The Great L.A. Kings Heist of '88: Re-Evaluating The Gretzky Trade

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

If you've been keeping up with (or at least seeing the hype-advertising on ESPN) they are doing a "30 for 30" special commemorating the three decades the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" has been operating as part of their 30-year anniversary.

Thirty directors have each produced a one-hour special chronicling one significant sporting event in their lives that they wished to do more research on. The series debuted last week with "A King's Ransom: The Wayne Gretzky trade" by Peter Berg.

For those of you who watched it, like me, it was darn good and not just because I like hockey and was already biased into watching it.

I watched it because I wanted to understand how in the heck any market, much less a small market like the Edmonton Oilers, could trade undeniably the best player on the planet in the sport, ever—not just at the time, especially after already winning four, count 'em, four Stanley Cups, thereby proving his worth.

I also wanted to understand how, after winning four Cups in five years as the Oilers had, they could possibly justify the move or claim to have "economic pressures" that then owner Peter Pocklington did when he orchestrated the deal with Los Angeles.

I also found it ironic how the third smallest market at the time had the best player and how they were able to afford him, and his spectacular supporting cast for so long. To put it in a modern day perspective, it would be like Kobe Bryant suiting up for the Memphis Grizzlies, the Bills having Peyton Manning (and wondering how they were going to afford to keep him) or Albert Pujols a member of the Washington Nationals.

It just doesn't seem right and only in hockey would it be able to work, at least for as long as it did. For that I am appreciative.

Sure, any team that had Bryant, Manning, or Pujols would be an instant draw at the gate as the 1980s Oilers were averaging over 18,000 fans a game as the documentary mentions. Players would want to play with the best player, so its reasonable to believe that other talents would soon flock to play with Bryant, Manning, and Pujols, right?

Wrong.

In any other league, it would be those three that would be pressured, even forced, to seek employment in a bigger market since their owners wouldn't be able to afford to bring in other superstars to build around them. Like the Oilers in the NHL, it would only be a matter of time before that team was broken up as it becomes a numbers game.

"A Kings Ransom" described how the changing economic face of the NHL forced such a move. Gretzky will tell you that salaries were going up and he wanted to be paid what he thought he was worth. At this time there were guys making "a million dollars or close to it and we were making $300,000"

The 1980s Oilers teams had six future Hall-of-Famers: goaltender Grant Fuhr, center Gretzky, right wingers Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri, left winger Mark Messier, and defenseman Paul Coffey.

Why did the team succeed?

Look at the even distribution of talent on all sides of the puck.  They had no holes, they had the right coach, Glen Sather, a natural hockey man who is still in the business, and they were a team in the truest sense of the word. A real family unit.

All were clearly the top talents at their positions at the time. The fact that all not only played on the same team at the same time is remarkable but the fact that all were drafted (or obtained) by the Oilers as their original team and none came over as hired guns whose first NHL success was with another club and who simply wanted to leech off an already good team. These six grew up Oilers together at the height of their careers and each clearly benefited because of it.

Again, if it were possible, it would be like the NBA's 2010 Western Conference All-Stars playing not for a conference in the NBA All Star game, but for one franchise and that franchise would happen to be located in tiny Memphis, Tenn.  

Some of my first hockey memories were watching old ESPN Classic Campbell-Wales All-Star games often that felt like it essentially was the Edmonton Oilers vs. the Wales Conference at times. Fittingly, Memphis, like hockey in Edmonton in the NHL, is a basketball city so in theory it could work.

Infusion of impact Canadians lacking in today's NHL

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