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Masstown farmer launches pumpkins over a kilometre for charity | SaltWireSYDNEY, N.S. – Standing behind the net, Kevin Morrison looks up the ice and sees one of his young teammates curling at the redline and providing him with a pass option.
At the time, Morrison and the young Brantford, Ont., teenager were playing for the World Hockey Association’s Indianapolis Racers. Gretzky was brought in to save the team and also improve the league. “He was dedicated, he was only 17 years old, but you could tell that he was going to be something special,” said Morrison, who was considered both an enforcer and offensive defenceman at 215 pounds.
“He has to be the best,” said Morrison, who has the puck Gretzky scored the goal with. “Just the statistics and everything that he did and the Stanley Cups and Canada Cups, he was a great player and a great ambassador. Kevin Morrison of Sydney played parts of two seasons with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association and in 1978 played with Wayne Gretzky. CONTRIBUTED - Jeremy FraserDuring his time with the Racers, Gretzky stayed with a billet, who just so happened to live down the road from Morrison, which helped him get to know the man now known as"The Great One" better.
One day, Morrison arrived home only to find one of his Alexander Keith’s beer had been opened in the fridge – he immediately knew it had to be Gretzky. “I told him that he was on the table now, but I would see if I could get the boys to go easy on him … we tortured him a little bit for a day or two, pouring hot and cold water on him and left him there for the training – it was all in good fun just to get him going.”
He was drafted in the third round, No. 35 overall, by the New York Rangers in the 1969 NHL Entry Draft and at 19 years old was one of the earliest Nova Scotians drafted to the NHL. Morrison’s WHA record includes being the first defenceman to record a hat trick, the first to score 20 goals in a season, which he managed to do three times, and being named to a number of all-star teams.
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