefore, we all play along and pretend to love it. You don't rock the boat, especially when you're throwing it.
Before THE TRADE, hockey still had some innocence to it. I liked it that way. Post-trade, the NHL started being ruined by greed coming from all sides. I don't blame Gretzky for this...guy was a class act all the way around, and if anyone deserved big money, it was him.
Now that I've completed the obligatory 25th anniversary blog, let's never speak of that trade again. I promise Mess, I won't do it.
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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