Tricksters and lacrosse

Wayne Gretzky: NHL hockey legend - The Great One

26.03.2012 source: National Post, March 2000

As a lot of young Canadians Wayne Gretzky played also lacrosse. According to Gretzky, lacrosse was where he learned to protect himself from hard checks:„In those days you could be hit from behind in lacrosse, as well as cross-checked, so you had to learn how to roll body checks for self-protection.“

„If sport has a high point of the year, it must be the first week ofspring. When I was growing up, I used to love this time of year. It was when I put my hockey equipment away and I was absolutely ecstatic to see the end of the hockey season. One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has been year-round hockey and, inparticular, summer hockey. All it does for kids, as far as I can tell, is keep them out of sports they should be doing in the warmer weather. I could hardly wait to get my lacrosse stick out and start throwing theball against the walls and working on our moves as we played thelacrosseequ­ivalent to road hockey. All the good hockey players seemed to play lacrosse in those days and every one of them learned something from the game to carry over to the other – things athletes can only learn by mixing up the games they play when they are young.“