Glen Sather could have chosen his first Stanley Cup championship with the Edmonton Oilers in 1984. He also could have gone with his second, third, fourth, or his fifth. Heck, he could have even chosen the first time the Oilers appeared in the Stanley Cup Final in 1983.
He didn't go anywhere near the championships and all the winning he did with the Oilers when asked during a phone interview for his favorite memory of the near quarter-century he spent in Edmonton.
"One of the best memories, and the one that really stands out to me, is the night I benched Wayne Gretzky when we were playing in Cincinnati in the 1978-79 season, our last in the WHA," Sather told NHL.com. "Wayne came out and scored three goals in the third period and won the game for us after I benched him for a whole period. After that I could see this guy is the star he eventually became."
Thirty-seven years after Sather benched him, Gretzky will join a party of legends in Edmonton on Friday to honor the architect of the great Oilers dynasty of the 1980s.
Prior to the Oilers' game against the New York Rangers, Sather will have his name on a banner go up into the rafters at Rexall Place to fly alongside the names and numbers of those he molded into Hockey Hall of Fame players, including Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson and Grant Fuhr.