(Rocky W. Widner Getty Images file photo)
Wayne Gretzky just wanted to play hockey, and in doing so he carried and branded Canada’s game into places where people otherwise just wanted to surf,
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, March 29, 2025)
Today’s fun fact is that 39-year-old Alexander Ovechkin can still fire a puck about 100 mph.
No wonder he’s about to amass more goals than anyone in NHL history, even Wayne Gretzky, the Brantford son who played hockey with uncommon skill and grace.
Today’s other fun fact is that exactly 26 years ago, March 29, 1999, Gretzky scored his last regular season career goal, 894. That’s the tally Ovechkin is closing in on.
The goals chase goes beyond a sports story. More on this in a minute.
First, here’s something on March Kindness, how March had been an especially kind month for Gretzky while he rewrote NHL record books over his 20-year career.
On March 28, 1982 he scored goal 92 of that season, a ridiculous 43-year-old record that might never fall. On March 17, 1990 he reached 10 straight seasons of at least 100 assists. On March, 28, 1996 he reached 100 points for the 15th time.
It was March 23, 1994 when Gretzky scored career goal 802, beating the old NHL goals record of his boyhood idol, Gordie Howe. For that, on March 30, Gretzky received a Rolls Royce from LA Kings owner Bruce McNall, Gretzky’s wife Janet and their three children there watching dad in his long golden hair waving to the cheering crowd.
So American, this moment of extravagance. Even so, Gretzky, then 33, looked genuinely happy and at peace with his life. He’d just wanted to play hockey, and in doing so he’d carried and branded Canada’s game into places where people otherwise just wanted to surf.
It’s worth remembering in March 2025, a month of anger, a March Madness directed at Gretzky. Why is he with Donald Trump? Where’s Gretzky’s Team Canada jersey? Ovechkin also knows political entanglement for engaging with Vladimir Putin, possibly from fear, but leading people to wonder about the hockey player.
They’re fair questions. But my own view – and I don’t have a statue-toppling, street-name-changing temperament – is that sport can occupy a more soulful space. It’s closer to art than politics, closer to our human essence, a place that’s nourishing.
So be wise about our times, but don’t let today’s geopolitics or the ravaging outside world eat your private inner world. Have guardrails for inner peace. It’s what I tell myself.
People, including celebrities, are more layered and complex – and vulnerable – than we often imagine. Depending on the day of the week, any one of us can be a mystery even to ourselves. True, we make bad decisions and this has consequences and we all know how this works in life. That’s fair. Even so, people are more important than politics.
Put another way, we (hopefully) live by various principles, including political principles. But life is experienced more deeply in relationship with real people of flesh and blood, even messy, connected in community, appreciating our different life stories. That’s what’s really interesting.
Gretzky’s story has deep Canadian and Hamilton roots. Nothing will change this.
An interesting chapter in Ovechkin’s story involves his brother, Sergei, who died after a car crash when Ovechkin was 10. It’s why Sergei’s name is stitched in Cyrillic lettering on Ovechkin’s glove; why, after scoring, he often points heavenward; why he brought the Stanley Cup to Sergei’s gravesite.
The day after Sergei’s death, young Alex was on the ice, crying. “That moment I realized that life is that. When it’s gone it’s gone. You can’t get it back.” That crying Russian boy never imagined this 2025 record moment.
Likewise, when Wayne’s father Walter watched his boy on his backyard Branford rink, he never imagined Wayne, now a grandfather, sitting in some NHL arena watching, even cheering, a Russian – a Russian! – in the NHL about to break some golden record of Wayne’s.
I mean, come on. Remember 1972 Canada vs Russia? But times, and people, change.
Now there’s this unique moment in our hockey culture. Stormy politics aside, we can appreciate it. Maybe even glean something from it.
Dear Thomas – As always, you are the voice of reason and you model kindness and other-centeredness in your life and in your writing. Thank you for your voice, your courage to write what you believe, and for holding the meta narrative of the public life of Wayne Gretzky and for the reminder that we are all human and created in One’s image. Hard to hold to our centre during these troubling times. Thanks for the grounding! As always, best to Jean and your kids.
Kind words, thank you Janet. One day at a time, yes, to work on staying grounded and together.
Thank you, Thomas, for grounding our thinking on a new record potential that will be surpassed by someone someday. Oh how we cling to some things that tend to become mundane in the future. You have a voice of reason to help keep people grounded. Keep up your good work.
And thank you for reaching out, Stan, with the encouragement.