Read Online Wayne Gretzky's Ghost by Roy Macgregor - Free Book Online Page A

last—to accomplish the one great dream of his life.
    All hockey players, of course, have that same dream. None, however, may dream it as intensely as Bourque, the shy, reserved young kid who grew up in Montreal during the Canadiens’ last great dynasty, and who used to skip school to watch what seemed to him the annual Stanley Cup parade. He has been to the Hockey Hall of Fame to stare at the trophy. He has, on several occasions, drawn close enough to read the names on it.
    He has never, however, touched the Stanley Cup. He has had chances but never reached for it, never believed he had the right to hold something he had not earned. Bourque—who once said he would both retire and die a Bruin—came to Colorado for one reason only, to have that final chance to win his final game of a long hockey season. It was supposed to be last year, but the Avalanche fell unexpectedly to the Dallas Stars in the Western final. This year, the “Win One for Ray” theme has only been heightened by the fact that he is one year older and the Avalanche, this time, made it to what Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy likes to call “The Big Dance.”
    â€œIt would be nice,” Roy said earlier this week, “for him to touch the steel.”
    It is a feel-good story that, it must be said, not everyone feels equally good about. The swaggering, rich Avalanche sometimes feel like hockey’s version of the New York Yankees, and some find it difficult to cheer for Bourque if it also suggests that StanleyCups can be bought by bringing in late-season, very expensive additions like Bourque a year ago and defenceman Rob Blake at this year’s trading deadline.
    Bourque himself has always been dutiful in his dealings with the public and the press, but his reserved personality has also meant not everyone warms to him. There is, as well, some lingering resentment among older players toward Bourque’s perceived “softness” in dealing with the Bruins on contracts, a matter some agents will argue cost all elite players in that hockey bargaining is done through comparison shopping. Bourque, however, is hardly suffering. He made, and saved, tens of millions with the Bruins and is currently on a one-year, $5.5-million deal with the Avalanche.
    Most fans would applaud a Stanley Cup to cap off one of the game’s greatest careers. Great athletes who never win the championship—baseball’s Ernie Banks, hockey’s Marcel Dionne—seem to carry an asterisk about with them, and Bourque would prefer not to enter the Hall of Fame with anyone whispering, “He was great, but …”
    Each day when Bourque drives down Peoria toward the Avalanche’s suburban practice facility, he passes by a long line of such reminders. John Elway, the great Denver Broncos quarterback, was destined to go down in sports history as the superstar who could never win the big one until, at the end of his long career, he suddenly won back-to-back Super Bowls. Today, Elway’s name graces a long string of affluent automobile dealerships along Peoria, proof that a name without a “but …” has extra currency long past retirement. Bourque admits no one cheered more than he did when Elway finally won the championship that seemed destined to elude him.
    He calls his own championship chase “Mission: 16W.” Sixteen wins, four rounds of successful best-of-seven series, and the Cup would be his to raise. He even had baseball caps made up to hand around the dressing room and the notion has caught on to the point where they are beginning to sell the caps to the public. Ithas even been noted that “16W” also stands for the exit off the New Jersey Turnpike that will take Bourque and his teammates to the Continental Airlines Arena for Games 3 and 4 and, if necessary, Game 6.
    â€œA good omen,” says Bourque, “… I hope.”
    He finds the story quieter this year than it was