I don’t know if this story is well known or not, but I’ve never heard it and I Googled it and didn’t see anything, so I’m sharing it.
It’s just a small tidbit in an interview Wayne Gretzky did on NHL Network the other day, but it lets your mind wander down the path of a pretty wild alternate history in which Wayne Gretzky is a member of the Philadelphia Flyers:
“In the end, we got down to three teams. Mr. Snider was a good friend of mine and Philadelphia was involved, and Detroit Red Wings – and of course I grew up a Gordie Howe fan and loved Gordie Howe and the Red Wings – and the Los Angeles Kings were involved. I really felt 24 hours before hand that I was going to end up a Detroit Red Wing. Both Janet and I thought that was the perfect place to go because A, it was a great hockey city, B, because of Gordie and everything that goes with that. And it was really my dad that stepped in and said, ‘You know, there’s only one Gordie Howe. Detroit’s Detroit, they’ve done everything. You should go to LA and put a new mark on life down there, and do something so unique and so different.’ And he was the one that stepped in and said, ‘You should go play in Los Angeles.’ I remember sitting with Janet and I was like, ‘Okay. That’s where we’re gonna go.’”
The Flyers were apparently one of three teams that almost traded for Wayne Gretzky, a trade that occurred 28 years ago yesterday. I have nothing to add to this except … holy crap, I’m gonna go fantasize about that all day now.
