“Brantford’s scoring ace nets nine,” screamed the headline on the three-inch Canadian Press wire story that ran in The Toronto Star on Saturday, April 1, 1972, and it was no joke.

A diminutive four-foot, four-inch, 70-pound scoring machine from Brantford, Ontario had once again stood the world on its collective ear, the previous day during Novice Division play at the Fourth Annual Burlington Golden Horseshoe Invitational Hockey Tournament in the Burlington Central Recreation Centre, (better known as Central Arena).

Never before or since have so many people gathered in that facility, they filled all the seats, stood three-deep along the back of the arena, and down the Drury Lane wall of the rink, and all the way around to the penalty box just to watch one player. He was not just any player…he was Wayne Gretzky!

“He’s too small,” they said. “He’s too scrawny. Watch he’s going to get killed when he plays bigger kids.” Well he played the bigger kids and he himself became the biggest player of them all…in stature alone.

So there he was in Burlington Central Arena, the day before April Fools Day, the perfect time for a joke, but he was no joke.

I remember going to the rink to see what was happening on the ice, and discovering there was not a parking space to be found, not in the arena parking lot or at the Burlington Family YMCA across the road, nor for blocks around.

Three blocks south of the rink on Seneca Avenue, I found a parking spot. The first thoughts that came to mind centred on the fact that this was not the final

Wayne Gretzky

Press article that Saturday, he rotated between defence and centre, depending on how the game was going. And no one seemed to mind, they were all glad just to be on the same sheet of ice.

When I say he was on the ice all the time, it is little bit of an exaggeration. The truth is he left the ice twice. Once was to serve a two-minute minor penalty, and other was to have skates re-tied. Something you never forget.

So dominant a player was he that he scored nine goals and assisted on three others as Brantford trounced, or should I say he trounced London 12-1 in this Novice Division game.

Wayne finished the 1971-72 season with 365 goals and a myriad of assists. He ended that day at Central with a season total of 343 goals, 124 assists for 467 points in 75 regularly scheduled and exhibition games. Truly amazing.

For the first time in the history of the Burlington Golden Horseshoe AAA Invitational Hockey Tournament, Burlington teams not only qualified for four of the five championships, they won them all on Saturday, December 30, 2006 from Novice to Midget except for Atom, but even that had a Burlington ring to it.

In the early stages of the competition, Tournament Director Jerry Park and Burlington Mayor Cam Jackson posthumously presented the Past Director’s Plaque to Cheryl Quinn, the wife of late John Quinn. Quinn passed away on the previous Thanksgiving Weekend, shortly after agreeing to serve another two-year term at the helm of the tournament committee. The presentation was part of the tournament’s opening ceremonies on Wednesday, December 27th at Appleby Ice Centre.

One of the teams taking part in the ceremony was the Hamilton Major Atom Junior Bulldogs, coached by Craig Smith, brother-in-law of late tournament director. Smith’s team went on to win the Atom title as goalkeeper and championship Most Valuable Player, Mark Sinclair shutout Waterloo Wolves 1-0 on a first period marker by Zach Maciel set up by Cristiano DiGiacinto.

Teams come from everywhere and they have done so for the past 37 years. There are absolutely no signs of it ending any time soon, according to Park, who is marking his fifth time as Tournament Director. One of the teams making a first appearance in the tournament this year was a Midget entry from Liepaja, Latvia. That club advanced to the semifinal round before being eliminated 4-2 by Burlington in the tournament, which has been the favourite jumping off spot for European teams that have come to Canada six times during the past 37 years.

“We had 60 teams this year which is down from what we’ve had in past years, but that being said we decided this year to offer the most games for any team in a regular tournament. We offered five games to each of the teams in the Novice, Atom, Peewee and Bantam Divisions. The Midgets were guaranteed four games before the semifinals and championships, which made us unique to most of the other tournaments. We were quite happy with that,” said Park.