A Hockey Tale

***Wayne Gretzky circa 1983***

Tonight, I went to the Minnesota Wild versus Edmonton Oilers hockey game. I live about 10 minutes on the busline from the Wild's home, Xcel Energy Center, so I hopped on, bought a ticket on the street for $25, and watched my first Wild game of the season. The game brought back one of my favorite hockey memories.

I've played hockey for 32 years and counting. During my childhood career in St. Louis, one of the ongoing highlights was playing before St. Louis Blues games at The Arena. It was great. You went in the players' entrance, dressed in one of the visitors' locker rooms, and played in front of 19,000 seats--albeit most of them empty. The thing I liked best about The Arena is that it had these soft, flexible boards and glass, so when you crashed into them they were loud and wiggled a ton. Plus, The Arena had the BEST nachos and pizza!

Anyway, I was a high school freshman in 1983-84, and I played for three teams that year, Webster Bantam AA, and both Webster Groves High School JV and Varsity. "Playing" on the latter that year meant I dressed for about half the games, and took the ice in about half of those, my appearance usually limited to getting creamed on my only shift of the game. I loved it!

So on February 21, 1984, the St. Louis Blues had a game versus the Edmonton Oilers. These were the big, bad Oilers--Coffey, Kurri, Messier, etc., and of course Wayne Gretzky (87 goals, 118 assists that season). The Oilers broke the New York Islanders stronghold on the Stanley Cup that year. So it was on this night that the Webster Groves JV squad I was a part of was scheduled to play in the tilt immediately before the Oilers - Blues. Yeah yeah, boy!

I have no idea whom we played nor who won, but I do remember the following.

About halfway through the first period, Wayne Gretzky came out of the visitor's tunnel and sat down to watch the game. He was by himself, about 15 rows up on one of the ends. He had on a sweet Oilers sweatsuit. Seeing him there I quickly realized, "Wayne Gretzky is watching me play." I'm smart like that. So between periods, I waved over Webster senior and varsity player Dan Holtzclaw, alerted him to the situation, and told Dan he should go over and sit by Gretzky. It took some persuasion, but Holtz did just that. He sat next to Wayne Gretzky and watched a Webster Groves High School JV hockey team.

Soon after, other Oilers filtered out of the tunnel and up into the stands, and eventually there were about a dozen taking in the game with Holtz and Gretzky, the former of which was the only who wouldn't be crowned a Stanley Cup Champion in three months time.

I asked Holtz after the game, "What did he say?" I remember two things: "Number 5 [on Webster] has too much tape on his ankles," (he did . . . always) and supposedly Gretzky said I made a nice pass, though I or Holtz may have made that up.

Regardless, Wayne Gretzky saw me play hockey. How cool is that?

The Wild won tonight, 3-1. Bernie, of course, was watching. I wonder if Gretzky was too.