99: Gretzky: His Game, His Story

“I always wanted to play in Russia,” Gretzky said, “and I wish I could have done it twenty years ago. But for our age, I think the level of play was pretty good and everyone was trying, so that made it fun.”

To the average viewer, the Olympics are a fascinating sporting spectacle. But to anyone involved in them, they are a mystifying, complex maze of politics, kickbacks, under-the-table deals, intrigue and deceit. There is never a straight line from A to B in the Olympics. The path is always winding and circuitous—and it usually leads to a back door.

That’s usually the Canadian way. They go into these competitions expecting gold. Once that possibility ends, the intensity level drops.

Gretzky would never use a composite stick. While it would allow him to shoot harder, it would make puck-handling and pass receiving more difficult. Shooting harder was not his priority.

Many NHL games don’t produce fourteen scoring chances, even if you combine the efforts of both teams. But the Soviet team was no NHL team. It had the ability to weather the storm and fight back to create chances of its own.

“I think at that time, the Russian team was the best team in the world,” said Gretzky years later. “The level they were at, they could have beaten any NHL team. You always go against the level of the team you’re playing against, and that was twenty great players. I didn’t get a goal, but that was the best game I ever played.”

Canadians rarely like to see anyone get a lot of money, especially other Canadians.