Wayne Gretzky

📍Brantford, Ontario, Canada

“Wayne Douglas Gretzky was born in Brantford, Ontario, in January 1961, the eldest of five children of Walter Gretzky, a telephone technician, and Phyllis. In the backyard of the family home on Varadi Avenue, Walter built and flooded an ice rink every winter, which became known as the Wally Coliseum, and Wayne skated there for hours every day, practising drills his father designed. He was extraordinarily gifted; at ten he scored 378 goals in a single season of minor hockey, and he became famous across Canada while still a child. The attention and resentment from some parents became so intense that at fourteen he moved to Toronto to play. He went on to become the greatest scorer in the history of the National Hockey League, known as The Great One. Brantford named its civic sports centre after him, and his father remained a much-loved figure in the city.”

Sources: Gretzky, W. with Reilly, R. Gretzky: An Autobiography (1990), HarperCollins; Dryden, K. The Game (1983), Macmillan; Podnieks, A. The Great One: The Life and Times of Wayne Gretzky (1999)