It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

...that the greatest hockey player of all time was traded from the greatest team of all time to the middle of the hockey wasteland, Los Angeles.

It's ironic that this anniversary is almost on the same day as another monumental trade, Brett Favre being shipped to the New York Jets after weeks of his un-retirement dominating the sports headlines.

But I remember the Gretzky trade like it was yesterday. My personal sports hero, Wayne Gretzky, fresh off of a fourth championship in five years with the Edmonton Oilers, was traded without any warning (this was back in the pre-internet days) to the Los Angeles Kings.

I was crushed!

And what made things worse was Gretzky would be donning the most hideous hockey jerseys in the league. The purple and gold of the Kings.

However, my horror turned to joy about ten hours later when I saw this image from the news conference:

That silver and black Kings jersey was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I was converted in an instant. In fact, the new Kings colors would go on to inspire the color scheme for my fantasy football team, the Dark Piranhas, who were also born in the month of August, 1988... but that's a story for another day.

A few months later, I'd buy my own Kings jersey, and a little over two years later, I'd actually met Wayne Gretzky in an amazing set of circumstances, also a story for another day.

In any event, August 9, 1988 was a monumental day in hockey history. Gretzky's presence in Los Angeles opened the doors for hockey teams to spring up all over the South, in places as diverse as Dallas, Miami, and Nashville.

So here's part of both press conferences (Edmonton and Los Angeles) from that day, followed by some twenty year later retrospectives I've found.













http://watch.tsn.ca/nhl/clip72747#clip72747

Penguins 6 - Flyers 0 (Pens win series 4-1)

Again, they made it look easy. Watching the game, it seemed like the Flyers were playing at half-speed. The Penguins always seemed a step ahead, a step faster.

But... based on the talent of this team, a berth in the Stanley Cup finals is the only logical end result for this season. None of their opponents in the east were remotely at their level. The teams most likely to give them problems, Montreal and New Jersey, got knocked out early.

Now we only have to await the winner of Detroit-Dallas. Detroit stormed out to a 3 games to zip lead, but Dallas has won the last two to make it an interesting series. While the better matchup would be Detroit, I'm kind of hoping for a Dallas miracle comeback, just because it would allow the Penguins to retain home ice (Detroit, by virtue of the best record in the league would host the Finals should they make it), but also because it would allow me the outside chance at securing some tickets to a game in Dallas. VERY slim chance I'd be able to get tickets, but I have some connections that MIGHT have a way to get me into the arena for one of the games.

We'll see.

But a Detroit-Pittsburgh Finals would be one of the most compelling since New Jersey-Colorado or New Jersey-Dallas. It seems like just about every year over the past decade or so that at least one of the two Finals participants didn't really deserve to be there in the grand scheme of things. Usually, they way overachieve and end up not even making the playoffs the next year and certainly not making the Finals again anytime soon. I'm talking to YOU, Tampa Bay, Calgary, Anaheim, Carolina, Buffalo, Washington and Edmonton). Detroit-Pittsburgh is the first recent series I really think could become an annual event for the next few years.