It’s your daily dose of Winter Classic alumni game chatter.
The other day we opined about how the alumni game would go from “fun and nostalgic” to “truly great” if Wayne Gretzky would join in on the festivities on December 31st.
Leave it to ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun to go and talk to Gretzky himself and destroy all of our hopes and dreams.
As it turns out, Gretzky will be hanging out with his family for the holidays and for some bizarre reason, he thinks that no one wants to see him out on the ice.
It’s all right Wayne, seeing Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh last year playing with the Penguins alumni wasn’t one of the coolest things we got to see or anything. In all seriousness, it’s good for 99 to stick by his family and spending the holidays in Philly is something weirdos like us would want to do.
While it’s expected that guys like Brian Leetch, Mike Richter, and Mark Messier would likely take a shot at playing in this game, getting an assortment of other characters in Rangers history would be fun too. Let’s make it a mish-mash of old crowd favorites and free agent pick-ups that didn’t pay off.
Bring us Tie Domi, Marty McSorley, John Ogrodnick, John Vanbiesbrouck and Bobby Holik. Hell, bring us Jeff Beukeboom too.
Most of all, bring us Pavel Bure. Make it an event New York, you’ve got the host of names to pull it off.