Whenever I speak, I tell that story. People always clap. That’s the part that surprises me, that people should think this was somehow out of the ordinary, rather than just the kindness we owe to each other, especially the troubled kids among us. I often wonder where that kid is, how he’s doing. I wish him well.
Back to hockey. That first year when Bob and I went with our team to the all-Ontario finals, I went to the games all through the next series, bringing special pucks that Wayne had scored significant goals with and I visited the opposition’s dressing room prior to each game. I usually didn’t have to introduce myself. Each of the kids would get to touch Wayne’s medal before a game, or see a puck that he scored a famous goal with. We were eventually knocked out, but that was okay. It was a wonderful, wonderful year.
BOB COYNE: Wally forced all of us to grow, because he’s always thinking of other people. A typical scene when you go with Wally to the rink: If the game starts at seven and it’s a little kids’ game, it’s over at eight, and you’re leaving the arena at 8:30. With Wally, forget that. When he leaves the dressing room, he goes to the lobby. If somebody needs a picture for their grandfather, it’s “here, give me your address and I’ll get this to you.” If someone needs an autograph on the spot, he’s there for that. We don’t leave that arena until he’s satisfied that all the needs are met.
When I first got involved with Wally, I had a time frame. Like most people, I think I’ve gotta be home by a certain time, you know? But you come to realize very quickly, if you’re going to continue your friendship with Wally, there are no time frames. If that’s a problem, well, you just couldn’t hang around him any more.
I don’t lose track of time deliberately, you know, but it is true that since my stroke, my sense of time has altered. I don’t like to keep people waiting, and I try not to, but I also can’t stand the thought of someone coming to an event and wanting an autograph and having to leave without one. I think it’s more a question of priorities for me. I like to make time for people. If someone wants to chat for a minute or two, get a photo and something signed, well, I don’t have a problem with that. These people are the reason I’m in the fortunate position I’m in, and I never forget that.
In 1995, Bob and I were asked to coach the all-star game at the Cambridge minor hockey tournament in January. This is one of the biggest hockey tournaments in this part of Ontario for little guys, novices and atoms. In the middle of the tournament, they have an all-star game. They pick the best kids from the tournament, put them into two teams and they play each other. Now it’s a highlight of the Cambridge tournament. They advertise it: “Walter Gretzky coaches the all-star team.” You get kids there from all over Ontario, Michigan, New York State, Illinois. That all-star game is maybe more important to those kids than the tournament itself. You get some talented players, and we work to get them playing as a team. They’re all motivated to do well for themselves, but we emphasize the need to work with their fellow players—it’s not about being a star or hogging the limelight. When we go into the dressing room, I always make sure I’ve got a really good Wayne story to tell them. I’ll explain to them what it took for Wayne to get where he is, all the practicing he did, the focus he had, and how if they work like him, they too can find that kind of success. That just seems to pump up the game.
WARREN MACGREGOR: I really believe that a lot of Wally’s coaching theories are instinctive. He doesn’t know why he wants you do something, but he knows it works. And that comes from his own hockey abilities. When Wally was young, he was a pretty slippery centre himself. His timing is just what he has taught Wayne. His idea of anticipating plays, it was the same thing. So a lot of what Wally does, he does from instinct. He knows it works. He’s been there, he’s done it.
More than anything, I want the kids to know that if you really believe in yourself, you can do anything you want. This is not just a nice sentiment. I try to give them reasons to believe in themselves. If a kid comes off the ice and has done well, it’s important to go over and acknowledge it, in the right way for that moment. You don’t want to be overenthusiastic or not enthusiastic enough. I know what a kid is looking for in terms of feedback about his playing, and when he (or she—I’ve coached girls, too) comes off the ice, I try to provide it. I also try to give a kid a sense of direction. For example, I’ll tell him the goal was great, but next time, add this to it. Let the kid know that his way was the right way, but he could do more. Rather than saying, “Oh well, that was nice, but next time do it my way,” I say, “Next time, do it your way again, but add more to your own way.” You have to coach a kid to be himself. As a coach, you can’t make clones of yourself. This kind of coaching was the secret of success for Wayne. Because of his body size, because of his weight and so many things, he could only pattern his game on himself. You had to recognize that and develop him to his best potential. I do that same thing with kids now.
Bob and I have also become very involved in the Challenge Cup in Burnaby, British Columbia. It’s run by Billy Doherty, who also runs the Banff Hockey Academy in Alberta. This is one of the larger hockey tournaments in British Columbia, and it’s held over a five-day period at a place called Burnaby 8-Rinks. There are literally eight rinks under one roof, and they boast on the sign in front of the arena that it’s the largest hockey facility in the world. We always have a wonderful time there. I end up signing autographs from sun up to sun down.
As the tournament comes to a close each year, the organizers scurry me from one rink to another as championship games are played so that I can present the gold, silver and bronze medals. Sometimes games are actually held up because I’m doing a presentation on the rink. They really seem to want it to be me who places those medals around the players’ necks. It’s quite a panicky kind of affair on the last day. But we all enjoy ourselves, and I look forward to seeing the people involved each year.
Participating in these hockey tournaments and other events has become a huge part of my life over the past several years. My family and friends think maybe I’ve gotten too busy for my own good, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. I’m happy to be busy, and grateful that I can be of service to others. Phyllis is great at monitoring everything, and she makes sure I don’t overdo it too much, though I don’t know how to relax and never have. I’ll go out to the farm, where Kim and Ian now live with their three little boys, and start fixing things, and they’ll say, “Take a couple of days off! Go to bed!” But I like to keep going.
The big change since the stroke is that though I’m still on the run all the time, I’m more happy-go-lucky about it. Not worrying about Wayne’s hockey career certainly makes me a less nervous person all around! In some ways, the stroke helped me re-examine my priorities. I guess it has been a process of letting go, not just for me but for my loved ones, too.
KIM: Dad did then, and does now, instill respect into all of us. We were taught to show respect for ourselves and others. One of his big lines was always, “Never burn a bridge, in case you have to cross it one day.” That kind of influence hasn’t changed. But he doesn’t have the same routines. Before his aneurysm, he spent a lot of time at the farm, while my grandmother was alive and then after her death. I think he used to come out here just to get away, and he loved to be outside. He grew up here, and this is his home. He doesn’t really come out the way he used to. He loved to fish before, and now he rarely goes fishing. He would come here and fish for hours. He still likes to do it, but he doesn’t so much any more.
BRYAN WILSON: He was always telling me he was a better fisherman than me, or that I shouldn’t do this or that, you know, in a nice, jokey way. I miss that. I miss Walter phoning me up and saying, “Where are you? The game’s started!” And if I’d say, “Oh I don’t feel like going out tonight,” he’d say, “You get your ass over here.” It’s just all those old times you miss when you’re close friends with someone. Now he’s so busy, he forgets he’s supposed to come and visit me! What he does with kids is just great. I’m happy he
’s alive, and happy to see him do all this stuff. But I’ll admit I sometimes wish I could talk to him or go fishing like we used to.
WAYNE: Within my family, we know the differences in Dad. We’ve encouraged him to pick up his camera, but he’s just not interested. This is the guy who watched me play hockey for thirty-six years, never missed a game or practice if he could help it from the time I was little. That’s gone, but I think he’s got more peace of mind now. He’s still got his passion for life. I’d say he’s a happier person today. Not that he was unhappy before—it’s just … a different kind of happy.
I understand that sometimes they all miss the guy I was. Maybe they can’t talk to me in quite the same way as they used to. On the other hand, I know everyone is grateful I survived and pleased that I can enjoy life now in a way I seemed less able to before. I never really gave myself the chance. But now that I’m retired and recovered, and have so few worries in the world, everything I do seems optional and a lot of fun, not a burden or responsibility.
BOB COYNE: Every year in Burnaby, he’s pounding on my door at the crack of dawn, “Bob, Bob, let’s go, gotta get down to the rink!” And I’m like, “Wally, it’s 6:30, nobody’s there yet!” And he’s “No, no, gotta get some breakfast, we gotta be there.” We’ll get into the car and down we’ll go to the rink, and there’ll be a few early birds. And as soon as they see him, wow, there’s a mob around him. I don’t know where they come from. That’s early, early in the morning. And that mob will still be there late at night. I’ll almost have to get mad at them to get rid of them. Sometimes he’ll give me a look like, that’s nasty. Sometimes you have to play the role of the bad guy, just to protect Wally, just to let him get some lunch. If I didn’t break it up, he’d stand there all day, and just sign and tell stories and have a good time with people until he collapsed. And they love him. They just love him to death.
Some amazing and wonderful things happen when I’m out meeting people. I recall a time two or three years ago in British Columbia when I was signing autographs and the line was really long. Bob became aware of a man standing off to my right with tears coming down his face. The man noticed that Bob was looking at him, and he came over and asked Bob whether he was with me. Bob said he was, and the man asked, “Are you the guy who worked at the school for the blind in Brantford?” And Bob said that yes he was.
“Well, my grandson has just had an operation. They’ve removed his eye,” the man said. “He lost his other one a year ago. Now he’s totally blind. And I heard about Walter Gretzky working with blind kids.” He was crying again. “What am I going to do with my grandson? He’s got no eyes.”
I finished up with autographing, and Bob introduced me to this gentleman. He told me the situation, and I got all choked up. He wanted an autograph for his grandson, so we got out an eight-by-ten of Wayne and I signed it. When I got home, I sent some more stuff out for this little boy.
The next year, I had to go out to Prince George for a speaking engagement. As coincidence would have it, the boy was from Prince George, and I went to see him. He was just so thrilled. I’ve kept in contact, and every once in a while, I get to say hi to him in person. Those are the kinds of great things that happen to me all the time.
Once I got my interest in hockey back, there was no stopping me. In 1996, Bob and I were looking for something to do in the summer, and we got involved with in-line hockey. That was quite a change. An opportunity had come up for us in Brantford to coach a bunch of little house-league kids called Rolling Thunder. We thought, “Why not? We don’t know a thing about the sport, but we’ll have fun.” And we had a great time. We kind of guessed our way through the whole thing, and since the kids were little, it wasn’t too hard to fool them!
These kids really didn’t have a whole lot, and they were not really athletes, but they were very receptive to coaching. When we first took the team over, roller hockey was something they did if they weren’t doing anything else on Saturday morning. As we went on, it got to be a big deal if they had to miss a practice. The fun to be had was worth coming for. Here Bob and I were, not knowing anything about this game, and our team got right down to the championships, simply because we tried to make each of those kids feel that the team needed them, they had to be there and it didn’t matter how good they were. Once they had tried their best, it was okay with me. I accepted them, and that was a great lesson for them. You don’t have to be the best to be accepted by me. But I will know if you haven’t tried your best, and you will know I know—just ask any of my kids! It doesn’t matter what the sport is or the level of play, the same principles for success apply.
The next year we went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Here we were, the first time we’d ever coached the sport with a bunch of little kids playing house-league roller hockey, and the next season we went right to Major Junior A. That was quite a step up, from little seven- and eight-year-olds to kids between seventeen and twenty-one playing at the elite level. It was the league’s first year of operation, and there were teams from all over southwestern Ontario involved: all the kids who had been playing casually, or had played hockey in the winter and wanted a fun but challenging summer sport. Bob was asked to be on the organizing committee. They had to decide how they would determine the championship, who the cup would be named after, all of that. Bob put my name forward for the championship trophy. So the cup we played for that year was the Walter Gretzky Cup.
Our team was the underdog all season, simply because neither Bob nor I knew much about the game. But it seemed to me that Wayne’s style of hockey lent itself perfectly to roller hockey. Deviation as opposed to domination. Anticipating where you should be and being there before your opponent knows what’s going on—not fighting your way to the goal. That’s my whole philosophy now on roller hockey. My aim is to teach the kids how to be other than what they are opposing. If you can’t be the biggest and the strongest and the toughest, you can simply be the smartest. It worked for Wayne. Understand where the play’s going, and be there. We didn’t worry about whether we had the six-foot-two guys, as long as we had a five-foot-seven guy with a lot of heart, great speed and a good brain.
And you know what? It worked. We went into the championship game against Mississauga, and into the last minute we were trailing by a goal. Then one of their players was knocked unconscious, and the game was delayed for half an hour while the ambulance came to take him to hospital. As a result, we had a man advantage, and we scored, tying the game with something like twenty-two seconds left. At 8:02 of sudden death overtime, we won the Walter Gretzky Cup. Those who are into hockey know that 802 is very special to Wayne. That was the goal that broke Gordie Howe’s record of 801. When the boys scored the winning goal, I was sure the gods were on our side. It was a wonderful day.
There’s a kids’ ice hockey tournament named after another Gretzky: the Wayne Gretzky International, which happens every year at the end of December. I’m what you might call a fixture there, and over the years, I’ve done a whole lot of presenting to the kids and the coaches. Well, last December, I got to be on the other side of the medal ceremonies with the hockey team I coached with Bob. It was a storybook thing, because we were not even considered contenders going into that tournament. But we won our first game, and Bob said, “Wow.” Then we won our second game, and he said, “I don’t think I believe this.” And then we won our third game and he said, “No, I’m in a dream. This can’t be happening.” The kids just jelled and they played their hearts out. As little as they were.
BOB COYNE: Going into that game, I made sure the boys knew that Wally had never won a Wayne Gretzky medal, and that became our obsession. I’d say, “Kids, we gotta do this. We can’t go in the penalty box. We gotta play for each other. No hot dogs in this game, we’ve got to play like we’re a team. If ever we’ve been a team, today we are going to be a team.” And we won the championship in our division. You should have seen Wally, it was unbelievable. He was so happy. Then the big joke came at medal time: who
presents the medal to Wally, since Wally presents the medals?
Moments like that one are precious to me, and there were many of them while I was coaching those kids. But at the end of the season last year, I retired from coaching. With so many other involvements, it was starting to be something I couldn’t put all my energy into, and that’s not fair to the kids. Coaching is a big responsibility, in my opinion, and you have to be fully committed to it if you are going to do it at all. And to be honest with you, I’m still not impressed with the way many of the parents conduct themselves, and that really takes away from the fun of the game. Now I’ll have more time to go to the rinks whenever I want and keep doing all the other things I enjoy, as well. I’ll still be on hand to give out medals, sign autographs at tournaments, drop the odd puck and offer bits of advice here and there when I’m asked. Without doubt, being with the kids and watching them do well, maybe better than they or anybody else thought they could, are among my happiest memories from my recovery.
BOB COYNE: In the very beginning, it was an honour to be asked to work with Walter Gretzky. I’m not much different than other people—I was thrilled! Wow. But along the way, he’s become a good friend. I’d die for the guy. His ability to recover, to surge forward and be something is very special. We, as Canadians, have a little bit going for us in the world: no one else has Walter Gretzky. Do you know Babe Ruth’s dad’s name? Gordie Howe’s dad’s name? I mean there is a unique quality to Walter.
IAN: It’s amazing to consider how unmotivated and withdrawn Wally was in the beginning of his recovery, when it came to getting out and being with people. Now, you can’t get him out of the rink or the coffee shop. He’s gone to the other extreme. Whenever you go to a function with him, people have to kick him out at the end of the night. He just loves to be around people, to entertain, to tell stories. He loves to go to the rink just to hang around. He goes into the dressing rooms of out-of-town teams, and he’s “Mr. Gretzky.” He’ll go from dressing room to dressing room, and the coaches are as much in awe as the kids are. He’ll go in there and tell them a couple of stories about Wayne, or he’ll say how important it is to listen to your coach. This is only part of what he does. His contribution to the community now is unbelievable.
On Family, Hockey and Healing Page 17