TORONTO -- Just about every Canadian kid of a certain vintage has a Wayne Gretzky spot memory: his 50th goal in 39 games, his first Stanley Cup, his trade from Edmonton to Los Angeles that broke our country's collective heart. Somewhere, not so deep in the recesses of our now-adult brains, some moment in Gretzky's life and some moment in ours have been tied together like a knot.
I was 7 years old in the summer of 1981. I went to a movie with some friends. My family did not have a lot of money, but I somehow managed to get a Mr. Big chocolate bar out of the deal.
Inside the wrapper, there was a number for a contest. If Gretzky scored that same number of points the following season, you could mail in your wrapper and be entered into a drawing for a fabulous prize. In my head, that prize has become the sum of the known universe. It was probably an Oilers sweater.
I opened my chocolate bar as carefully as Charlie Bucket, and I can picture it as clearly now as I could then. In stamped blue numbers, inside a little black box: 212.
Now I need to impress upon you how gullible a child I was. I believed in everything. I am 42, and I still believe in magic. I believe that the human spirit can conduct electricity. I believe that love can be transmitted across space as surely as a satellite signal.
But even back then, I didn't believe for a millisecond that a hockey player could score 212 points in a single season. I tossed my Mr. Big wrapper.
Gretzky collected 92 goals and 120 assists that season. Later I had a pennant that commemorated that season, so I could look at those otherworldly totals whenever I turned my head toward that spot over my bed. Combined with that lost Mr. Big wrapper -- I still wonder if any dreamer out there kept his long enough to claim the prize -- those numbers made an impression on me that I carry to this day: Never underestimate greatness or our capacities for it.
On Tuesday at the World Cup of Hockey, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman introduced Gretzky as the official ambassador for the league's centennial. On Nov. 22, 1917, five men met at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal. Four days later, they founded the NHL. Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, the league will stage a yearlong celebration of its sometimes surprising longevity. Gretzky will preside over it, less as the man he is than as the symbol he has become.
Gretzky hasn't been involved in hockey in any real capacity since his failed coaching tenure with the then-Phoenix Coyotes ended in 2009. The fallout of that franchise's bankruptcy was ugly, with the league eventually cutting Gretzky a check for more than $7 million in unpaid salary in 2013. In his semi-exile since, Gretzky has been seen more often on golf courses, watching his son-in-law, Dustin Johnson, compete, than in hockey rinks.
Now he's back. Bettman wasn't shy in his introductions. Entering this season, he said, 7,435 players have played at least one NHL game. "Through all the years, hockey has elevated us," he said. "One player in particular truly was transformational, a player who made the impossible commonplace on the ice and who off the ice transcended hockey and transcended sport."
How has hockey lived without such a man, and how has he lived without it?
"Listen," a relaxed and well-looking Gretzky said. "I've always said this thousands of times: It's the greatest game in the world. Everything that's happened in my life is because of the National Hockey League and the game of hockey. So when the commissioner called me a couple of months ago and asked me if I wanted to be involved, I said, 'Absolutely.'"
The 2017 Winter Classic will be in St. Louis. The All-Star Game will be in Los Angeles. Given his connection to those cities, Gretzky probably would have been at those events anyway. But to have him there in an official capacity, the face of the game once again, seems like a necessary correction. "It's a great thrill for me," he said.
For us too. Hockey's future, like all futures, is foggy. A questionable expansion to Las Vegas, the dearth of Stanley Cups for Canadian franchises, the less-than-grand success of this World Cup and the state of the international game -- each raises more questions than answers.
Wayne Gretzky has never left our memories. In some ways, he's been here all along. But if hockey is going to find the solutions required to last another 100 years, it won't hurt to have the magician who made 212 the right answer around.