Wayne Gretzky

Wayne Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever. I think Wayne Gretzky was a hero because "he may be one of the shortest kids in the league, but he had the biggest heart for hockey."

The great one was born on January 26, 1961 in Brantford, Ontario. He grew up in a family who really loved hockey. From when Wayne was born, he was sliding around on socks pretending to skate. Soon his dad Walter Gretzky bought him a pair of skates. Whenever Wayne had spare time he would spend it on his neighbor's frozen pond. But soon his dad started getting tired of sitting in a cold car while Wayne was skating and shooting. To solve this problem, Walter created an ice rink in the back yard so he could watch his son without leaving his house. The family called it the Wally Coliseum in honor of Walter. When Wayne was six, he joined a hockey team called The Brantford Minor Olympics. This was a challenge for him though. He was playing with kids as old as ten years old. He just scored one goal that year and he cried when he didn't win a trophy at the end of the season, but he never gave up. He played for the hockey team again but this time he scored twenty-seven goals and thirty-seven assists. That is sixty-two points! Parents wondered what he could accomplish as a ten year old. Over the years, parents grew jealous of Wayne. Some parents even booed the great one. With a lot of pressure one him, this was a challenge. Sometimes he switched jerseys with another play just to escape the pressure. When he was ten he scored 378 goals and an amazing 120 assists. 498 Points in only eighty-five games! With that total of points, he had broken almost every record in Brantford�s history. Did you know that when Wayne was a kid, his nickname was "The Rubber Man"? Did you know that he learned to score goals by playing hockey with his grandma? When he was young, his grandma sat in a recliner; Wayne took a sponge ball and tried to throw it between her legs.

Even though Wayne Gretzky was a great hockey player, he had many challenges. One challenge was when he was eleven; he had so much pressure from other parents that he moved to live with another family during the week, and lived with his real family on the weekend. Also during the week he went to a different school. If any of his new friends found out that he was a hockey player, he begged them not to tell anyone because he didn't want the pressure on him like in Brantford. As a matter of fact, the parents' pressure was so intense that when Wayne was playing baseball, one parent said, "you won't live to see Christmas, Gretzky." Another Challenge for Wayne was that when he played in the NHL, he got traded to the Los Angles Kings. This was a challenge for him because he played on the Oilers for nine years, so going to Los Angeles was different for him. He also missed his friend, Mark Messier, who was on the Oilers.

One Contribution to Wayne's field when Wayne was in the NHL, he started a news paper that disagrees with all of the fighting in the NHL. He wrote this newspaper to try and create peace in the NHL with out anyone getting hurt in a fight. Also, another contribution happened after Wayne retired, he created a hockey tournament in Brantford to inspire kids to get active and play hockey.

Also when Wayne was in the NHL, He won many awards and recognitions. One award he won is the Memorial Hart Trophy for the league�s Most Valuable Player. Some other awards he won was the Art Ross trophy for most points in a season, he won it eleven times! Another award he won was the Lady Byng trophy for the league's most sportsman like person four times. The last award he won was the Conn Smyth award for the MVP in the NHL playoffs. Nobody has ever set more records than Wayne.

A few recognitions Wayne had was on December 30th 1982, He got fifty goals in only thirty-nine games. Another recognition Wayne had was getting over 200 points in one season 4 times! A different recognition he had was that he had over 1,500 points in his career. A different recognition is that when he was in the NHL, Wayne was so good that he either set or tied 61 NHL records. Yet recognition for Wayne was that he was the youngest person ever to win a Hart trophy. Finally his last recognition he had was he was let into the Hockey Hall Of Fame in only seven months. Usually a player has to wait three years to be able to be in the Hockey hall of fame. But the league decided that since he was such a great hockey player, he should be let into the Hall of Fame.

When Wayne was older he had a lot of Character traits. One trait is that he was always kind and never blamed anyone for mistakes. He said it was "human nature." An example of this is when Wayne and the Oilers were in the Stanly Cup playoffs. Defenseman Steve Smith tried to pass the puck to the right wing, but instead, the puck hit Grant Fuhr, the goalie and went into the net. The Flames won that game because of that goal. After the game, the interviewers were mean to Steve Smith saying that he lost a Stanley Cup for them. But Wayne refused to let the interviewers blame him for his mistake. Instead he said that it was his fault that they didn't win because it was his job to put the puck in the net but he didn't.

Another Character trait that Wayne had was Determination. In the 1981 season, Wayne had 45 goals going into December 30th, But his determination, had him score 5 goals in that game. Another reason he had determination was because in the 1985 season, he said that something not including the Stanley Cup would be failure. Finally, the last reason Wayne had determination was because in the 1983 season, he was determined to get a point in every game of the season, the determination paid off, he got a point in every game until his 52nd. Nobody had ever done that.

Finally Wayne's final trait is that he is very interesting. Wayne is interesting because in the 1983 season, he called the New Jersey Devils a "Mickey mouse operation" for some reason. The devils fans didn't like that, so for the season whenever the oilers played the devils, Devils fans brought signs that said "Gretzky is Goofy."

In conclusion, I think Wayne Gretzky is a hero because he did things no one in the NHL thought possible like scoring fifty goals in only thirty-nine games, getting seven consecutive Hart trophies for MVP, and having the record for the most points in a single season with 215 points. He was the Great One.

As of now, Wayne is a very successful head coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, although he has not won a Stanley Cup yet, he is happy with the team. In the 2010 winter Olympics, he will coach team Canada to try and win the hockey tournament.