The most famous hockey player in the world is Canadian Wayne Gretzky. He is the NHL's highest scoring player with unrivaled performance. During his career, he set 61 records and received the title of "Greatest Player in Hockey History".
Wayne was born on January 26, 1961 in Canada. He became addicted to hockey since childhood - during his youth, ice hockey was incredibly popular, and the salaries of professional players grew by leaps and bounds.
Carier start
At the age of 6, Gretzky was already playing in a team with 10-year-olds. And when he was 10 years old, when he was taken to the children's league, he set his first record for a boy his age - he scored 378 goals and made 139 assists in a season.
At 14, Wayne played against 20-year-old boys, even competing in international tournaments. So, at the junior world championship in Montreal, when Gretzky was 16 years old, he was the youngest participant. That, however, did not prevent him from becoming the best among the scorers and the best striker in the championship.
World famous
At the age of 17, Wayne Gretzky got into the NHL league, thereby setting a kind of record - before that, such contracts were concluded only with those who reached the age of 18. In the first season, he won the title of the most productive player of the season and set a record - became the youngest player to score 50 goals in the Major League.
In the second season, Wayne sets an NHL record for the number of assists and points scored per season, receives the Art Ross Trophy title, repeats the League record for the number of goals in one match period (4 goals). And against this background, it was a complete surprise for him to transfer him as a player in 1988 to the Los Angeles Kings team - the weakest in the Major League.
The NHL is the national hockey league - a professional organization that unites hockey clubs in Canada and the United States. It is the first professional ice hockey league in the world and the major sports league in North America.
But the transfer of the famous hockey player to California raised the interest of local residents in hockey at times: if earlier hockey brought losses, the stadiums were filled by a third, then after 1988 it became a big problem to get tickets for games with the famous Gretzky. In the same year, Gretzky received the Hart Trophy, the first ever Los Angeles Kings. In 1989, he managed to set the record for the most points in a season - 1851. And he got the last point 53 seconds before the end of the last match of the season. Wayne's career skyrocketed.
In 1994, Gretzky scored his 802 career goals, becoming the best scorer in NHL history. In the same year, he received the Art Ross Trophy and became the top scorer of the season for the tenth time.
The Hart Trophy is the Most Valuable Player of the Season award. The Art Ross Trophy is the top scorer of the season. These are the most prestigious prizes in the NHL.
In early 1996, Wayne moved to a stronger team - the St. Louis Blues, becoming the top scorer of the season that same year. But due to a conflict with management after the end of the season, he left the club and moved to the New York Rangers. Gretzky's career was already drawing to a close, but he continued to set more and more records. In the same 1996, the sum of his points exceeded 3000, which became a new NHL record, and in 1997 he set the League record for assists - 1851. In 1999, Wayne broke the record of 1072 career goals and received the title of "Greatest Player in History hockey of the twentieth century ".
Wayne Gretzky officially retired from his professional career on April 18, 1999. His name was immortalized in the Hockey Hall of Fame ahead of schedule, and the number "99", under which he performed, is assigned to him forever. He has broken nearly every NHL record and earned most of the individual League awards given to the best players of the season. He won the Hart Trophy nine times and the Art Ross Trophy ten times.
After his sports career, Wayne started his own business, coached the Phoenix Coyotes team, which he co-owned, and served as general manager of the Canadian national team.
