01/26/14 It's Wayne Gretzky's 53rd Birthday!

53 years ago today, the greatest hockey player ever was born. Here are some amazing facts about his life and career.

- At just ten years old, Gretzky scored 378 goals and 120 assists in a single season of atom hockey. The notoriety made him popular with autograph-seekers by the time he was twelve years old. By the time he was 13 he had scored over 1000 goals.

- Played on a team of ten year olds at age six. The jersey didn’t fit, so he tucked it in. This became his signature appearance for the rest of his career.

- Couldn’t get number 9 (Gordie Howe’s number) in Major Junior because it was already worn by a teammate, so he settled for the now-iconic 99.

- Gretzky scored his first professional goal against the Oilers while with the Indianapolis Racers of the WHA.

- Peter Pocklington bought Gretzky’s services for $700,000 and later sold him for $15,000,000

- One Wayne Gretzky game-used stick can be worth as much as $20,000.

- Greztky has more career assists (1963) than any other NHL player has total points. His point total (2857) is miles ahead of the rest. The closest is former teammate Mark Messier with 1887 points.

- Scored 637 goals in his first ten NHL seasons. That would have been good for 15th all-time, but he played for another ten years.

- Holder of 60 NHL records.

- Scored at least 40 goals for twelve straight years (1979-80 to 1990-91), and at least 100 points in 13 straight years (1979-80 to 1991-92).

- Scored ten hat tricks in a season - twice - and then had another ten hat tricks in the playoffs!

- Only player with 1000 goals in the regular season and playoffs.

- How’d he get so good? Gretzky would practice for eight to ten hours per day from age three to twelve. Even allowing for two days each week with no practice (which probably didn’t happen often) that’s over 20,000 hours of practice time. That’s more than double the 10,000 hours that is sometimes cited as necessary for mastering a task. And Gretzky had done all that by the time he was 13 years old!

These are just a small sample of the amazing things that Wayne Gretzky accomplished. He truly was The Great One.

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