The Backgammon Game that Changed Hockey

How did a backgammon game changed hockey? 20 years after Edmonton Oilers moved their leading player Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings, a forgotten background story from Gretzky former trade and its relation to a 1978 high stakes backgammon game is published for the first time. 

The official NHL website asks whether all the Stanley Cups (the most desirable trophy in ice hockey) won by Edmonton Oilers during the second half of the 1980s a result of an antecessor bet in a backgammon game? And Larry Gordon, who managed Edmonton Oilers in 1978 approves that Wayne Gretzky, Eddie Mio and Peter Driscoll were part of the stakes in one fateful backgammon game. 

The Facts 

In 1978, Wayne Gretzky, who was admired for his talent on the hockey field since the age of 6, was the 17 years old hope of World Hockey Association team the Indianapolis Racers with a $1.75 million contract.

After only eight games in the Racers' uniform, Gretzky was a player at the Edmonton Oilers, then a WHA team. This move cost the Racers $40,000 loss per game.

The backgammon game between Nelson Skalbania (Racers' owner) and Peter Pocklington (Oliers' owners), apparently on a private jet, took place sometime in between. Obviously, Pocklington was the winner of the backgammon game. In case of a loss, he would have sacrificed an expensive art piece; instead, he stepped out with three hockey players and $850,000 in cash. 

And the rest, as they say, is history: the Edmonton Oilers, by then a part of the National Hockey League, won four Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1988, Gretzky's was named the greatest hockey player of all times and hockey was no longer a negligible sport. 

Prologue: "The Trade" 

In August 9, 1988, Gretzky was traded again in a deal known by this day as "The Trade". In return of Gretzky and two of his teammates, Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski, Pocklington got two of the Kings' players, Jimmy Carson and Martin Gelinas, $15 million in cash, and the team first-round draft picks in the upcoming season. In interviews, Gretzky explained the trade with Pocklington's short infuse due to his failed business ventures, or was it a bad rolls day on the backgammon table?