![]() ![]() What happened is a moment that he'll never forget, a moment that carries greater meaning for him now considering the events of the past seven days. ![]() "Who knew Wayne Gretzky at 17?" Gretzky said. Not long after, Gretzky was asked by WHA officials to fly to New York to do some promotion for the league along with Howe and Bobby Hull. "The day I signed he called me and told me, 'You worked so hard to get here, but now the hard work begins,'" Gretzky said. ![]() Howe, who was playing for the New England Whalers, called him. I would sit beside Murray on the bus all the time and I think he got tired of listening to my questions, but I was so interested in Gordie."Ī little more than six years later, Gretzky, then 17, was signed by the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association. I played junior hockey with his son Murray in Toronto for a year. "I was so lucky that after that day and over the course of time our paths crossed. "I said to my dad, 'I had so many things built up in my mind about Gordie Howe, and he was nicer and better and bigger than I had even imagined,' " Gretzky said. You have to remember that at 10 years old, Gretzky idolized Howe so much that when he went to the barbershop for a haircut he'd ask to get the Howe cut. Later that night, Gretzky's father, Walter, asked him what it was like to meet Gordie Howe. Video: Wayne Gretzky on the legacy of Gordie Howe ![]() "We were kind of just standing there and he said, 'Hold on a second, give me a stick.' Gordie put the stick around me." "Gordie orchestrated the picture," Gretzky said. Howe, who was seated in a chair, had a hockey stick in his massive right hand and curled the blade around Gretzky's neck, tucking it under his left ear. The picture is of Gretzky standing beside Howe to his left, leaning in. I was sort of just there, and that's when the famous picture was taken of Gordie and I when I was 10 years old." I was going to meet Gordie early at the hotel and I think the media was going to be there to interview Gordie and Sandy Hawley and Theismann. "That morning, my dad and mom took me down to get a new suit. "They had asked me to be part of it and my dad accepted it, I didn't know anything about it," Gretzky said. So was Canadian jockey Sandy Hawley, NFL quarterback Joe Theismann and Canadian Football League star turned wrestler Angelo Mosca. Gretzky was also awe-inspiring on the ice, the reason why a classmate's father who ran the dinner invited him and his parents to the event. They first met in 1972 at a Kinsmen Dinner in Brantford, Ontario, Gretzky's hometown. Long before breaking his NHL records for goals and points, Gretzky formed an inseparable bond with Howe, who was almost 33 years his senior. Tweet from Gordie Howe poses with 11-year-old Wayne Gretzky: /GN1ZuIjPWo There's not too many times you can grow up idolizing somebody that you can say at the end of the day we became really good friends. I idolized him as a kid and was fortunate enough to become friends with him. "I was lucky enough in life to have the greatest father ever, and if I could say I had a stepdad it was probably Gordie. "He was everything to me," Gretzky told NHL.com in a phone interview. ![]()
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