Woe Canada - The Trade, 20 years later

On August 9, 1988, Wayne Gretzky was sold traded to the Los Angeles Kings by the Edmonton Oilers. That was 20 years ago, before hockey became a long-lasting obsession of mine. Back then, "hockey" was just some game that I "heard of".

Referred to as "The Trade", that was hands-down the most important trade in sports history. Gretzky was at the peak of his career, going from a championship team to a team that no one really cared about...and in a city that really didn't care about hockey. This is the trade that made all of Canada collectively cry tears in their beer. And who could blame them? How would you, fellow Americans, have felt about Michael Jordan, circa 1992, getting traded to say, oh, the Toronto Raptors? Or perhaps Alex Rodriguez getting traded to the Montreal Expos. I know the Expos don't exist anymore, but if they did I'm sure you'd hate to see him go there. The point is, the greatest player in the game went to a city that didn't know "the bench from the blue line".

As an FYI, I hate the remark "doesn't know a bench from the blue line". It's the one remark that everyone uses to say that someone doesn't know anything about hockey. So, after this, I won't use that one again. Because--DUH!!!--the blue line is blue, and the bench (probably) isn't.

Besides the magnitude of the trade at the time, Gretzky going to the Kings had repercussions still felt today. The league went from 21 teams to 30, including Anaheim and San Jose. That eventually led to great hockey blogs like The Battle of California, as well as teams in Phoenix and Denver. Plus teams in other hot weather climates. Who would have thought that Nashville would have an NHL team?

I'd also like to take a moment to think about how this affected hockey collectibles. This is, after all, a collectibles website. Like I say, if it's good for hockey,, it's good for hockey stuff. Back when Gretzky was tearing it up in Edmonton, you had two choices of hockey cards. If you were lucky, you got to buy O-Pee-Chee cards. And if you were American, you got to buy Topps cards (except for 82-83 and 83-84, when Topps didn't even *bother* to make hockey cards). Oh yeah, and Panini hockey stickers, which I absolutely loved as a kid--those were truly "topps".

Two years after the trade, we went from collecting O-Pee-Chee/Diet O-Pee-Chee (only half the carbs cards!) to collecting a multitude of exciting and new sets: Upper Deck, Pro Set and Score joined the foray, only to be followed by Leaf/Donruss, Fleer and Pacific The 1990s were a good time to buy hockey cards. I no longer had to go to the one neighborhood baseball card store (which was run by a total a-hole creep). During this time, I was able to actually buy hockey cards at my local grocery, drug or toy stores. Hell, I remember buying a Memorial Cup CHL set at an Osco Drug. Can you imagine that? Buying a junior hockey set at a drug store in Chicago? Gretzky's presence on a U.S. team suddenly made hockey collectibles desirable, at lest to the retailers who sold them.

Not only were cards plentiful and easy to come by, but hockey jerseys started to appear everywhere. It started with the Kings changing their threads, from those nostalgic-but-hideous "Imperial Margarine" uniforms to those snazzy silver-and-black digs. I wonder if the new uniforms were a stipulation for Gretzky accepting the trade to L.A...

Begin fabricated conversation

BRUCE MCNALL (Kings Owner): Wayne, I'd love for you to play for the L.A. Kings.

WAYNE GRETZKY: Sure thing, Bruce. I'll accept the trade. But you also have to acquire Marty McSorley--he's my bodyguard, 'cuz I don't like to fight. And also get Mike Krushelinski, for some reason. And you gotta do something about these uniforms. They're quite ugly.

MCNALL: Ugly? They were good enough for Marcel Dionne, and Rogie Vachon and...

GRETZKY: Who's going to take us seriously if we are in yellow shirts with a giant crown on the chest?

MCNALL: This reminds me of the time I illegally smuggled rare coins into the U.S.

GRETZKY: ...what?

MCNALL: Uh, I mean, sure we can get new uniforms.

End fabricated conversation

After the Kings changed their uniforms, they were one of the best selling jerseys in the 1990s. I remember seeing kids at school with Kings jerseys, hats and jackets. I recall walking into random sports apparel stores in Chicago, and maybe they had a Blackhawks jersey. A few years after "The Trade", I was finding Kings, Penguins, Rangers and Sharks stuff even in some of the more mundane places, like mall department stores. Sure, a lot of the jerseys were bought by gang-banger kids who didn't know a bench from a drive-by shooting.

That's besides the point, though. Because of "The Trade", Gretzky made hockey relevant in the U.S. There's a good chance I would not have been exposed to hockey had Gretzky not come to L.A. In some regard, I have Wayne Gretzky to thank for helping make hockey bigger in the U.S., and subsequently into a passion of mine.

This month, to celebrate "The Trade", I will post articles related to some of the Gretzky-related cards and memorabilia in my collection. In the meantime, here are two Gretzky items you might want to read up on:

Fake Wayne Gretzky Indianapolis Racers card

Wayne Gretzky Hallmark ornament


Give credit where credit is due:

I borrowed the second Gretzky photo from Joe Pelletier's Greatest Hockey Legends website. He probably borrowed the image from another source, but the guy is a fantastic writer. His article on the Gretzky trade is worth reading.

The animated Kings jerseys image was made with images I "borrowed" from Andrew M. Greenstein's NHL Uniforms website. The guy has drawn out every hockey uniform ever from 1917 to the present day. You totally need to check out his site.

As long as I'm endorsing sites, I really like Battle of California. I'm not a huge Sharks, Kings or Ducks fan per se, but these guys' perspective on those teams crack me up.