Name: Life Lessons From "Canada's Hockey Dad" Walter Gretzky
Uploaded: 2023-11-24T14:00:15.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Life Lessons From "Canada's Hockey Dad" Walter Gretzky' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Life Lessons From "Canada's Hockey Dad" Walter Gretzky' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-24. Transcript available.

when you when you look at like um like when you were a kid was most of your
relationship with your
dad like hockey like was it tough to because if you became like if you excelled
at something early
right and a lot of times fathers and sons will it's tough for fathers and sons
to find like a
common ground sometimes to connect on on things you know parents are always
putting their kids
into different things and and dads are always trying to connect with their
children you know
was there other ways that you could like was that most of y'all's relationship
like i'm just kind
of like i guess i'm curious like what it was like we had a normal relationship
like normal father son
my dad was sort of this hockey father of the country you know people loved my
dad walter gretzky man but
i would always say but it was my mom behind the scenes that kept her family she
was a wonderful lady
and she always kind of stayed out of the limelight like when i was a kid and i'd
play
all the parents used to sit sort of together and my mom would sit in a corner
by herself
not too often you can say that people don't have enemies but i don't think my
dad had an enemy
like he was beloved by everyone um i remember one time i came home when i when
i would go home and
visit them every now and then you know my dad would tell the whole city right
that you were coming
yeah so i got smart on that and i i called my mom and i'd say i'll be home
tomorrow don't tell dad
so i get there in the morning this is hilarious and i walk in and there's a guy
lying on the couch
oh yeah i get over to my mom and i kind of know everybody that goes in and out
of our house you
know my mom was in the kitchen and i said who's lying on the couch who is that
she goes i don't
know um but he's hitchhiking across the country from newfoundland wanted to see
the house so your dad
told him to spend the night and have a good meal so that's the kind of guy my
dad was and the guy
spent the night and got up in the morning and him and i had coffee at the time
you got to get a
picture with my jersey on when i happened to be home that day and he was hitchhiking
the rest of
canada that was the kind of dad my dad wow they should put a jerk they should
put him in a jersey
and let him hitchhike the country forever and just make it like a thing you
know well you know it's not
the stanley cup but hey guys have you met stanley and everybody just picks him
up there you go yeah
it'd be funny my dad would be in the car and after the game he would say to me
his favorite line was
always no matter how good you think you are there's somebody out there better
than you
and i'd say okay and even when i was 15 16 when people said okay he's going to
be a professional
hockey player my dad never one time said you know oh he's a can't miss or he's
going to make it
i mean he hoped because he knew how much i loved it but he never pressured me
so we had an ice rink
in my backyard from the time i was yeah yeah i saw some lore about that yeah so
my dad would go and
he would buy a sprinkler head in december which they always thought he was
crazy who's buying a
sprinkler at christmas time anyway and he would put it out in the middle of the
ice and he would let
it go back and forth for like two hours and then go move it another part of the
ice and his ice was
always about this thick and it would last till probably the end of march did he
lay a good rank
oh he had the best really yeah and he was funny people used to stop by the
house and say
how does walter get his grass so green what do you do what are you putting in
your grass
my dad didn't do anything it was just probably from the ice being so
good for the the grass he always had the greenest grass in the neighborhood and
didn't do anything
i my dad used to always tease me when i was 14 13 14 15 he'd always say if you
do make professional
hockey just remember but i just buy me a cadillac yeah so i bought one of those
big brits cadillacs i
brought it home right so the summer goes by the year goes by go back home the
next summer
and i look at the car and there's like 80 miles on it and i go and i said to my
mom i said
i bought dad this car why is he not driving it she goes he does he can't drive
it to work because he
doesn't want to have a nicer car than his boss he ended up i think he sold it i
don't think he really
ever drove it but it was a it was a good father-son thing that we had together
growing up as a kid
right yeah do you did you speak at your dad's funeral what was that like yeah i
did i spoke
both at my mom and my dad's um and sorry to hear yeah sorry about your fault
yeah it was
you know what it was funny because there's something that just takes over
inside you that you get through
it right like i remember my mom passed my dad called me and said you know will
you speak and i said of
course so when my dad was passing my brothers and my sister said you know will
you speak and i said yeah
the ironic thing was when my dad passed we were still in the midst of the
pandemic
so it was actually in a lot of ways it was nice for our family because there
was only 22 of us there
and you know because you couldn't invite everybody had it had it not been at
that time he probably would
have had to get buried or had the funeral in a in a hockey arena yeah so many
people he's so he was so
loved by so many people so when i i found both times sitting there going oh
this is going to be hard
and then when i got up there it just kind of flowed because my dad when i spoke
at his he was so religious
my dad and you know he never missed church on a sunday when every sunday and he
used to tease the kids
because he tried out for the church choir and they wouldn't let him in it
come on bro yeah so there was a little boy across the street didn't let anybody
disabled and blind and my dad picked him up every morning at 10 a every sunday
morning at 10 a.m
and took him to church every sunday and then brought him back home he'd taken mcdonald's
and then back
home and he did it every sunday so when my dad was passing he's so religious
but i remember he was still
fighting to stay down here so to speak um he was 22 days basically on a deathbed
right and uh the
minister would come every night at our house and he would give him his last
rights and i said ride
him out again yeah i say to minister my dad's got the biggest hurt you're
coming i'll see you tomorrow
so anyway when when we did give the uh when i did give the ug i could feel like
he was there and he
got me through it wow that's fascinating man yeah i remember i went to my dad's
funeral it was like
i don't know it's just such a strength it's such a i don't know it's wild
seeing something like that
happen i think do you think it helped that your father had such a faith that he
gave you so like
oh yeah yeah like he knew his life after death he was going to see his mother
he's going to see his
father so he's probably part of him was probably excited huh yeah i think yeah
in some ways but
i think he wanted to be here as long as he could yeah he loved being around his
grandkids
he loved being around people um he was just really special in that sense
Thank you.