Toggle sidebar

How Long Did It Take Gretzky to be Regarded as the GOAT?

Gretzky wouldn't get serious discussion in that regard until Edmonton won the Stanley Cup in 1984, he had an unfair reputation as a loser and people resented that he was completely non-physical. Even then it was never the unquestioned consensus that people today seem to consider it. When The Hockey News did its big poll near the end of Gretzky's career to pick the top 50 (eventually 100) players in history featuring various experts, Gretzky was first, but he was barely ahead of Orr and Howe.

Casual fans and new fans tended to automatically place Gretzky as the best ever, for others it was more of a debate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveG and Mr Nogatco
Goose said:
Fun fact: the term GOAT wasn’t popularized until the 2000 song by LL Cool J.

It was first coined by Ali’s wife who created a company called G.O.A.T. In the early 90s to handle Ali’s IP.
Click to expand...
The phrase we heard before that was “pound for pound-or inch for inch- the best ever” such as Oscar Robertson in basketball or Willie Pep in boxing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Goose
I can’t remember the exact year, maybe 1982, that someone brought Muhammad Ali to a hockey game to see Gretzky…the Greatest watching The Great One hook. When Gretzky was pointed out to Ali, he said essentially’that small frail guy is the greatest hockey player ever?’

Certainly there were some doubters that wanted him to win a championship first. Like before him there were some doubters about how great Bryan Trottier was until the Islanders won…they had a few years of disappointment in the playoffs before 1980
 
No one talked about "GOAT" prior to to 2010 in any sports. It's a term coined by modern media to cater to modern brain dead social media folks. No serious sports fan would ever use it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheGreenTBer
Reindl87 said:
No one talked about "GOAT" prior to to 2010 in any sports. It's a term coined by modern media to cater to modern brain dead social media folks. No serious sports fan would ever use it.
Click to expand...
Ali was calling himself the greatest of all times since he beat sonny liston in 1964.
 
Reindl87 said:
No one talked about "GOAT" prior to to 2010 in any sports. It's a term coined by modern media to cater to modern brain dead social media folks. No serious sports fan would ever use it.
Click to expand...
"GOAT" as a phrase is relatively new. In the 50s and 60s a goat in hockey was someone who played a poor game.

Greatest ever is very old. We have best all time lists going back to the 1910s. Hockey media ran a major best all-time poll in 1950 that got tons of press. Basically, as soon as there was a yesteryear hockey fans have been asking how today's stars compare to yesteryear.

The discussions are quite big in the 1950s. Declarations of Harvey as best defenseman ever, Howe vs. Richard as best winger ever, etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveG, NVious and Cas
I remember a long time ago someone uploaded an video of two journalists in the early 80s talking about the best player in the game. One said Gretzky, for obvious reasons, but the other was contrarian enough to say that it was a Russian player (don't remember which one) due to their performance in international play. Definitely one of those takes that would be infamous if it had taken place in the social media era where it could be resurrected ad nauseum.
 
WarriorOfGandhi said:
I remember a long time ago someone uploaded an video of two journalists in the early 80s talking about the best player in the game. One said Gretzky, for obvious reasons, but the other was contrarian enough to say that it was a Russian player (don't remember which one) due to their performance in international play. Definitely one of those takes that would be infamous if it had taken place in the social media era where it could be resurrected ad nauseum.
Click to expand...

This is likely the one you're talking about


The journalist is Dick Beddoes, who never liked Gretzky.

It's curious he singles out Sergei Shepelev. Both Makarov and Krutov were outplaying Shepelev in Soviet hockey at the time.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: DaveG, Lshap and Hockey Outsider
jigglysquishy said:
This is likely the one you're talking about


The journalist is Dick Beddoes, who never liked Gretzky.

It's curious he singles out Sergei Shepelev. Both Makarov and Krutov were outplaying Shepelev in Soviet hockey at the time.
Click to expand...


that’s the one, well done

funny that he even has the fedora to tie the whole routine together
 
  • Haha
Reactions: DaveG
Reindl87 said:
No one talked about "GOAT" prior to to 2010 in any sports. It's a term coined by modern media to cater to modern brain dead social media folks. No serious sports fan would ever use it.
Click to expand...
yes we did. May not have used the word "Goat" but we definetly used "all time great", as in "one of the all time greats", "best ever" etc. The meaning is the same. Calling out the use of the word "goat" doesn't change anything, the sentiments are the same and its a distinction without a difference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cas and NVious
jigglysquishy said:
This is likely the one you're talking about


The journalist is Dick Beddoes, who never liked Gretzky.

It's curious he singles out Sergei Shepelev. Both Makarov and Krutov were outplaying Shepelev in Soviet hockey at the time.
Click to expand...

well, as they say being a contrarian the easiest job in the world. It's so easy to say something wont work, or someone wont be the best ever, the odds are in their favour.

That being said, I clocked the contrarian on the thumbnail by his clothes. Hes exactly what i imagine a lot of posters here look like. Hi arguements are stupid as well, saying a country has more money than Gretzky? WTF, is this guy serious? why even say something like that?


All that being said, screw Gretzky
 
jigglysquishy said:
"GOAT" as a phrase is relatively new. In the 50s and 60s a goat in hockey was someone who played a poor game.

Greatest ever is very old. We have best all time lists going back to the 1910s. Hockey media ran a major best all-time poll in 1950 that got tons of press. Basically, as soon as there was a yesteryear hockey fans have been asking how today's stars compare to yesteryear.

The discussions are quite big in the 1950s. Declarations of Harvey as best defenseman ever, Howe vs. Richard as best winger ever, etc.
Click to expand...

Oilslick941611 said:
yes we did. May not have used the word "Goat" but we definetly used "all time great", as in "one of the all time greats", "best ever" etc. The meaning is the same. Calling out the use of the word "goat" doesn't change anything, the sentiments are the same and its a distinction without a difference.
Click to expand...

Of course people have always talked about the greatest, among everything, likely since the beginning of our civilization compared at least two things.

But @Reindl87 isn’t wrong here. The narrow minded way that sports talk has devolved into, coincides with the popularization of capitalized goat is a 21st century thing. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pointing out that no one was throwing around the specific term goat with this meaning in the past.

I agree with the semantics part from you guys also though. I’m not sure I would have noticed the thread title otherwise.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveG
Oilslick941611 said:
yes we did. May not have used the word "Goat" but we definetly used "all time great", as in "one of the all time greats", "best ever" etc. The meaning is the same. Calling out the use of the word "goat" doesn't change anything, the sentiments are the same and its a distinction without a difference.
Click to expand...
No it is not the Same at all.
 
I mean come on, put me in the era of Gretzky, give me his skillset and vision and his teammates and I too would be up there in the GOAT discussions.

Edit: I would need his skating too. And his height, I would have been too short. Maybe I would also need more motivation for training and less of a gambler-personality. But yea give me all that and I could be the GOAT, no doubt.
 
Last edited:
It was probably sometime in the mid to late 80s. I wasn't a fan yet back then but I was watching a pens game from 1989 and they were talking about how Lemieux had the potential to be chasing down Gretzky for best player of all time. He definitely had it locked up before the year turned 1990.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveG
jigglysquishy said:
"GOAT" as a phrase is relatively new. In the 50s and 60s a goat in hockey was someone who played a poor game.
Click to expand...
The older definition was still used in the late 1990's and early 2000's. I distinctly remember that, after each playoff game during the Joseph/Belfour era, the Toronto Star selected a goat (or maybe it was "goat horns") for the worst player on either team.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveG
When was The Time players could pack in their Day Jobs? Even in 60's worked on Jobs. No one can Deny that kind of stuff doesent affect level of play. But i think on Waynes Day they were already professionals
 
I was not a hockey fan at the time, but I was a sports fan. In the very early 80's, I would go to my college library to read the sports page to see how many points Gretzky scored the night before.
 
The first year he broke 200+ points and beat the 2 place scoring leader by 70 points.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom