Brent Gretzky played just 13 games in the NHL. Still, he holds one hell of a record in the world’s best hockey league. He and Wayne Gretzky have the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers. Brent had four of those points, and Wayne had 2 857.
Brent Gretzky was selected in the 1st round of the 1989 OHL draft. At that time, Wayne Gretzky had already scored 1 837 points. And with a name like Gretzky, expectations were high for Brent. Three years later, in 1992, Brent Gretzky was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning, and that year, he played ten games in the NHL.
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In his entire career, Brent Gretzky played 13 games in the NHL. One of them was against his older brother Wayne.
”We must have faced off 15 times and I won one. I remember chasing him behind the net. I knew what he was going to do and I still found myself looking for my jock. The hardest part was after the game, going and watching ESPN. It was older Gretzky shows young Gretzky how to play hockey,” Brent said.
After scoring four points in 13 NHL games, Brent Gretzky got called to the AHL and never returned to the big league. However, Brent Gretzky didn’t retire until 2007. The third Gretzky brother, Keith Gretzky, never played in the NHL. But in 2001, he started as a scout for the Phoenix Coyotes, and his career went straight upwards. In 2007, he was appointed Director of Amateur Scouting for the organization. Years later, he had the same role in the Boston Bruins, but since 2016, he’s been Assistant General Manager for the Edmonton Oilers.
But Brent Gretzky went in another direction after his playing days. Today, he serves as a police officer with the Ontario Provincial Police. Brent Gretzky has always wanted to be a cop, and after retiring from hockey, he followed his dream.
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”Policing is the only thing I’ve wanted to do since I was six years old. I had pictures of guns, badges, and hats. I had it all,” Brent said on ”The Sign Off: A Frameworth Podcast.”
”I knew that at some point, hockey was going to come to an end. I just didn’t know when I was going to end hockey. Because you get into that lifestyle of working eight months a year possibly, and then four months of golfing and training. But at some point, you have to grow up and get a nine-to-five. And that’s what happened to me. But I always wanted to do it. And thank goodness I actually went through it, and it’s never too late. I was 37 years old, and I still love it.”
Brent Gretzky said he loves how policing, just like hockey, is about team structure and spirit.
”It’s such a team. You have to rely on your teammates, and right now, I’m lucky. I’m the acting sergeant of eight people on the shift, and we work as a family. We depend on each other, and we rely on each other. We know what the other person is going to do.”
At first sight, hockey and policing might not have so much in common. But Brent Gretzky said he learned a lot during his playing days he’s brought with him to policing.
”Yeah, how to talk to strangers. Every situation is going to be different. It’s going to be volatile in the corner, it’s going to be great after the game, and you have to speak with the fans you don’t know. It’s always the same with policing. You’re going to go into a situation you don’t know what it is. You got to calm everything down and make sure everybody’s okay,” he said.
”Just being able to speak to somebody you don’t know and take in what they’re giving you. And it’s the same thing. How many Gretzky lines did I hear playing hockey? You take that into policing because you’re going to get yelled at, and you know, the patience.”
His brother is known as The Great One, but Brent Gretzky is also a familiar face in Ontario. But one time, he got called out for being a Gretzky.
”I police in an area around where I live, and I’ve only had one time. I stopped a guy on the highway, and I went back to the car with his ticket, and he goes,’ Brent Gretzky! Can I put this on eBay?’
I said, ’You’re not gonna get enough to pay for that ticket.’
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