Long Live the King and His Wonderful Scoring Record

Once in a great while, you feel privileged. You get to see something special--some one special. You get to tell people the rest of your life: “I was there.” You get to describe what you saw, as best you can. Except where Wayne Gretzky is concerned, seeing is disbelieving. You want to do more than just watch him. You want to curtsy or bow.

After all, he is the King.

His stick is his scepter. He must have pulled it from a stone. It has mythic qualities. It can slash dragons and split armor. It is a sword with a curved blade, and its justice is both terrible and swift. It should be granted a name of distinction, like a rifle called Old Betsy, or a baseball bat labeled Wonderboy, or, yes, if so decreed, an Excalibur-like weapon, full of magic and might.

After all, he is the King.

He has divided and conquered two countries. His Canadian subjects cannot help but forgive him for leaving. They thanked him again Sunday for granting them an audience. They hailed his return from another land, cried out his name, gave him encouragement even as he sided with their natural adversaries. They even bestowed gifts upon him, in celebration of a successful crusade.

They still accepted him as the King.

Homage was paid to Wayne Gretzky in the ice palace known as Northlands Coliseum. These people knew something special when they saw it. They asked for it and got it. Even those in an Edmonton throng of 17,503 who rued the day Wayne Gretzky left for Los Angeles, who wished for their Oilers to show the visiting Kings how the game of hockey was meant to be played, found themselves touched by what happened. There was something so fair and appropriate about it, something so . . . well, proper.

Even the players themselves treated the coronation of Wayne Gretzky as hockey’s all-time scoring king respectfully, bordering on worshipfully. After the goal, which came with a suspenseful 53 seconds to go and Gretzky’s own goalie pulled from the game, there were tributes from both friends and foes. Gordie Howe’s record was gone for good, and moments such as this were rare.

The Oilers sat or stood near their bench, a few looking impatient for the game to resume, but all polite as could be. Jari Kurri sat on the side rail, legs dangling a foot from the ice, while Mark Messier rewarded their once-upon-a-time teammate with a diamond-crusted bracelet. “Presented with friendship,” it was inscribed.

As for the Kings, they fanned out along one of the rink’s two blue lines and drummed the icy surface with their sticks, like musicians who salute a performer by tapping their violins with their bows. A player would have had to have a face as hard as a goaltender’s mask not to be visibly moved by this scene.

Minutes before, Gretzky had broomed a backhand into the net, beyond Edmonton goalie Bill Ranford’s reach, to start the party. Kurri and Messier, his trusty old friends, occupied the ice at the time. Kevin Lowe, possibly Gretzky’s closest friend among the Oilers, happened to be in the crease, closest to him, unable to delay the inevitable.

Gretzky scored and then sprang into the arms of the nearest teammate, Dave Taylor, who has waited longer than any other King for something to celebrate. Soon they were joined by Bernie Nicholls, Luc Robitaille, Steve Duchesne and Larry Robinson, who slammed Gretzky into the glass harder than any opponent has in years. Then came the mob from the bench, given special dispensation to spill forth from it, for just this one occasion.

They were on Cloud 99.

All night long, Gretzky had gone through hell and high frozen water, trying to get the record-breaking point. He took a stick in the eye from Peter Eriksson and got boomed into the boards by Jeff Beukeboom. He was tripped and flipped. He whipped slap shots and threw a knuckle-puck that wobbled and flew softly through the air, bouncing crazily before Ranford batted it down. For one crazy instant he even went one-on-five, trying to zig and zag, until you said to yourself, much the way Gretzky himself does on that Bo Jackson athletic-shoe commercial, uh, “No.”

What fate awaited the King?

Clearly, there were powers at work assuring him that something special lie ahead. When at last the point would be scored, it wouldn’t come in the second period of a 7-2 loss to the Boston Bruins, or some such thing. It would come in the final minute of a game in the city that was once King Wayne’s private dominion, and wouldst be followed by a game-winning goal in overtime, just in case you still weren’t absolutely certain that the gods were crazy.

Gordie Howe was there, to send in the crown. His successor was the same young prodigy who used to hang around with Murray Howe, Gordie’s youngest son, and annoy the boy with questions about what his dad was really like. Gordie Howe could not--would not--have hand-picked anyone else in the world to be the next him . He might as well have taken a hockey stick and knighted Wayne Gretzky with it, asking him to arise and assume his rightful place in the world.

After all, he is the King, and possibly shall be so, happily ever possibly will be so, happily ever after.