Wayne Douglas Gretzky, nicknamed 'The Great One”, was born Jan, 26/1961 in Brantford, Ontario. Born to parents Walter and Phyllis Gretzky, he was their first child and became big brother to Kim, Keith, Glen and Brent. The home rink in Brantford, Ontario where Wayne first started to learn to play hockey was called "Wally's Coliseum".
In his first NHL season, 1979-80, Gretzky was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as the League's Most Valuable Player (the first of eight in a row) and tied for the scoring lead with Marcel Dionne with 137 points. Gretzky first played in the official NHL for the Edmonton Oilers from 1979 to 1988. During this time he scored 583 goals for the team. Wayne played for the Los Angeles Kings from 1988-1996. In 1993 he led the Kings team all the way to the Stanley Cup final, where they lost to the Montreal Canadians’. In 1994, Gretzky went on to break Gordie Howe's record of most goals scored when he notched his 802nd NHL regular season goal. Wayne then was drafter to the St. Louis Blues for an exchange of Craig Johnson, Roman Vopat, Patrice Tardiff and two draft picks, only to play for the 1996-1997 season. Nearing to the end of his playing career, Gretzky was drafted to the New York Rangers for the time from 1997-1999 as an unrestricted free agent. On April 18, 1999, Wayne Gretzky retired from the NHL. Upon his retirement, he held or shared 61 National Hockey League records. These records include 40 regular season, 15 playoff, and 6 All-star records.
He met American actress Janet Jones in 1984 when he was a judge on the show "Dance Fever" and she was a dancer, but they didn't begin dating until 1987. Their July 17, 1988 nuptials at St. Joseph's Basilica in Edmonton was dubbed "The Royal Wedding" by the press and broadcast live throughout Canada. "Guards" from the Edmonton Fire Department stood on the church steps. The event reportedly cost Gretzky over $1,000,000; Janet's dress alone cost $40,000. They have 5 children: Paulina, Ty, Trevor, Tristan, and Emma.
Gretzky participated in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Expectations were high of the Canadian team, but without the presence of Mario Lemieux (with whom Gretzky did well with in the 1987 Canada Cup) and several other star Canadians due to injury, the team lost to Finland for the bronze medal. Many also tribute the loss of the gold medal to Canada's coach Marc Crawford's decision to use a defenseman, Ray Bourque, and not Gretzky in the shoot-out against Dominik Hasek.
Since 2005, Gretzky has been coach and part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes. Briefly, the Coyotes are a professional ice hokey team based in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). Here are some states of the Coyotes, before and after Wayne Gretzky was the coach.
