In the summer of 1988, when I was 14 years old, I went camping with my family not far outside Toronto. We emerged from the woods and I wandered over to a newspaper box by the side of the road. Through its cracked glass, I saw a front-page picture of Wayne Gretzky, weeping. He'd been traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings. I followed my idol's lead and burst into tears. Gretzky, back then at least, was more than a hockey player to Canadians. He was homegrown royalty, a player of such quality, of such rare possibility, that he transcended the game we've always used to define ourselves. I wasn't even a true hockey kid, but I had Gretzky's signature Titan stick, white with red lettering, and a pennant on my bedroom wall that memorialized his 1981'82 season, when he pocketed 92 goals and 120 assists for 212 points, all records. He went on to better that assists mark five times and reset his own points record with 215 in 1985'86. No one else has recorded more than 200...
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