Walter Gretzky, the father of hockey great Wayne Gretzky who built a backyard rink to improve his son’s hockey skills as a child and later appeared with him in commercials, died on March 4. He was 82.
“For me, he was the reason I fell in love with the game of hockey,” Gretzky wrote of his father. “He inspired me to be the best I could be not just in the game of hockey, but in life.”
Walter Gretzky became a name himself, a constant in Wayne’s world, beginning in their hometown of Brantford, Ontario. As Wayne’s star ascended, Walter remained a blue-collar symbol of a devoted hockey parent in a country filled with them.
The two were also often intertwined, their father-son story used in commercials from Tim Hortons restaurants to Coca-Cola. Mr. Gretzky’s celebrity status increased after making a remarkable recovery from a stroke suffered in 1991. His story was told in a 2001 autobiography and a 2005 made-for-TV movie.
His immigrant parents — a Polish mother and Russian father — started a vegetable farm in 1932 in Canning, Ontario, on the Nith River, where Wayne learned to skate when he was 2.
Walter Gretzky was born Oct. 8, 1938, in Canning and played hockey throughout his youth and teens but did not play professionally.
He and his wife, Phyllis Hockin, were married in 1960. She died in 2005.
Wayne Gretzky was the oldest of their five children. One of his younger brothers, Brent, briefly played in the NHL.
In 1961, the same year Wayne was born, Walter Gretzky fractured his skull in a work accident as a Bell lineman. He spent some time in a coma, lost the hearing in his left ear and was off work for 18 months. He eventually transferred to another Bell department and became an installer/repairman.
When Wayne was 4, Mr. Gretzky turned the backyard of their Brantford home into a rink. He recruited older kids for Wayne to practice against and found him a spot on a team of 10-year-olds when he was 6.
“You knew he was good at his age at what he was doing,” Mr. Gretzky said in 2016. “But to say that one day he’d do what he did, you couldn’t say that. Nobody could.”
Wayne recalled crying after his first year of hockey when he didn’t receive a trophy at the end of the season.
“Wayne, keep practicing and one day you’re going have so many trophies we’re not going to have room for them all,” his father said.
Walter drove one old blue Chevy station wagon after another — calling each the Blue Goose. After Wayne succeeded in the National Hockey League, he bought his parents a blue Cadillac for their 25th wedding anniversary.
Walter Gretzky was a much sought-after banquet speaker and was a national spokesman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He was named to the Order of Canada in 2007.
In 2010, Walter Gretzky carried the Olympic torch before the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Games in Vancouver, where Wayne lit the Olympic flame.
Mr. Gretzky was 53 when he suffered his stroke, just a few months into retirement after 34 years at Bell. He slowly recovered much of his lost memory. He later worked with youth hockey groups and became an avid golfer.
In addition to his children, survivors include numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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