NHL Career
After the World Hockey Association folded in 1979, the Edmonton Oilers and three other teams joined the NHL. Gretzky's success in the WHA carried over into the NHL, despite some critics suggesting he would flounder in what was considered the bigger, tougher, and more talented league. The Oilers, like the other surviving WHA teams, were allowed to protect two goaltenders and two skaters from being reclaimed by the established NHL teams. Under normal circumstances, Gretzky would have been removed from the Oilers and placed in the pool for the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, but his personal services contract prevented this.
Read more about this topic: Wayne Gretzky
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)