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Gretzky is glad for the home stand, not because he objects to the road --"It's one of the most fun parts of the game"--but because he is the sports world's most overwrought flyer since Broadcaster John Madden. "What may stop him is that flying," says his father Walter, from whom he inherited the queasy sensation. On Canadian airlines, Gretzky is brought to the cockpit for soothing by the pilots. It is hard to express what a towering figure he is north of the 49th parallel. His $21 million hockey contract extending to the end of the millennium constitutes about a third of his earnings after adding cereals, pillowcases and Barbie-size Wayne dolls. All the same, he tolerates the attention without strain and enjoys pointing out that Saskatoon and Flin Flon are not exactly New York and Chicago. At times the arenas he visits will supply him a private exit ("I get nervous. I don't like crowds"), but generally he courts inconvenience. "If I walk into a room and don't hear anyone say, 'There's Gretzky,' it just doesn't feel right." After practice, shuttling teammates require his signature on posters and sticks for causes of their own. "But there's already a signature printed on it," he complains. "Yeah, but that's a phony, just like you. Sign it, you little jerk." They laugh brightly.
Only the newest players behold him with open awe. "The first time I stood on the ice beside Marcel Dionne, I was 18. I can remember exactly how excited I was. I've seen that same look in younger eyes." For perspective, he has several devices, but his most effective helper is the small, bespectacled clubhouse boy, Joey Moss, who has Down's syndrome. "I grew up around it," Gretzky says. "My dad's sister is mentally retarded. I love Joey, I love to shake his hand."
Books, he dislikes. But soap operas are his passion, particularly The Young and the Restless, on which he played a small role two summers ago. During an annual trip, Gretzky also enjoys low-rolling in Las Vegas. The casino swallows him for days. Otherwise, hockey has been absorbing. "I don't have a whole lot of time for anything else. I play the game." He likens the N.H.L. to a university, and calls hockey the study of geometry. "People talk about skating, puck handling and shooting, but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be diverted, factoring in all the interruptions. Basically my whole game is angles."
The clubhouse feels like his den. "It's great to be the captain of a great team," he says, another distinction he shares with Bird, although the Celtics' captain dislikes the pregame socializing and the community arguments only captains are permitted to wage with the referees. "It's true," Gretzky agrees, "the fans think you're arguing for yourself all the time, but it's great. Here, Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey take charge too. It's fun to be champions."
Sawing the ends off his long sticks, fashioning a collage of tape and talcum, Gretzky remains after the others to tinker and think. "If anyone wants Neil Diamond tickets," someone advises the room with a shout, "call Dorothy." Gretzky looks up in puzzlement. "Who's Neil Diamond?"