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The joe louis arena roared as The home announcer put all of his energy into calling out the name of the man every 20,000 people paid to see in person. Some wings fans still couldn't believe what they were seeing. Team Jerseys with the number 99 were sold out way in advance. Gretzky's arrival, plus the two consecutive conference finals meant, that, For the first time since the girdie howe era, there was a real sense of hope, of incomparable hype behind the red wings, and the joe was full of it as their saviour steps onto the ice for the first time as a player for his childhood team.

The roar continued well beyond the first puck drop. Wayne was used to the crowd cheering for him in edmonton, but this deafening roar, coming from fans of the team he grew up dreaming to play for...his 7-year old self was screaming inside him. Of course, he kept a poker face, but you can bet your house that he found it really cool.

If the fans were going crazy at the sight of him wearing a red wing jersey, imagine him, walking around the joe louis arena, soaking in the applause and looking at the endless amount of division and championship banners of yore, with the numbers of the likes of lindsay, delvecchio, pronovost, Sawchuk and, of course, gordie howe, looking down on him, as if they were telling him that it is wayne's time to lead this franchise back to glory.

Then, he looked at the wings bench, and saw both jacques demers shouting instructions at him and his linemates gerard gallant and paul maclean...aswell as the young captain of the club, looking at him with scrutiny, as if he was envious of the attention he was getting.

And with a bit of reason, too, as steve yzerman seemed to be immediately ignored since gretzky arrived in detroit. While he did have the full trust of mr. Illitch and jacques demers and they promised that there will be no preferential treatments to anybody, Stevie Y still felt like a lion seeing a new male walking close by his pride. He was the cornerstone of the red wings, the youngest captain in NHL history at only 21 years of age, and he conteibuted massively to the wings's two consecutive conference finals. To see somebody else taking the spotlight, even if its freaking wayne gretzky, ruffled a few of his feathers.

Right from the start, during their first practice together, stevie made his presence felt by checking wayne hard on the boards during full-contact drills. Gretzky wasn't expecting this, but one look at stevie saw that he wasn't like any young player. He had that look on his face, the same eyes that he saw on his old friend mark messier.

He smiled. He got the message...and he delivered one of his own, taking advantage of stevie being too focused on making the perfect pass by stealing the puck from him before going to his favorite spot behind the net. Then, he intentionally tested stevie's defensive skills, deking him and delivering his trademark laser passes with no restraints. Eventually, he attempted a spinorama on stevie...but didn't expect the young british columbian to steal the puck from him! Looks like he'll have more fun than he thought!

Back to the present, the game against the los angeles kings started off pretty well, with wayne winning his first faceoff against young jimmy carson, rumoured to be part of the kings's failed trade attempt for the greta one. However, the game only toom 5 seconds for the first penalty to be called, as doug crossman tripped a charging paul maclean. This led to yzerman jumping on the ice and join wayne on the first power play of the game.

The two looked at each other, like two rivals attempting to indimidate each other...but, when the puck dropped, any animosity between them was gone, and they actually worked really well together, with stevie checking Dave taylor, getting the puck back and pass it to wayne, who scores his first goal as a red wing on his first shot attempt.

While the arena was erupting in happiness, the wings players congratulated each other on the play. Gretzky and yzerman only fist bumped each other, both with a faint smile on their faces.

Unfortunately for them, the wings would immediately concede two goals shortly after, one from Bernie Nichols and another from luc robitaille on a laser pass by dman Steve duchesne.

Gretzky's first game as a red wing ended up being a dramatic shoot-out, with wayne scoring a hat trick and assisting paul maclean's game-winning goal to have the wings win it 6-4.

While everybody in the arena went home hapoy and satisfied that their wings won the game, gretzky was feeling bittersweet. Sure, he's glad that he's in detroit, and the team had promising pieces, but there were some glaring issues. Glen hanlon's a nice guy, but he's not exactly a top goalie. And the less said about the defense, the better.

Illitch was right. The first few years are gonna be tough...



UP NEXT: 1988-1989 Season Report.

EDIT: fixed some mistakes, as tomas sandstrom didn't join the kings until 1990. Also, stupid grammar errors.