{"id":2409,"date":"2016-10-12T23:59:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T03:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=2409"},"modified":"2016-10-14T00:49:43","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T04:49:43","slug":"wayne-gretzky-hired-front-office-role-edmonton-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2016\/10\/12\/wayne-gretzky-hired-front-office-role-edmonton-oilers\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Gretzky Hired to Front Office Role With the Edmonton Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Great One, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gretzwa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wayne Gretzky<\/a><\/strong>, is back working for the <strong>Edmonton Oilers<\/strong>. 28 years after they traded him to <strong>Los Angeles<\/strong>, and seven years after he last worked in the NHL, as head coach of the <strong>Phoenix Coyotes<\/strong>; Gretzky has been named\u00a0partner and vice chairman on Wednesday. \u00a0The announcement came just hours before the Oilers opened the brand new <strong>Rogers Arena<\/strong>, with a pre-game ceremony featuring Gretzky and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/messima01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Messier<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Wayne Gretzky Hired to Front Office Role With the Edmonton Oilers<\/h3>\n<p>Gretzky will be involved in hockey related discussions, though the final decision making power rests with vice-president of hockey operations and general manager <strong>Peter Chiarelli<\/strong>. Gretzky will act as an advisor for the team. \u00a0His brother <strong>Keith Gretzky <\/strong>is the Oilers assistant general manager.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve had opportunities over the last three, four or five years to be involved in the NHL,\u201d Gretzky <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/gretzky-returning-to-oilers-in-working-role-1.583911\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said to TSN<\/a>. \u201cI chose to step back and take my time. We felt like this was a really great opportunity for me to get back in the game and do what we all want to do: win a Stanley Cup. I\u2019m privileged and proud to be back as an Oiler.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is Peter\u2019s team,\u201d Gretzky reiterated. \u201cWhatever Peter wants, I\u2019ll be available for him. He\u2019s a tremendous general manager, he\u2019s got a great track record. He\u2019s done a tremendous job with the Oilers. That\u2019s not for me to interfere with. You\u2019re not going to see me calling teams (for trades). That\u2019s for Peter to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gretzky will report to Oilers CEO<strong> Bob Nicholson<\/strong> and owner <strong>Darryl Katz.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: TORONTO, ON &#8211; SEPTEMBER 27: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and hockey icon Wayne Gretzky unveil the League&#8217;s Centennial celebration plans for 2017 during a press conference at the World Cup of Hockey 2016 at Air Canada Centre on September 27, 2016 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, is back working for the Edmonton Oilers. 28 years after they traded him to Los Angeles, and seven years after he last worked in the NHL, as head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes; Gretzky has been named\u00a0partner and vice chairman on Wednesday. \u00a0The announcement came just hours before the Oilers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,34],"tags":[138,37,38,590],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-news","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-wayne-gretzky"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}