We all had a favourite hockey player when we were growing up. A player that we aspired to be like and dreamed of one day playing alongside in the NHL. For me, it was Wayne Gretzky. As a kid, whether I was playing hockey on my driveway or at my local outdoor rink I would always pretend I was Gretzky flying down the ice and firing the puck past the goalie to win the game.
For Gretzky, it was “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe.
“You know, you get the puck and go around a pylon and it was always Gordie Howe goes around the defenceman and scores the winning goal in the Stanley Cup,” Gretzky said in a 2001 interview on the Biography Channel.