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Glen Sather, who came to “start the
conversation” about Gregg playing for his
hometown team.
———
It was the spring of 1983, and Gregg, like
the rest of his Oilers teammates, was
shaving off his playoff beard. His was red
and, by his own admission, truly awful.
The Oilers had just been swept in
the Stanley Cup final by the New York
Islanders. Despite having the likes of
Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Paul
Coffey on the roster — all shoo-in Hall of
Famers — the Oilers were badly outplayed
by an Islanders team who won their fourth
championship in a row.
“Every team has to endure failure in
order to understand success,” he says.
“Our failure was in 1983, when a better
team beat us four games to nothing. As
we were all shaving our beards off, we
were looking in the mirror saying, ‘How
do we beat that team?’ And there was
a pivotal moment where people said ‘I
scored 92 goals, but that didn’t do it.’ ‘I
looked at getting a good contract, that
didn’t do it.’ We realized we needed to
work as team. We just had our butts
handed to us. And then next season,
defence was supported by wingers and
centremen coming back into our zone. We
became five-men units on the ice.”
And from that loss came what the NHL
itself calls the greatest team of the century.
“It’s the same thing with the River-
hawks. If we get just 200 people to a
game, we have to ask, how do we change?
How can we do better? And that’s another
thing I’ve found in medicine — every day
I learn something, because every day I
meet new people.”
At 68, Gregg is still practicing medicine.
He and his wife, Kathy, a former Olympic
speed skater (the couple met at the ’80
Olympics), have four kids and 12 grand-
children. They were all in attendance
when he was placed on the Oilers’ Hall of
Fame in October of 2024 — “some even in
diapers.” Every year, the Dr. Randy Gregg
Award goes to the Canadian university
hockey player who excels not only on
the ice, but in the classroom and in the
community.
But, Gregg has no plans to relax.
“People say to me, ‘when are you going
to retire?’ And I say that I don’t even have
a job — I’m a doctor. And, every day, there’s
the challenge of seeing a new knee, or a
new shoulder. I’ve probably seen them a
thousand times, but each time it’s a new
person. Maybe it’s an immigrant from
Sudan, or maybe it’s a Ukrainian refugee,
or maybe it’s a fellow from downtown
Edmonton. But as long as you focus on
challenges that will make the community
better, maybe one patient at a time, may-
be one baseball team at a time, maybe one
charity at a time, then you get to sleep
pretty well at night.
“I don’t want to slow down. My
wife would get sick and tired of me if I
slowed down.”
And he never wanted to call any other
place home.
“Sure Los Angeles is warm, but it’s
not Edmonton. Philadelphia might
have the Liberty Bell, but it’s not Edmonton.
When you see other countries and other
communities, it’s a really great way to
realize that, sure, it’s 30 below, but that’s
why I have a parka. I think Edmonton
is a magical city. We don’t have to be in
Redondo Beach to have a good life.”
by STEVEN SANDOR
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