The Game

by Ken Dryden

When the WHA disappeared in 1979, the players lost their leverage. There was no free agency within the NHL; the players had no place else to go. Salaries flattened out. There was no reason for the owners to pay more. Except for Gretzky. When the next great superstar comes along, he is always some close variation of the superstar before. So, on the salary scale, he gets slotted in roughly where his predecessor had been. But Gretzky wasn’t a close variation. He was a lot better. Certainly, he would get paid more. It would be unconscionable if he didn’t. But how much more? The goodness of an owner’s heart does not generate the same result as a gun to his head. And Gretzky had no gun. Still, he got more money, but not a lot more. The impact on the rest of the league was modest. Gretzky was Gretzky. Nobody compared with him on the ice. Nobody’s contract could compare to his off the ice. Then came Lemieux. He wasn’t Gretzky, but he was close enough to Gretzky that he could be compared to him and for his contract to reflect that. Then what about Messier? He wasn’t Gretzky, but maybe he was a little like Lemieux, and maybe Jari Kurri was a little like Messier, and maybe Brett Hull and Cam Neely were like Kurri. With his unprecedented play, Gretzky had created a Neverland beyond the oceans, but it was too far away, inaccessible to anyone else. It took Lemieux to build the bridge to it, making it possible for the rest of the league to follow.