Wayne Gretzky Olympic Jersey

This jersey belongs to Scott Josey of Brantford, Ontario.

#99 Wayne Gretzky 1998 Winter Olympics Team Canada Jersey.

“The 1998 Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan were the first Olympics that NHL players were eligible to play in. Expectations were high for Team Canada as they were headlined by NHL superstars such as Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Ray Bourque, and many more. Despite the veteran star power in Canada’s lineup, they decided to name youngster Eric Lindros team captain. This was controversial due to the fact that although extremely talented, Lindros was the 24 year-old captain of the Philadelphia Flyers and the captaincy selection was in the hands of Flyers general manager Bobby Clarke.

After an undefeated round robin and an easy quarterfinals victory over Kazakhstan, Team Canada found themselves in the semifinals against the Czech Republic. Tied at 1-1 at the end of regulation and an overtime period the two teams would find themselves in a memorable shootout elimination. Sadly the memorable part of the shootout was who was on the bench instead of the shooters. Canadian coach Marc Crawford decided to use defenceman Ray Bourque over Gretzky. All four Canadian shooters were stopped by Czech goalie Dominik Hasek to advance to the gold medal game where the Czechs captured gold with a 1-0 win over the Russians. Crawford has been highly criticized for keeping Gretzky on the bench during the shootout to this day.

Team Canada faced Finland in the bronze medal game, but had a lacklustre performance that left Gretzky and the Canadian squad medal less. The Team was disappointed that they were unable to help Gretzky win an Olympic medal, but Gretzky encouraged his teammates to all attend the closing ceremony of the games. Gretzky had four assists in the six Olympic games.”

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Gretzky jersey!

Thanks to Scott for sending in his Gretzky Collection!

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