Gretzky Keeps Troubles on Ice : Joys of Parenthood, Father’s Recovery Give Kings’ Star a Special Satisfaction

Some day if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll take my son out on the ice at the farm, or play with him on the rink in the back yard in Brantford. And when he comes in, crying a little because his feet are frozen, I’ll hold his toes and make the cold go away, just like my dad did for me.

--Wayne Gretzky, in the epilogue of his father’s 1984 book, “Gretzky.”

*

Ty Robert Gretzky, 3, did not know that his father and his father’s friends--yes, even the intriguing ones with goaltender masks--were in trouble with the big man who stands behind the bench during King games.

It was after the season-opening loss to Vancouver at the Forum and Ty was trying to find his father, but the door to the dressing room was locked. But King Coach Barry Melrose’s voice was clearly audible.

“Barry had a little bit of a tirade,” Wayne Gretzky said. “It was as mad as I’ve seen Barry after a hockey game. You know when somebody is mad when two days later he’s still mad.

“Just as Barry left the room, they unlocked the door. The guys were all pretty down and Ty walked in, yelling, ‘Who locked the door?’ ”

Wayne Gretzky snickered, remembering the uncomfortable moment, now safely in the past. “It wasn’t funny when it happened,” he said. “But it’s funny now. I put my head down and grabbed him and pulled him in.”

Gretzky, the world’s most famous hockey player, has now added another line to his resume, a proud entry, to be sure. Nine years after writing about it in his father’s book, Wayne Gretzky has become a hockey parent.

He has fallen unabashedly in love with the position. Recently, the hockey kingdom has been crumbling around him and Gretzky, leading the league with 57 points in 29 games, is trying to boost the Kings out of their current malaise. But he is happy with life away from the lower echelon of the Western Conference.

And why not?

Gretzky, 32, has his health, and his father, Walter, is gradually becoming the man Wayne knew for the first 30 years of his life.

Walter suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm two years ago. Ty Gretzky now plays in organized youth hockey games in North Hills, having made a rapid transformation from the sprite who needed a chair to carefully balance himself on the ice at his father’s hockey camp at Val-Belair, Quebec, in June.

“He just has a passion for it,” Wayne said. “You know, he carries around his hockey cards and he carries around these little hockey guys (figurines) in a bag. It’s something to see. He knows all the players, most of the teams.

“It’s a fine line for me because I want to support him and encourage him, but I don’t want to push him at all. I hope he tries all sports. I hope he tries baseball and those kind of things. The reality of it--I don’t think it really matters--he loves all sports, but he really has a passion for hockey.”

No surprise, given the family tree starting with Walter Gretzky and branching off to Wayne and his youngest brother, Brent, a forward with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

So far, the oldest of Gretzky’s children, Paulina, does not have much of an interest in hockey, although she enjoys skating. One-year-old Trevor Douglas is trying to keep up with his older brother.

“He’s exactly the same as Ty,” Wayne said. “He follows Ty around. If Ty is skating in the house, (Trevor) will be in his walker with a stick chasing him.”

Gretzky had hoped it would be this way. He spoke to reporters of sharing his love for hockey with his sons during the Stanley Cup finals in June. Only days before openly talking of retirement, Gretzky joked that everyone would know he was close to saying goodby if Ty frequently started accompanying him on trips.

Ty hasn’t shown up in the hallways of Madison Square Garden in New York or Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, but he is already known to television viewers in the United States and Canada after appearing in a video camera commercial with his father, yelling as he slides into the net, “Gretzky scores!”

Actually Ty and his friend, Jesse Barnett, the 5-year-old son of Michael Barnett, Gretzky’s agent, were unaware of the television cameras around them through the long hours of shooting.

“When we were driving over to the rink, we told them about the commercial,” Barnett said. “We were there all day and we were driving home and (Ty) said, ‘Hey, Dad, when are we going to do that commercial?’ ”

Gretzky realized that hockey was his son’s No. 1 sport when Ty started crying one day earlier this season when he had to stay home because of an earache. It hurt Ty that his sister and Jesse were allowed to go on without him. There had also been an earlier indication that Ty was growing attached to the sport.

“Probably the first time he had his (roller blades) on for about three hours and I took them off and he cried for half an hour,” Gretzky said. “It’s a Catch-22. I’m extremely pleased he loves to play. Sometimes, when you’re a player, your kids don’t want to play.

“My son wants to play, he loves to play. From my point of view, that’s great. He has a lot of advantages if he wants to play. The downside of it is the amount of pressure he’ll be under for the rest of his life if he wants to continue as a hockey player.”

At the moment, Ty knows exactly what he wants in life: “Be a hockey player, wear a suit and ride on airplanes.”

*

Wayne Gretzky took his first tentative strides on the frozen Nith River near his hometown of Brantford, Ontario, swatting shots at his grandmother, Mary, the acting goaltender who was securely positioned in a big reclining chair. Years later, Ty Gretzky skates indoors before King practices and has an enduring fascination with goaltenders.

“He loves Kelly Hrudey and he calls (Robb) Stauber ‘Staubie,’ ” Wayne said. “And then there’s always No. 99.”

Ty is already immersed in one aspect of the hockey culture: Wayne takes his pregame nap in the afternoon and so does Ty, right along with him.

As a parent, however, it’s a constant guessing game between right and wrong. Gretzky and his wife, Janet Jones, are on the same page when it comes to the children. There are a few rules: no video games and no candy shortly before bed, and it is preferable for the children to keep busy playing outside with their friends in the neighborhood.

“People always say, ‘What’s your biggest fear in life?’ ” Gretzky said. “I don’t think there’s any question my biggest fear is that I can’t protect my kids. And it’s really noticeable as a parent. I have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, and even at this age I feel like they’re going to be fine. My daughter is 4 1/2 and I feel like even when she is 80, I’m always going to have to protect her. It’s a funny feeling you have when you become a parent.”

Gretzky and Jones were married in the summer of 1988 and the timing was apparently right. “I remember my dad saying to me when I was 23 or 24, ‘You’re not ready to be a parent. Trust me, you’re not ready,’ he said. I never really understood because I felt I was a pretty mature 23-year-old and I learned a lot traveling around the world.

“I remember about two months after Paulina was born, I told him, ‘I think you knew what you were talking about.’ ”

For Gretzky, the last two years have been a test of his character in more ways than one. Walter nearly died and it was uncertain how he would recover from the aneurysm. Talking about Walter often turns a conversation to the topic of Michael Jordan, who lost his father last summer and suddenly retired. Gretzky called Jordan after he retired. Jordan returned the phone call, but Wayne was not home. Janet spoke to Jordan, however.

“I can’t imagine what Michael Jordan went through,” Gretzky said. “It’s got to be a horrible feeling. I had about two weeks where they said (Walter) probably wouldn’t live. But I got lucky and he came through.

“I saw my dad go from being my best friend to a guy who was strapped in a wheelchair. It was tough for the family. My mom and my sister deserve a medal for what they went through, 24 hours a day, with my father.

“The funny thing about my dad is, he would always ask me questions. For two years, he never really talked about hockey. Now he’s asking about the hockey team again.”

Apparently Walter is recovered enough to resume coaching youth hockey and watching the game on television. He was always the sounding board for Wayne in times of celebration and crisis, always the voice of reason. When Gretzky was struggling to return from his career-threatening back injury last season, he couldn’t pick up the phone and talk it over with his father.

But Wayne heard the wisdom of his father elsewhere during his time of turmoil. Janet was sounding an awful lot like Walter Gretzky.

Wayne laughed about their similarities, saying, “They say most men marry their mothers. But I married my father. My wife and father are identical--the way they discipline, the way they treat people with respect and the way they’re both always late. I’m not as good a parent as my father. My wife is a great mother.

“I’m really lucky my wife’s personalities and my dad’s personalities are so much alike. I went right from him to my wife. I got lucky. I knew it the first minute we met.”

That was more than seven years ago. Gretzky is in his sixth season with the Kings. The changes in his personal life have been momentous since he arrived in Los Angeles--three children, the back injury, his father’s illness and long recuperation.

Maybe someday Walter will be able to take a picture of Ty’s first goal, the way he snapped one of young Wayne’s in 1967 in Brantford.

“We’re just lucky that we got a second chance,” Wayne said.