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On Sunday, the player who forever changed the game of hockey and became an icon wherever the sport is played will be celebrating a birthday. The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, will turn 53 years old.
Where do the years ago?
I have known Wayne since he was a skinny 17-year-old playing for the World Hockey Association's Indianapolis Racers and I played for the Cincinnati Stingers. We have changed cities, uniforms and roles several times since then but we developed a unique relationship. When I was an NHL referee, we had a few clashes -- I reluctantly gave him one of the very few misconducts he ever received -- but the relationship always came back to a foundation of mutual respect.
As a human being, Wayne inherited the values of his father Walter, whom I got to know very well over the years. Walter Gretzky has always been a humble man with an incredible capacity for caring about others and treasuring family and friends. Walter has always been dedicated to helping the less fortunate, and Wayne picked up that trait as well.
Before I talk about Wayne, here is the quintessential Walter Gretzky story to give you a sense of the man who was his son's first and greatest role model.
Some years ago, Walter learned of a cancer-stricken youth hockey player; a goaltender. The boy idolized NHL goalies, especially Patrick Roy. It was his greatest wish to meet Roy. Well, Walter did even better than that. Not only did he make sure that Patrick Roy came to visit, he arranged for every other NHL goaltender to come visit the hospital when they came to town.
The regular visits became the kid's lifeline. It gave him something to look forward to, and a reason to fight the cancer even harder. Against steep odds for survival, he beat the dreadful disease.
Walter never did things like that for publicity. Quite the opposite in fact. He has done these sorts of things because there is infinite goodness and compassion in his heart. My own father was the same way.
It is not false modesty when Wayne has said over the years that rather than Walter being primarily known as Wayne Gretzky's father, the thing that Wayne himself views as the greatest honor in life is being Walter Gretzky's son. If you know Walter, you know why.
I tell this story up front because it has direct bearing on a story I'll tell a little later. Before that, though, here is how I met Wayne for the first time.
In 1978, the Stingers opened the preseason schedule with a game against Indianapolis. Before the warmups, I was standing near the zamboni pit under the stands, chatting with my former Cincinnati teammate, Pat Stapleton.
Whitey, as we called Pat, had a lengthy NHL playing career with Boston and Chicago. He retired as an active player after spending the 1977-78 season with Cincy. Stapleton took the general manager and coaching job with Indianapolis.
During the summer of 1978, I spoke with Pat over the phone. The main reason was to discuss the possibility of him signing me to play for the Racers. I ended up canceling on an opportunity to go to an NHL training camp with the Minnesota North Stars and staying in the WHA with Cincinnati; a situation I would come to regret (I'll tell that story in an upcoming blog about my time with the AHL's Philadelphia Firebirds).
At any rate, during our conversation, Whitey told me his club was about to announce the signing of a 17-year-old wunderkind from Brantford, Ontario. Whitey thought I'd make a good enforcer for the Racers, serving in part as the on-ice protector for this kid, Wayne Gretzky. When Stapleton learned I was unavailable, he signed Willie Trognitz for the job.
In these days, a player had to be 20 years old to be picked in the NHL Draft. When the WHA was created, it was the late Colleen Howe -- Gordie's wife -- who first realized that the WHA's bylaws did not restrict clubs from signing teenage players. That was how teenage prodigy Mark Howe, brother Marty and father Gordie all came to sign together with the Houston Aeros, winning a couple of WHA championships on the team coached by Bill Dineen.
In the years that followed, other WHA clubs followed suit by signing underaged talents who were obviously skilled enough to play in the pros. That's how future NHL standouts like Gretzky, Mike Gartner (Cincinnati), Mark Messier (Indianapolis and Cincy), Ken Linseman (Birmingham) and Rick Vaive (Birmingham) came to play in the World Hockey Association before they went to the NHL.
A few weeks after my phone conversation with Stapleton, he saw me and called me over to chat by the zamboni gate before the Stingers - Racers preseason game in Dayton. Calling me by my nickname, Stew Cat, Whitey told me that he wanted to introduce me to someone.
"This is the kid I was telling you about," Whitey said. "Cat, I want you to meet Wayne Gretzky. This guy will someday be one of the best of all-time. Wayne, this is Paul Stewart."
We shook hands.
"Hello, Mr. Stewart," Wayne said.
"Call me Stewy," I said. "Whitey tells me I might be calling you Mister one of these days!"
Wayne smiled shyly.
I looked at Gretzky. He was about 150 pounds and looked as if a strong gust of wind could blow him clear across the rink. He was 17 years old but could have facially and physically passed for someone in early adolescence.
"So this is your first game in the pros tonight?" I asked.
"Yes, umm, Stewy," he replied, the wheels obviously turning in his head to remember not to call me Mr. Stewart or Sir.
"Well, good luck," I said. "Just do me a favor. Don't be a stickwork guy. I don't like players who give you the stick and then turn and hide behind their teammates. Just play hard and clean, and you'll never have a problem with me out there. I don't go after clean players."
We shook hands again and went off to our teams' respective dressing rooms.
In the game itself, Wayne was obviously nervous at first. The arena in Dayton was small but there was a decent sized crowd (who had no idea they'd be part of a piece of hockey history, and probably had never heard of this kid player anyway).
Sitting on the Cincinnati bench, I quipped to my Stingers teammates, "Hey, do you think that kid has a note from his parents to be out that late?"
As the game progressed, we could see flashes of what Stapleton was talking about. This was obviously a supremely skilled young hockey player, and it wasn't going to take very long for those talents to manifest into a dynamic pro. What I wondered was whether he'd be able to stand up to the physical play and handle the traffic around the scoring areas.
I do not recall anyone on the Cincinnati side trying to bowl Wayne over to test him in this game. But that came soon enough as he made his way around the league.
On Dec. 15, 1978, the financially-strapped Racers suspended operations after 25 games. Wayne went to the Edmonton Oilers. Messier, who would of course later be part of the Oilers' Stanley Cup dynasty of the 1980s, went to Cincinnati.
Years later, when I had become an NHL referee, I developed a different sort of rapport with Gretzky than I had with most players. Wayne would whine about calls quite a bit. As a referee who believed -- and I still do -- in the need to get to the net, I bumped into him (quite literally) on multiple occasions when he was "in his office" behind the net. He said it was his space, and I would tell him that I needed it, too.
One night, I refereed a game in Hartford where Wayne and I had a bad night with each other. Before the game, everything was fine. Once the game started, we started to have problems.
Wayne started yelling and cursing at me. Ordinarily, I would not put up with that, but I knew that the number one reason the stands were filled to capacity was that people had paid to see Gretzky play. For the good of the game and for the people who ultimately enable us to make our living, I let him stay in the game.
Unfortunately, Wayne persisted. Finally, he tried to hand me his stick.
"What are you doing that for?" I asked.
"You've been taking the stick out of my hands all night, Stewy, so you can just HAVE the [bleep]ing thing," he said.
I had no choice. I ditched him on a misconduct.
"Answer me something, Wayne," I said. "Would you want your dad to see the video of the way you've been acting tonight? What do you think he'd say? Your dad treats everyone with respect, and I know he taught you always to treat us officials with respect. Think about it."
Wayne got silent.
"Tell you what," I said. "Why don't you take this stick, sign it and we'll give this one away to charity."
After the game, Wayne brought over several signed sticks. We also never had a significant problem with each other on the ice again after that.
Another time, before a game, Wayne and I had a lengthy conversation. It wasn't about anything going on in his own life or career. All Wayne wanted to talk about was his younger brothers, Keith and Brent. We talked about Keith's play in the minor leagues, on which Wayne kept close tabs despite his own extremely busy schedule. I could see the closeness of the family from that conversation.
I'll end this with a final story about Wayne; a deeply personal one for me. I was refereeing a game in Edmonton between the Oilers and Minnesota on Dec. 6, 1987. Wayne scored five goals in the game. He scored a would-be sixth goal -- which would have made him just the second player since 1968 to get six in a game -- but I waved it off.
It might have been a missed call. But Wayne never uttered a word of protest. After the game, I learned that my dad, Bill Stewart Jr., had passed away in Boston. Wayne already knew about it, and that's why he did not hassle me about the disallowed goal.
That is who the Gretzkys are as people. It has been an honor and a privilege over the years to watch Wayne on the ice and to get to know him as a human being. Walter Gretzky's son is a great person as well as the Great One on the ice.
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Recent Blogs by Paul Stewart
A Bostonian On the Ice in Davos
A Hole in the Replay Rules: The Safety Netting Goal
Dinosaurs, Giants and the Vancouver Pillow Fight
Rambunctious Fans and Rogue Zamboni Drivers
Penalty Shot Mania Runnin' Wild (or Not?)
Slew Footing, Match Penalties and Aggressors
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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, Stewart is an officiating and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials, while also maintaining a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.
Stewart is currently working with a co-author on an autobiography.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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