Walter Gretzky, who sadly passed away at the age of 82 in 2021, was the most beloved hockey dad in the world.
Walter raised and coached his son, Wayne Gretzky, the greatest player ever. Walter was with his son throughout all of his career, and he was the perhaps most important person in Wayne’s life.
In interviews during his career, Gretzky would often say that everything he is, he is because of Walter. Walter, who always loved hockey himself, was too small to make it pro.
But his dedication to the game was never-ending, and we showed great dedication to minor hockey and charities. He was a minor league coach for years and always made time to attend minor tournaments on top of his charitable endeavors.
Wayne Gretzky started skating at a very young age, and it was possible due to some dedication from his father. When the Gretzky family moved to a new home in the 60s, it allowed for a backyard hockey rink. And Walter really took good care of it.
”I grew up in Southern Ontario, which is basically between Niagara Falls, New York, and Detroit. So we had a nice rink in my backyard from the time I was two years old,” Wayne Gretzky said on the ’This Past Weekend’ podcast with comedian Theo Von.
Walter Gretzky had his tricks to keep the ice at a high level during the winters.
”My dad would go and buy a sprinkler head in December. They always thought he was crazy, like, who’s buying a sprinkler head at Christmas time?
”Anyway, he would put it out in the middle of the ice, and he would let it go back and forth for like two hours, and then go move it to another part of the ice, and his ice was always about eight inches thick, and it would last until probably the end of March.”
The backdoor rink, and its thick ice, probably had something to do with Wayne becoming the greatest player of all time. But it had other perks as well: Walter had the greenest lawn in the neighborhood.
”He had the best rink, yeah, and it was funny. People used to stop by the house and say, ’How does Walter get his grass so green? What do you do? What are you putting in your grass?’ My dad didn’t do anything. It was just probably from the ice being so good for the grass, he always had the greenest grass in in the neighborhood. He didn’t do anything,” Gretzky said, laughing.
