Gretzky statue riddled with errors

Around 10,000 people showed up for the unveiling of a Wayne Gretzky statue in Brantford two months ago. And not one of them, including “The Great One” himself, noticed some large errors in the sculpture’s design. The factual flaws may have gone unnoticed forever were it not for the keen eye of a 12-year old hockey fan who visited the statue earlier this month.

This bronze tribute to Wayne Gretzky was uncovered in September and since then, many have stood in the statue’s shadow, gazing up at “The Great One” hoisting the Stanley Cup high above his head. But it took 12-year old hockey fan Joel Englund to reveal what else what hidden behind that curtain:   “I looked up and I saw 89-90 Stanley Cup Champions for the L.A. Kings. Wait a minute that’s not right. They didn’t win the Stanley Cup until 2012.”

At first, Joel thought maybe the inscription represented one of the year’s Gretzky played for the Kings: “And then I looked and I saw 1952, another 1950 year, 1960 and then I thought, hey, wait a minute, Gretzky wasn’t born until 1961.”

When it comes to hockey stats, it would be hard to pull a fast one on Joel. The Brampton native has Aspergers Syndrome, and when he’s not playing the game on the ice or on his Wii, he spends hours reading up on the sport. And Gretzky is an inspiration: “He’s my favourite player of all time. My favourite non-active player in the NHL.”

Once Joel pointed out the incorrect stats, others started noticing some of the player’s names inscribed were not only wrong, they weren’t even players. Brad Pitt is listed as playing for Dallas Stars in 1999 and Bill Clinton for the Blackhawks in 2003. Muddy Waters and Kayne West are also named.

The statue’s creator, sculptor Brad Oldham says the names were never intended to be read individually and that he asked one of his studio employees to inscribe Greek-style characters to fill out the cup. He says he’s very sorry he didn’t catch the error.

And Englund is forgiving: “I’m not doing this for the attention part of it. I’m just doing it so. We all make mistakes, we should just all learn to fix them.”

And the artist who created the statue says these mistakes will be fixed. Oldham told me a crew was supposed to work on the statue either Thursday or Friday. We didn’t see anybody fixing it in the morning. But once it’s done, all of the words on the sculpture will be changed to shapes to just look like it’s full of names.