A bittersweet goodbye to the Great One

With all the media hype surrounding the retirements of Michael Jordan, John Elway and football star/homophobic minister Reggie White, it seems that sportswriters across the country have paid little mind to the twilight of a career that was just as impressive and legendary - if not more so - as any of the storied careers enjoyed by the likes of Captain Comeback (Elway) and even His Airness. I'm talking about the career of a man whose feats may never be equalled, whose records may never be shattered and whose mere presence revolutionized a sport and subsidized an entire league. I'm talking about a man named Wayne Gretzky.

You remember Wayne Gretzky. He did not simply dominate the National Hockey League during the 1980s when he scored 552 of his 893 career goals and led the Edmonton Oilers to three Stanley Cup Championships in four years. (Typically, he is on the verge of breaking yet another record. He is currently tied with Gordie Howe for the all-time career goals record, a record that he will surely eclipse by the end of the season.) No, the Great One transcended the statistics and titles around which so many professional athletes build their reputations. Instead, Gretzky represented hockey to an entire generation and brought it into the national spotlight with his lightning speed, quick hands and carefree smile. For more than a decade, he was the league's most recognizable and marketable star, and he proved to be the only man who could lend credibility to the concept of hockey in sunny California when he orchestrated the trade that brought him from Edmonton to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988. He was singlehandedly responsible for the popularization of a sport that was once considered as foreign to Americans as Canadian bacon and that whole Jerry Lewis phenomenon. In short, he was the National Hockey League, and anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

On Jan. 26, Gretzky celebrated his 38th birthday. While it is comforting to watch him enter the final months of the regular season with the same style and grace that characterized his long, fabled career, there are many hockey fans who did not view that day as cause for any kind of celebration. At the beginning of the 1998-99 campaign, the Great One announced that he would almost certainly retire from professional hockey before his next birthday, whether or not his current team, the New York Rangers, could compete for the Cup. (As it now stands, the Rangers have as much chance of winning another title as Keanu Reeves does of taking home the Best Actor trophy at this year's Oscars.) It's a shame, albeit an inevitable one, that the NHL will lose its most cherished ambassador during the same year that has already witnessed the retirement of so many legendary athletes. Sports Illustrated recently declared that 1998 was the greatest year in the history of professional athletics; perhaps 1999 should be seen as a time of healing and rebirth, as John Elway, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky ride off into the sunset, taking with them enough beautiful memories to bewilder even the most clever elephant.

Although the similarities between their distinguished careers are striking, Jordan and Gretzky will leave uniquely different legacies to their respective sports. Unlike His Airness, who dominated the NBA throughout his entire career and created a tremendous void when he retired in January, the Great One is no longer the preeminent superstar in professional hockey. Admittedly, he remains the league's most recognizable star, but the days of scoring 92 goals in a single season and hoisting the Stanley Cup above his broad shoulders as an annual rite of spring are behind him. There have been other legends in his time - Mario Lemieux and Ray Bourque, for instance - and there will be more to come. In Philadelphia, superstar center Eric Lindros has already been labelled "the Next One"; in Anaheim, sportswriters and Mighty Ducks fans have bestowed similar accolades upon Paul Kariya, a talented forward whose moves and breathtaking goals remind many of a young Gretzky. Certainly, those players have made their own valuable contributions to the sport and, for that reason, deserve such respect and praise. But none of them - not even Lemieux, whose astounding career was cut short by his bout with Hodgkin's Disease - have meant as much to hockey and the growth of the NHL as Gretzky.

During a recent interview with ESPN's Dan Patrick, the Great One reflected on his career and speculated about his life after hockey. When asked to describe his feelings about Michael Jordan's retirement, he had this to say: "As an athlete, I understood the day that he said, 'All right, I'm done.' Like any other fan, I didn't expect that to happen. I thought that he would continue to play, and almost selfishly as a parent you say, 'You can't just leave our kids like that.'" We know how you feel, Wayne. We know how you feel.