Wayne Gretzky is Traded to the Los Angeles Kings

Two hours after the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1988, Wayne learned from his father that the Oilers were planning to deal him to another team. Walter had known for months, but kept it from Wayne so as to not upset him. According to Walter, Wayne was being "shopped" to Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, and Vancouver. According to Wayne, Pocklington needed money as his other business ventures were not doing well, and had gone "sour" on Wayne and wanted to move him. At first Gretzky did not want to leave Edmonton, but he later received a call from Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall while on his honeymoon asking permission to meet and discuss the deal. Wayne informed McNall that his prerequisites for a deal to take place were that Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski join him as teammates in Los Angeles. After the details of the trade were finalized by McNall and Pocklington, one final condition had to be met: Gretzky had to call Pocklington and request a trade.
On August 9, 1988, in a move that heralded significant change in the NHL, the Oilers traded Gretzky, along with McSorley and Krushelnyski, to the Los Angeles Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, $15 million in cash, and the Kings' first-round draft picks in 1989 (later traded to the New Jersey Devils—New Jersey selected Jason Miller), 1991 (Martin Ručínský), and 1993 (Nick Stajduhar). "The Trade", as it came to be known, upset Canadians to the extent that New Democratic Party House Leader Nelson Riis demanded that the government block it, and Pocklington was burned in effigy outside the Northlands Coliseum. Gretzky himself was considered a "traitor" by some Canadians for turning his back on his adopted hometown, his home province, and his home country; his motivation was widely rumoured to be the furtherance of his wife's acting career.
Edmontonians bore no grudge against Gretzky. On his first appearance in Edmonton after the trade—a game that was nationally televised in Canada—he received a four-minut...

LOS ANGELES — For the last few weeks, the National Hockey League has gone on a serious media blitz.

To be sure, the league shifted their public relations staff and writers for their official web site into overdrive in pumping out daily e-mails to members of the media as well as feature stories for their web site, all to cover what might be the most significant event in NHL history over the last twenty years…

…August 9, 1988, the date of biggest trade in sports history, when the Edmonton Oilers traded The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, to the Los Angeles Kings.

Indeed, the 20th anniversary of the trade is featured on the NHL’s web site. The Oilers are also highlighting Gretzky’s time with the team on their web site and even the Phoenix Coyotes, where Gretzky owns a share of the team and is the alternate governor and head coach, is in on the act with a feature on the trade.

Of course, Gretzky and the anniversary of the big trade is the top feature on the Kings’ web site as of this writing.

The NHL’s media blitz has also been extremely successful in getting the media to publish their own features on the anniversary of the trade as well, as you can find at least one story—usually more than that—on all the major sports news web sites and on all of the NHL-specific media web sites.

Frozen Royalty would only be duplicating the fine work of all these sites and you can easily find and read all of those stories, so I will only say that I agree with all of them in that it was a momentous trade, not just for the Oilers and especially the Kings, but for the entire hockey world. The NHL, as we know it today, would be very, very different if Gretzky did not spend eight seasons of his career in a Kings uniform.

Without question, the entire hockey world owes a great debt of gratitude to Gretzky for his tireless work to grow the game. Throughout his career, he knew his impact and contributions off the ice were just as important as what he did on the ice—the game ha...

On August 9, 1988, the NHL was forever changed with the single stroke of a pen. The Edmonton Oilers, fresh off their fourth Stanley Cup victory in five years, signed a deal that sent Wayne Gretzky, a Canadian national treasure and the greatest hockey player ever to play the game, to the Los Angeles Kings in a multi-player, multi-million dollar deal. As bewildered Oiler fans struggled to make sense of the unthinkable, fans in Los Angeles were rushing to purchase season tickets at a rate so fast it overwhelmed the Kings box office. Overnight, a franchise largely overlooked in its 21-year existence was suddenly playing to sellout crowds and standing ovations, and a league often relegated to “little brother” status exploded from 21 teams to 30 in less than a decade. Acclaimed director Peter Berg presents the captivating story of the trade that knocked the wind out of an entire country, and placed a star-studded city right at the humble feet of a 27-year-old kid, known simply as “The Great One.”

Personal Statement

My relationship with Wayne goes back to the 1990s when he invited me to play in his softball tournament in Brantford, Ontario. He wanted to get some actors in the game and I was a big hockey fan, having played it growing up in Chicago. I thought it would be a small game, but there were about 20,000 people there. First play of the game, I got a grounder at shortstop and threw out the runner and the crowd started booing me. Turns out it was Gordie Howe. I was humiliated. That began my personal relationship with Wayne. Through the years, I went to lots of Kings games, and we played lots of golf and poker together. Knowing Wayne is like knowing one of those rare human beings like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, who are so utterly dominant in their sport that it’s mesmerizing to be around them. The trade to the Kings was not only a huge moment in his career, but also a very contained and interesting way to look at this incredible athlete’s life. I was workin...

As you've probably been reminded about 1,000 times already, this Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the hockey world's Trade to End All Trades (Also known as Mark Messier Meltdown Day and the Day Canada Died Albeit Temporarily). More commonly, it is known as the day when Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings from the Edmonton Oilers for some guys who were pretty good but never really equated to the value of Wayne FREAKING Gretzky.

August 9, 1988. A day that will live in hockey infamy forever. At least in Canada. Or maybe just Edmonton.

But however you remember it, wherever you were that day when you first heard the news (heck, it might have taken a week to hear about it back in those days with the pony express and all), it's something that hockey fans will remember forever. At least those of us who were old enough to remember it.

With all due respect to those I'm about to make feel really old, I was three months short of my second birthday on August 9, 1988. However, that doesn't mean I can't speak on the topic. It only means that I'm not a historian so, you know, my memory might be a little cloudy.

In fact, the earliest memory I have of Gretzky, aside from seeing him on A LOT of hockey cards, is rather odd. It's the biggest trade that never happened (and may have never even been discussed by either team). One day, in what was likely 1994, I was sitting in the stands of the Nassau Coliseum reading the Islanders' program with my Dad prior to a game. It's all really fuzzy, but the cover article had something to do with how Gretzky was rumored to become an Islander. As you might imagine, that worked out really well for everyone. Or maybe just Wayne since he was probably better off never joining the mid/late 90's Islanders. Maybe. I bet it would have worked out.

Anyway, going back to that fateful day of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Eight, I can say that I remember it well. After waking up from my afternoon nap, I was treated to a nice...