<i>Sports Illustrated</i> followed The Great One's career right from the very beginning. Starting in 1978, when Gretzky was a young phenom playing for the Soo Greyhounds, they had their best writers cover his rise to fame and subsequent dominance of the sport. <br>His staggering career stats tend to overshadow the struggles he faced in his career -- the early days in Edmonton, when he was establishing himself as the greatest player, but could not lead his team to a cup. The years after the trade that shook the hockey world he spent years trying to lead a new team to glory, only managing to reach the final once more, in 1993, and losing in five games. Covered as well are his forgotten goal-droughts, the thoughts that he had lost his touch in the early nineties. His struggles with injury and playing though his father's near death. <i>The Great One</i> reads not like a sports book, but a biography of one of the greatest athletes of all time.<br><br><i>Sports Illustrated</i>'s greatest writers all contribute articles, EM Swift, Michael Farber, Jack Kalla, to tell the complete story of Wayne Gretzky's career.