Imagine a baseball player hitting 92 homeruns in a single season (and 894 in his career). Or a running back rushing for 2857 yards. Imagine, in auto racing, someone placing on the podium in 52 consecutive races. Think about the kind of player who could average 47 points in the NBA playoffs. Or a golfer shooting a round in the low 50s not once, but four times.

Of course, no player of that caliber exists (yet), but the numbers, in the context of the game in which they were achieved and the impact they had, are all too real. They belong to Wayne Gretzky, the man who remains, with scarcely any argument, the most statistically dominant player in the history of professional sports.

Gretzky owns or shares 61 individual NHL records. Some of them are so ridiculously out of reach that it would take today's best players two or three seasons to reach his lofty single-season totals. In a league where 20 goals is the benchmark of a good scorer and 50 is the mark of an elite player, those numbers were dwarfed by Gretzky's offensive production. He didn't just break records, he shattered them. In his first ten years in the league he made the record book literally obsolete, and in his final ten years he solidified himself as the greatest player ever.

Probably Gretzky's proudest record-and one that he feels will probably never be broken and for which an entire segment on the DVD is devoted to the magnitude of such an accomplishment-is the illustrious 50 in 50. It is an impossible feat for many, but has always been considered the crème de la crème of hockey achievements: to score 50 goals in 50 games, the untouchable milestone, hockey's equivalent of breaking the 4-minute mile. Considering most players have trouble just scoring 50 goals in a whole season, much less 50 games, shows how much of a rarity it is. The legendary Maurice 'Rocket' Richard of the Montreal Canadiens first achieved the mark in 1944, and it stood that way for 30 years before Mike Bossy finally joined him. Since then, only a handful of players have managed to take a run at it, among them Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull and Cam Neely. But in 1981 Gretzky completely obliterated the once sacred test of true hockey greatness, scoring 50 goals in………39 games.

And it wasn't just these ridiculously impeccable performances on the ice that separated him from everyone else. Everything Gretzky did, said, and used was unique, fresh, and different. From day one, he was no ordinary player. He stood out everywhere he went. He was a walking marketing icon. In a game where the typical player was a surly, toothless brute, Gretzky was clean-cut and well-groomed; blonde hair, blue eyes, articulate, with straight, white teeth. He was the first player to wear an extraordinarily high number, choosing the magic #99 after his hero's number, Gordie Howe (#9). He was the first player to wear his jersey differently, with the right side always tucked into his pants-a habit that developed as a child playing hockey with kids 4-5 years older than him and having to wear oversized jerseys. Even his name was naturally flamboyant; something that carried with it a sense of unprecedented greatness: Gretzky. The Great One.

This DVD is an intimate look back on Wayne Gretzky's magnanimous career. It is not done in an A&E style biography pic, nor is it hammered across in a lethargic Ken Burns epic saga. It is a simple interview with Wayne and his father Walter at a posh mansion, hosted by Wayne's longtime friend Keifer Sutherland and interviewed with NHL analyst John Davidson. Spliced with ancient footage, it takes you through his upbringing, how Walter built an ice rink in the backyard and Wayne honed his skills day after day, and then moving up through organized play, and then Junior, through his storied days with the upstart Edmonton Oilers, onto the Los Angeles Kings, and finishing with his final days as a New York Ranger.

The DVD is well done and produced rather professionally, although there really shouldn't have to be so much footage of them talking in that room. People want to see Gretzky in his element, as the wizard playmaker, not the retired memoir writer. I'm not sure why the decision was made to catalogue Gretzky's hockey achievements through what seemed like an impromptu interview, when perhaps one of the other formats may have been a better approach. Because even though it's called The Ultimate Gretzky, it still leaves you wanting more.

As a longtime hockey fan who grew up watching Gretzky do superhuman things with the puck, I was hoping to find lots of classic footage of great Gretzky moments. I remember him doing insanely ridiculous things to his opponents, like one time he ragged the puck all by himself on a penalty kill for the entire two minutes, skating all over the ice and no one being able to check him. I've seen him score goals from impossible angles, and make passes from even more unthinkable ones. He developed his own style and system of play, and everything was so instinctual that there was no way he could teach it to others, and to this day many of his pioneering strategies-including the infamous quarterbacking of the offense from behind the opponent's net-are things no one else has been able to duplicate with much success. Gretzky's playmaking worked for Gretzky only. I was hoping to see more of that. More of his techniques, how he exploited weaknesses, picked teams apart, and literally just racked up the points on a nightly basis on a high-octane team that averaged 6-8 goals a game.

This DVD is good for beginners to the game of hockey or those who may have missed the accolades of Gretzky's storied career. For seasoned hockey fans (in other words, Canadians), much of the footage will be familiar to you, as it seems to borrow the same video clips from every other Wayne Gretzky hi-light reel. Indeed, some of Wayne and Walter's answers will seem recycled as well, as they are fielding the same questions that interviewers have asked them for the past twenty years.

What's missing on the DVD, I felt, was more Gretzky. It is understandable that, Gretzky being one of the producers, the DVD would only want to focus on the positive aspects of his hockey life. But wouldn't something called The Ultimate Gretzky want to include both the good and the bad? If only for posterity? Not that that's an easy thing to do. As far as superstar athletes go, Gretzky has had one of the most remarkably spotless records ever. No troubles at home, no troubles with family, no troubles with drugs, no troubles with leagues or contracts or agents or organizations, no troubles with authority, no troubles with megalomania (he remains one of the humblest sports personalities in the world, and he may be the one person who shouldn't have to be), no troubles with women (the one girl he met and fell in love with he married, and they have five kids and a happy home), no troubles with the law. In fact, up until his tirade at the 2002 Winter Olympics, no one had ever seen him be visibly upset at anything before. He should become a politician. He'd win in a landslide if he did. Most Canadians consider him the leader of their country anyway. There's a reason why his marriage to actress Janet Jones was called "Canada's Royal Wedding".

But despite being a perfect, model citizen, life did not always go his way. He did have difficulties growing up, as any prodigy would who constantly excelled far beyond his peers. Parents of his teammates were not very forgiving, no matter what he was destined to become, as anyone caught in the cutthroat competitiveness of organized youth sports can attest. There is no mention of any of that. There is also no mention of Gretzky's first (and only) rather embarrassing fight (or attempt to fight). But probably the biggest chunk missing is Gretzky's fandangled stint with the St. Louis Blues. It was completely stricken from history, it seems. Not befitting of something called The Ultimate Gretzky.

Ironically, the things that really get you in touch with the kind of person Gretzky is are on the second DVD. On it are outtakes, bonus footage, classic clips from 80s commercials and endorsement deals, and his last days as a player-with great emphasis on what he meant to the fans and hockey in general. The second DVD shows us Gretzky's fetching personality, something that is lacking on the polished press conference-like sheen of the first DVD's interview. I would've been more pleased with The Ultimate Gretzky if it contained more of that-the little moments that made Gretzky not just the player but the person he is, without the pre-ordained covering.

In short, this DVD tells you how great Gretzky was. But It doesn't show you. It is fine as a basic Gretzky primer, but any serious hockey fan will still feel hungry after eating it up.

3***/5