No Re-Gretz

His voice wavered, but his resolve never faltered.

Dry-eyed and with his usual grace, Wayne Gretzky insisted he was sure of his decision to retire Sunday after the 1,487th game of his unparalleled career. He could see no reason to be sad about its imminent end--or anything else that has happened during the 21 seasons he played professional hockey better than anyone who ever laced up a pair of skates.

“This is a celebration. I hope everyone understands that,” he said Friday. “I look at these next few days as something to really enjoy.”

His timing has always been impeccable. And since he felt this was the moment to leave, before mental and physical fatigue eclipsed the joy he has derived from the game for 35 years, he wasn’t swayed by the efforts of his wife, agent, teammates or New York Ranger executives to get him to play one more season.

“My gut and my heart are telling me this is the right time,” said Gretzky, who has been bothered because of a neck injury and takes a career-low nine goals and 61 points into his finale against the Penguins. “I don’t think there’s ever going to be a day that goes by that you don’t love the sport and love the game. And I said to Janet [his wife], a year from now I could be in the exact same situation with everyone saying, ‘Just go one more year, you could still play.’

“I’m at peace of mind. It’s the right decision. This is the right time.”

But his friends and Ranger teammates, who turned out en masse to salute him at a news conference at Madison Square Garden, could not imagine there ever being a right time for Gretzky to depart.

“I don’t know whether to celebrate his career or mourn an icon. I’m leaning toward the mourning part,” said Ranger assistant coach Craig MacTavish, Gretzky’s teammate on the great Edmonton teams of the 1980s. “In usual Gretzky fashion, he’s doing his best to walk everybody through it, but I’m having a hard time with this.”

Kevin Stevens, Gretzky’s teammate with the Kings and Rangers, also struggled to accept the decision.

“He wants everybody to be happy, but I don’t think it’s such a happy day around here,” Stevens said, blinking back tears. “I know he’s at peace and happy with his decision, but as a player and a friend, I have to say it’s just not going to be the same without him playing the game. And he could still play and still be in the top 10 in the league.”

James L. Dolan, president and chief executive officer of Cablevision--the Rangers’ parent company--made a last-ditch pitch to Gretzky on Friday morning, after the team returned from an emotional trip to Ottawa, where Gretzky made a last appearance before his Canadian compatriots. It is believed Dolan suggested Gretzky take a management role or minority stake in the team, but Gretzky could not be enticed to play another season.

“I really tried to change his mind,” Dolan said. “We had talks that lasted over two hours, and if he would have stayed four hours, I probably would have stayed four hours and it wouldn’t have changed.”

Said Gretzky: “I know in my heart I’m making the right decision. I’m also going to tell you I’m going to miss it. I’m going to be sitting there in January, watching TV and saying, ‘What’s going on?’ But I’m done.”

In setting 61 records, winning the scoring title 10 times and most-valuable-player honors nine times, Gretzky, 38, came to symbolize the NHL. The skinny, blond kid from Brantford, Ontario, gave an agreeably human face to a sport still widely derided as brutish and gave the NHL the impetus to extend its reach across North America.

“There’s never a good time to lose Wayne Gretzky,” said Commissioner Gary Bettman, who couldn’t talk Gretzky into returning for a farewell tour. “But as Wayne himself said, the game goes on. We’ve always had our share of stars and superstars, and every once in a while you get a phenom. He’s been our phenom.”

Identified as a prodigy before he was 10 years old--a photograph of a gawky Gretzky grinning as Gordie Howe hooked a hockey stick around his neck was among the photos displayed at Friday’s news conference--Gretzky signed with Indianapolis of the renegade World Hockey Assn. at 17. He was traded to Edmonton, then also in the WHA, in November of 1978 and was protected by the Oilers when the WHA and NHL merged a year later.

Led by Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri, the Oilers turned the NHL upside down with their scoring prowess. They lost to the New York Islanders in the 1983 Stanley Cup finals but ended the Islanders’ dynasty in 1984 and began a reign of their own, winning four championships in five years from 1984-1988.

They missed in 1986, when defenseman Steve Smith scored into his own net to give the Calgary Flames a victory in a division final series, but during that season Gretzky recorded 163 assists and 215 points, standards no one has come close to challenging.

Although he racked up record after record as he piled up 894 goals, 1,962 assists and 2,856 points, he never became arrogant or forgot his roots. He always had time to sign autographs for kids and help friends.

When former Oiler teammate Bill Flett fell upon hard times, Gretzky paid for him to go through alcohol rehabilitation and set up a job for Flett when he finished the program. Gretzky also arranged for Joey Moss, a youngster with Downsyndrome, to work as a go-fer for the boy’s beloved Oilers.

“I want to be treated like anybody else,” Gretzky said. “I handle myself and try to conduct myself the way my parents raised me. . . . Everything I have in my life is from the NHL. Everything. Friendships, memories, my family, going to the Olympic Games [with Canada in 1998]. Everything.”

Hockey owes him far more.

“I don’t think any player has had the impact on any sport the way Wayne Gretzky has had, both on and off the playing surface,” Bettman said. “I think Gretzky is [Babe] Ruth, [Muhammad] Ali and [Michael] Jordan rolled into one.”

The 1988 deal in which cash-poor Oiler owner Peter Pocklington sent Gretzky to the Kings for a package of players, draft picks and $15 million revived hockey in Los Angeles and set the stage for its incursions to nontraditional outposts. Gretzky glamorized the game and captured the imaginations of even casual fans with his prescient passing, incredible vision on the ice and ability to elevate his game under pressure.

“It’s impossible to describe his impact,” said Charlie Huddy, another former Oiler on the Rangers’ coaching staff. “I was with him a lot of times where we’d go to different rinks, and the impact he had on people was amazing. The games were sold out in L.A., and there might not have been hockey in Anaheim and San Jose if he hadn’t been in L.A.”

The Kings’ unlikely venture to the Stanley Cup finals in 1993 remains one of Gretzky’s most cherished memories, but the team’s financial and competitive decline spurred him to request a trade. He was dealt to St. Louis in 1996 but chafed under the iron fist of Coach Mike Keenan and left as a free agent to sign with the Rangers in 1996.

The small-town kid found a home in New York, enjoying the pulse of the city. When he is elected to the Hall of Fame, which is certain to waive its three-year waiting period, he said he will probably wear a New York jersey.

“I was proud to play for every team I played for. I loved playing in each and every town,” he said. “I met great friends and still carry relationships from each city. Somehow, some way, I will be part of all of those teams in the Hall of Fame, but it will always be remembered that I retired a Ranger.”

He is not sure what comes after Sunday, after the pregame ceremony at the Garden and a postgame gala. He has many businesses to monitor but intends to take a year off before deciding whether to accept a job with the Rangers or the NHL as a sort of ambassador at large.

The NHL is a different league from when he made his debut, bigger in number and vastly different in style, having become far more defense-oriented. Gretzky believes it is also much stronger and will not suffer when he’s gone.

“It’s in solid shape,” he said. “There’s not one guy that’s bigger than the game. Gordie Howe taught me that when I was 18 years old and I teach that to everybody that comes to the game. We have great stars, in [Eric] Lindros, [Paul] Kariya, [Jaromir] Jagr and [Teemu] Selanne. . . .

“The game is better than it was 20 years ago. I don’t mean any disrespect, but I tell these guys that in 20 years it will be better than it is today. That’s what we want. We want to progress. We want to get stronger. I see it getting bigger and better world-wide.”

But it’s not Wayne’s world anymore.

* GRETZKY STATISTICS: Page 8

* IMPACT ON SOUTHLAND: Page 9

* REACTION: Page 9

BY THE NUMBERS

61: NHL records that are held or shared by Wayne Gretzky. He holds 41 records outright and shares 10.

1,106: Combined goals for Gretzky in regular season and playoffs.

10: Times awarded the Art Ross Trophy as NHL’s leading scorer (1981-87, 1990-91, 1994)

9: Times awarded the Hart Trophy as NHL’s most valuable player (1980-87, 1989)

4: Times played on Stanley Cup champion, all with the Edmonton Oilers (1984-85, 1987-89)

50: Career hat tricks. Also has nine games with four goals and four games with five goals.

7: NHL record he shares for assists in a game. He owns the top seven marks for single-season assists.

9: Goals this season, a career low. However, Gretzky is still the Rangers’ leading scorer this season.