Of course, sometimes I forget to take my own advice. But people are always willing to help out if I can get over the embarrassment of asking for it. A couple of years ago I parked my car in downtown Brantford and neglected to write down some identifying landmarks. When I went to drive home, I couldn’t find the car. I was standing there, scratching my head in frustration, when the mayor, Chris Friel, and a friend of his came walking along the street. I know and like Chris a lot, so I wasn’t shy about telling him what my trouble was. He and his friend were concerned and kindly helped out, walking around the area with me until we finally found the car. Now these are young guys, in their early thirties, and I said, “Boys, don’t ever have an aneurysm.” That bit of fatherly advice cracked them up. Chris told me later that it has become something of a private joke between him and his friend. Whenever they can’t find or remember something, they’ll say to each other, “Boys, don’t ever have an aneurysm.” I don’t mind them having a laugh about it—but I would seriously advise anyone not to have an aneurysm!
To this day, although I have enough memory to allow me to be independent, if you ask me for specific information about something that happened last week, I may not be able to tell you very accurately. What’s common for all of us is that we remember significant events, but not so much the everyday things, which we don’t consciously commit to memory. If somebody asked you what you had for dinner three nights ago, you probably couldn’t remember right away. But if you thought about it, you could maybe make some associations. You’d say to yourself, “Okay, where was I?” And you’d start to build a picture, and eventually you’d come up with the answer. In my case, I’m not able to do that as well. But if a meteor was to fall out of the sky, I’d remember every detail of it, because like everyone, I remember more dramatic, out of the ordinary things. I’m pretty good that way.
It’s a strange feeling, not being able to remember large parts of my life, but I’ve learned to live with that. I accept that sometimes strangers will come up to me and tell me that we met, and I just have to take their word for it. My family and friends are tireless in orienting me if a situation arises where that’s necessary. I just listen to what people tell me, and try my best to place it in my memory, hoping that people will make allowances when they meet me.
I sleep fine now, but I still don’t go to bed until the wee hours. I have always been a night owl. When there’s no one else to phone or visit, I’ll finally sit down on the couch and watch something on TV. I’m a real history buff, so I love to watch the History Channel. If something interesting is on, I’ll watch TV till two in the morning. Half the time, I’ll fall asleep on the couch, then wake up and go to bed. That’s what I used to be like. Because of the time difference between here and L.A. or Edmonton, I would usually call Wayne in the middle of the night. Or I’d be in my office, looking through the fan mail at three in the morning. I’d go to sleep for a few hours, and then I’d have to get up and go to work. That just became a way of life, and not the healthiest one, I now realize.
I find it hard to believe some of the things people tell me about the early days after my stroke. Those were dark times, and I wouldn’t want to go back there for anything in the world. It’s an awful thing not to know who or where you are, to feel confused and hopeless and not know whether you are ever going to be able to do all the things you used to do. Everybody wants to be independent. Something simple that I would have taken for granted before, like driving, I had to accept that I would have to learn how to do all over again, along with all those daily routines and tasks that make you feel in control of your own life. It was independence and a sense of self-worth and purpose that I fought so hard to get back, even when I wasn’t conscious of it.
I know now how much my loved ones wanted me to have my independence and sense of self-worth back, too, and how hard they all tried to help me. It wasn’t easy for them, because, as you have read, I was in a pretty sorry state. But my family, with Ian’s help, was determined to get me actively involved in the world again and really put a lot of effort into thinking of things for me to do. With their help and encouragement, I’ve come a long, long way.
Along with all the other things that helped me, I suppose it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that hockey would finally play a significant role in my recovery.
Two years after the stroke—I remember that Ian was still with me—Phyllis got in touch with Peter Jones, who was president of the Brantford Minor Hockey Association at the time, and asked if there was a program they could get me into. She wanted me integrated back into the community, doing something I once loved, with kids. Peter called Bob Coyne, who said, “Well, I’ve got this little tyke program, four- and five-year-olds, and we’re simply teaching them to hockey skate. I’ll bet he’d have a great time with that. Let’s do it.”
So we did. But as Ian and Bob will tell you, when I first arrived at the rink, I didn’t want to go on the ice. I didn’t even want skates on. Ian and Bob had to put them on me. I said, “No, you guys go ahead. I’ll just sit here and watch.” I wanted to hide from the world, and I was miserable. Whatever love of hockey I once had, it was pretty much dead, or at least buried a long way down inside, and I had no desire to try to get it back. They’d insist: “No, Wally, you gotta go on the ice, let’s go.” They encouraged me, and eventually they got me on the ice.
I must admit, I enjoyed it just a little bit, even if I did have to be pushed. But I noticed right away that times had changed. It made me laugh to hear those little guys calling me Wally. I got such a kick out of that. In my day, an adult was always addressed as Mister or Sir or Coach. We would never have used his first name! I could not believe that, and it hit my funny bone. The kids would just pipe up, “Hey Wally, what are we doing next?” And that would make me laugh every time. At first, I think Bob and Ian were puzzled as to what exactly was amusing me so much, but they finally figured it out.
Eventually I started having lots of fun with the kids, but I’ll tell you something I didn’t like, and don’t like to this day, and that’s the behaviour of some of the hockey parents. Times have changed there, too. Sometimes it seems that minor hockey is no longer about the kids but about the parents, and that’s wrong. I don’t think you can teach a kid good hockey skills when the parents are interfering or skating around the ice themselves. Sometimes there were so many parents out on the ice during those Timbits practices, it was totally chaotic. I thought it was awful. It really upset me. I didn’t like the parents telling the kids things that were absolutely against developing good skating skills, or pushing them to be the next Wayne when at that stage, especially, they should be on the ice having fun. It bothered me so much to see the kids not being taught the correct way to do things, that I wanted to back out of my commitment. Whatever else I’d lost with the stroke, one thing that seemed to remain intact was my sense of what’s good for kids when they’re learning how to play hockey. If we were going to be interfered with at every turn, I couldn’t see the point.
But I didn’t want to disappoint Bob. I said to Ian, “You tell Bob, I’m not coming tomorrow. I hate it. I’m not going out there.” And Ian, of course, told Bob, and I guess they chuckled, but they thought, “We’ve got to keep him going. He can’t stop.” So finally, Bob asked Ian what it was that I really didn’t like. And Ian told him, “It’s the parents.” You know, teaching their kids to step over sticks, when they can’t even hold their balance on skates. Stepping over the sticks forces their heads down, which is counterproductive. The other thing that really bothered me was the mess! I like to see a dressing room clean before I leave. All I have to do is walk into a room after a team has been there, and if it’s a mess, I know the kids don’t listen. I know the coaches aren’t giving them discipline. So I like to stay right to the end. As much as you tell kids to clean up after themselves, they’re going to leave things around—they’re kids, for heaven’s sake. But I like to tidy things up so that the next coach who comes in has a nice clean room. I really b
elieve strongly in that. It’s part of good sportsmanship to be as disciplined off the ice as you are on it.
BOB COYNE: I really wanted Walter to remain involved, and not just as team janitor—he is quite obsessed about picking up every last bit of tape in a dressing room and leaving the place spotless for the next team. Phyllis and Ian wanted him to keep going, for his sake and for the kids. We could see the potential for good there. So I said, “Okay, I’ll go to my hockey group and say, ‘No more parents on the ice.’ ” And you know what? It was the best thing we ever did. We got the parents off the ice, and Wally came out of himself incredibly. Then, he had a few things to say! It took off like wildfire. And that was the last of him wanting to quit. Five or six weeks after we banned the parents, you could see that he belonged to hockey again.
Just to reinforce the point with parents, I often read this poem when I speak to groups involved with minor hockey:
Please don’t scream, curse or yell
Remember, I’m not in the NHL
I’m only nine years old
And can’t be traded, bought or sold.
I just want to play the game
I’m not looking for hockey fame
Don’t make me feel I’m made of sin
Just because my team didn’t win.
I don’t want to be so great, you see
I’d rather play and just be me
So always remember this little quip
The name of the game is sportsmanship.
(author unknown)
I like to remind parents, when they go to the rink or ballpark, and find themselves hollering at their son or daughter because they’re not playing very well and the team is losing, to stop and think how lucky they are. Their child has got two eyes, two arms and two legs. Then I say, “Come with me at Christmastime and see the kids I visit in the hospital.” We so often take for granted what a blessing it is to have healthy children, period, capable of playing a sport at all and benefiting from what there is to learn and enjoy when they do that. Many kids are not so lucky, and I have met enough of them to know.
Once Bob got the parents off the ice and me really involved, he decided that I needed to coach older kids, too. So he applied to the Brantford Minor Hockey Association and said he’d like to take the Triple A novice team the next year, and that he wanted me to help him. They said “By all means, it’s all yours.” I really did think of myself as Bob’s helper and was quite willing to stay in the background. But then Bob strategically failed to show up for one of the tournament games, and there I was by myself, surrounded by a bunch of nine-year-old kids, all wondering what they were supposed to be doing. The littlest guy, the goalie, finally piped up: “So Wally, what’s our starting lineup?” I looked around at those keen, questioning young faces and had to say something. I guess it was a bit like turning on a light bulb, because from then on, I didn’t need any prodding from Bob, Ian or anyone else.
The following September, we coached the Triple A novice team again, and we had just a great time. I loved telling stories to those little guys, and of course they’d be there with big eyes, staring at me from the bench, figuring they’d better listen, because this is Wayne Gretzky’s dad! Their enthusiasm reconnected me to the sport I love.
That year, we were in the first round of playoffs against Niagara Falls. That team had only just made the playoffs, and Bob and I had the team to beat. We were favoured to win the whole works. So the first round is the best of three, and we beat Niagara Falls in two. They’re little kids, and they don’t all handle defeat very well. On the night we eliminated them, the scene was cheerful in our dressing room. But as Bob and I were leaving, we encountered a few of the Niagara Falls kids. One little guy was standing beside his dad’s car just crying his heart out. I stopped. Bob wanted to keep on walking. He’s seen a lot of kids having a hard time. You understand in the hockey world that that’s part of growing up, and this kid wasn’t even on our team. But I said, “Bob! Bob, look at that little guy.” And he said, “Wally, you don’t have to deal with it.” And I said, “Deal with it! He’s a baby, for heaven’s sake!”
I went up to the boy and said, “What’s your problem?” knowing full well what his problem was.
He wailed, “Well, we lost!”
And I said, “But there’s more to hockey than winning and losing. Did you have a good time?”
“Um, well, yeah.”
“Well, that’s all there is to it. Now, little guys like you oughta have a reward for working hard. Did you work hard?”
“Oh, I worked really hard.”
“Well, see, that’s all that matters. Now, where’s the rest of your team?”
“They’re still in the dressing room, but they’re coming out.”
I said, “Bob, go tell the rest of those kids in the dressing room, they’re coming to my house, right now, to see Wayne’s sweaters and the trophies.”
Bob was a little taken aback by this, but he went in there. Of course they were not expecting him. He said, “Hi, I’m the coach from the other team. Walter Gretzky would like all of you, mums, dads, everybody, right now, to come to his house on Varadi Avenue, to see the trophy room.” They all looked at him like, is this guy serious? They said, “Really?” He said, “Yes! Absolutely, right now. We’re gonna convoy you out of here so we don’t have to give you directions. Everybody follow everybody else, and we’ll just meander right over there.”
Bob says he never saw a dressing room clear so quick in all his life. Everybody was out in the parking lot, throwing gear into their cars, still thinking this wasn’t really happening. I said, “Okay, follow us. Let’s go, it’s not very far from here.” And we went. The head count going in the door at home was sixty-one. Poor Phyllis. She’d been expecting only Bob and me, and we arrived with sixty-one people! Not that that hadn’t happened before …
BOB COYNE: We took those little guys down into the basement, and that’s really the essence of Wally, beaming at those kids putting on Wayne’s sweaters and trying on Wayne’s hockey medals, all sorts of things. I can remember one father standing there in awe, and he reached out to shake Wally’s hand, and he said, “You know what? This is better than winning the all-Ontario championships. I can’t think of a more fitting thing for these little kids.” Wally just smiled at the guy, as though to say, “Well, this is what hockey ought to be all about, isn’t it?” Very unassuming, that’s his nature. Like, this has been no big deal. But those people from Niagara Falls, they had just died and gone to hockey heaven.
I love to see people’s faces when they come down the basement stairs and look at some of this stuff. But, eventually, we had to curtail the number of people coming into the house. We had so much stuff in the basement, we figured it really deserved to be shown more formally. In 1999, the year Wayne retired, we shipped a lot of it to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where they put together a fabulous display in honour of his induction there. They tell me it is a real hit. When I hear that, I am so glad I took the time to save all that stuff. I know Wayne is thrilled with it, too. As a kid, he certainly spent his share of time down at the old Hall of Fame, staring at the display cases of memorabilia from all the hockey greats. I’m sure there’s a future NHL star or two doing the same thing there today. In fact, one of the nicest things about the induction ceremony was that Michael, the grandson of our longtime neighbours Mary and Sil, got to represent Wayne as a kid, wearing his original Nadrosky Steelers sweater. It’s great when life sort of comes full circle like that. I treasure that memory.
Another memory I treasure is of a time I acted in a way that was maybe not too wise. One evening a few years ago, before all the trophies and mementoes went to the Hockey Hall of Fame, I came back from the arena and pulled into the driveway. It was around seven or so and not dark yet. There was a van parked on the street in front of our house, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. When I got out of my truck, the driver came up to me and said, “Mr. Gretzky, is it okay if the guys get out and have a picture
taken with you on your front lawn?” As usual, I said yes. Then I looked at the van and saw “Ministry of Correctional Services” on its side.
I forget how many young men there were, maybe eight or so. They got out of the van and had their pictures taken with me, individually and as a group. They were teenagers, basically, from about sixteen to twenty-one years old. I said, “You wanna come in and see the trophies?” Of course they said yes. So I took them all in and trooped them down to the basement.
Phyllis was upstairs. She wasn’t having a bird—she was having about a dozen of them.
Anyway, when it was all over with, I stood in the driveway and they all lined up in order to shake my hand. I noticed one guy, who was first or second in line, drop out and go to the very back of the line. I wondered what he was doing. One thing I’ve learned from Wayne is to always be aware of your surroundings. So I noticed that. This guy was the tallest in the group, which is one of the reasons I noticed him. Anyway, as each young man went by, he shook my hand, said thank you and then headed for the van, which the guard had gone ahead to unlock. Finally, the tall young guy came through. He was the very last one. I took his hand to shake it, and he said thank you, but then, all of a sudden, he just started to cry. I mean, he was sobbing, and I realized why he’d gone to the back of the line. He didn’t want the rest of them to see him in tears. He squeezed my hand and said, “Thank you, Mr. Gretzky. You would take us into your house, knowing who we are, where we are from? You would do that?” I said, “Well, you’re no different than anyone else, for heaven’s sake.” And he said, “I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. Nobody has ever done anything like this for me.” And he just kept squeezing my hand. I’ll always remember that.
On Family, Hockey and Healing Page 16