NHL ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 6, 2000

Wayne Gretzky

WAYNE GRETZKY: First time I have skated -- played hockey since April 18, and probably showed that. I actually had a lot of fun and Maple Leaf Gardens, as everyone knows, is always one of the great places to play in. I had a really good time playing.

WAYNE GRETZKY: First of all we had a tremendous time doing it. For Gordie and I and Mario, we had a lot less work than the other guys. The other guys, most of them played Thursday night. They flew to get in here early Friday morning. We were up early and it was a little bit of a haul to get out there. They skated for about four, five hours, it was really cold. It was just nice to talk to all of them, to be around them and see the new guys, the young guys and talk to them about the game today and listen to Gordie and Mario tell stories about hockey. All of us had a lot of fun and I think it was a great spot.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Change the perceptions as far as what?

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, I think that we all know that at this point in time that small market -- and obviously the small market Canadian teams have a lot more trouble financially at this point in time than a lot of other teams. To have a League without Ottawa and Calgary and especially Edmonton where there is so much history and tradition of a franchise that is just barely over 20 years old and has five championships in one city, the great thing about our game is the history that we have always maintained and to lose any of those franchises would not be great for the game. What the right answer is, no one seems to have it figured out at this point in time. I think that it is going to take obviously the Commissioner's office, obviously the NHLPA and somehow again some way maybe the governments getting back involved in a way that they can make this work and keep the citizens of Canada happy in what they are doing to try to keep these teams. But it is a tough situation and it is a tough state for all these teams and no one has a real answer at this point in time.

WAYNE GRETZKY: It was a special feeling, you know, it is a great thrill. And as I said to Mr. Bettman, the ironic thing about today, and I have said this many times, is everything I have in my life is because of hockey and the NHL. And the NHL owes me nothing. So it has just been fun - a little bit of a whirlwind since I retired, going from city to city. Something like this today is very special.

WAYNE GRETZKY: I have been a big backer of that for years. The one thing that we have we seemed to have lost that the Jean Beliveaus and Bobby Orrs and the Gordie Howes of the world had, that is creativity and imagination. That creativity was basically founded by the fact that they would go to ponds like that and skate for six, seven, eight hours a day, choose up sides and have two nets and no goalies and away you go. If you take ten kids now and rent the ice and say, we are going to play a scrimmage, the first thing every kid would say is what position do you want me to play. We need to get back to just the basics of having fun. I think that would go a long way in getting back a lot of the imagination back into our game.

WAYNE GRETZKY: That was my son, Ty, the last little guy. So he was real excited to be out there today. It was very cute that he was out there. I think that I have talked to the Ranger organization about my sweater. I tell you, quite honestly, what I told them was that I felt that Mark Messier deserved to have his sweater hung there before anyone else, and so I probably won't do anything until after that. The L.A. situation, quite frankly, we just haven't come up with the proper date. We had a couple of dates. The problem with last year was that they wanted to do it against Edmonton on December 30th, and I said to them that one of the things about retiring was that I didn't have to worry about making commitments around Christmas and New Year's and I didn't want to make the commitment of that time. As it turned out, our family went away for the millennium. We are just trying to find the proper date and time and we will go from there.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, every situation is different. Every guy is unique. I think that the one thing that Mark and myself and Ray Bourque and Yzerman, the one thing we have in common is that we really love to play and we truly enjoy the game and everything about it. I wasn't really around yesterday, but I would guarantee those guys are here earlier than anyone else, and just enjoyed being part of the festivities. I hope Mark plays for as long as he wants. He has done nothing but great things for the game of hockey and for the sport itself. I hope that if his heart tells him and his mind says he wants to continue on, good for him. But that is up to Mark. The real answers to what he is thinking he only knows.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Oh, I don't think it's gone too corporate. That is just the changing of the times. That is just the system we live under now. My goodness, 20 years ago, nobody listened to talk radio 101 Sports, that is all anyone listens to now. We are on in 137 countries, I believe, worldwide. I mean, that is just the progression that the whole world is in; not just the game of hockey. So if you are expecting to come to this game and see Gordie Howe going down the wing and blind-side or knock somebody on his rear end, that is not going to happen in this day and age in our game and the way we are playing now. It is a game. It is a fun game. It is a game where guys can come and show their skills off, guys like Pavel Bure and Jagr, that is what it is all about. To me, it is just a fun game and I think everyone has to look at it that way. You can't look at it as a Game 7, because it is never going to be that way.

WAYNE GRETZKY: No. 11 was the first sweater I had worn when I was 6. I wore No. 9 all the way through, up to junior. Then I wore No. 9 in junior Team Canada. That was the last time I wore No. 9. Where we shot it? I don't even know. They took us in a car. It was about an hour 25 minutes from here; that is where we were. So your guess is as good as mine as to where it was. We just drove. I thought we were going to have to get passports out at one point.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Well, I said this the other night that I have talked to a few teams and we have never got past the point of getting into a serious discussion on where I would be involved only because I have said at this point in time that it is not the right thing for me to do. (a) I need to take a step back from the game and get away from it for a little while and (b) I just, quite honestly, don't have the time to do it. It is a full-time commitment, full-time job whatever position you have in the National Hockey League. The only thing I am doing really for the NHL at this point in time is any time that the League, Mr. Bettman or Colin Campbell want me to do something to help the game then I am more than willing to help them. Other than that, I don't have an active role with anyone.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Obviously it is more exciting. It is a lot of fun. What I said earlier, one of the great things about our game is the tradition we have. 5-on-5 hockey, to me, is the way it should be played. Obviously I think we go in cycles here. I think in a few years from now the people will be saying, well, we are scoring too many goals; we need to clamp down a little bit. So it's an evolution, I think, that goes on. I hope we don't go to 4-on-4. I am a traditionalist and as I said earlier, I like the history of our game so I hope we stay with 5-on-5. Maybe they should go to 4-on-4 with kids, certain leagues, certain ages, we just got to find a way to get some creativity and imagination back to these kids who are 9, 10 and 11. Quite frankly, we don't have a lot of kids that are coming up at the ages 16, 17, 18 that have this imagination that guys like Beliveau and Bobby Orr had. Too much trapping that is instituted in the Pee Wee and Bantam Hockey and I believe that is one of the things that we seriously have to look at to help our game.

WAYNE GRETZKY: It is pretty simple. I mean, you know, the whole country is based upon hard-working 9-to-5 parents who do the best they can to provide their families and a small percentage of the country is people who are making over a million dollars a year and the average person can't understand how people who are making 5 and $6 million a year American need tax benefits. So it is pretty simple why they rallied against it and how can you blame them? It is too hard for people to comprehend and if you are making 30 or $35,000 a year and working your rear end off, the last thing that I would vote for is giving a guy making $5 million tax benefits - pretty simple.

WAYNE GRETZKY: It should be better, but can it be better is a real tough task. This team right here is a great example of that. When we played in Maple Leaf Gardens, you were pretty sure you were going to have great ice game in, game out. The problem now is they have the basketball team, the Raptors, so for at least 40 of those dates there is going to be a basketball court that is laid upon the ice and that affects the condition of the ice. The NHL, I know for a fact, because we have spent many hours with these guys, work as hard as they can to put in and make the best ice possible. The reality of it is, you know, there is only a few Edmonton's around. (laughs). Thank you, all.