Old Oilers stick boy auctioning autographed Gretzky and Howe sticks

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Rick Elaschuk’s day job 37 years has been selling furniture at The Brick which pays the bills and he likes it, but, really, it was his night hobby at the Edmonton Oiler games as a moonlighting stick boy turned stick man that he loved.

He was Rick the Stick then and he was a collector like no other, not just on-ice memories but memorabilia, mainly autographed Wayne Gretzky stuff, which proves he knew an enduring star, shining bright, very quickly into his part-time night job. He’s got two beauties for sale now — the stick Gretzky used in New York Islanders-Oiler final series, the Oilers first Cup victory, signed “To Rick the Stick, your pal Wayne Gretzky, May 1984.” The other stick is from Gordie Howe that Elaschuk scored in 1974 when Howe took his game to the World Hockey Association. Howe signed it “To Rick best wishes Gordie Howe.”

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It’s always been about collecting for Rick the Stick, now 67 and not doing the night gig at the hockey rink any longer. But he pulled back a curtain one day to a curious local sportswriter to show off not just sticks but also haberdashery — the first home jersey Gretzky ever wore as a teenager in 1978 (also Mark Messier’s last Oiler No. 11) — one of  100s of items Elaschuk decided to sell on classicauctions.net in 2005.

It fetched more than a pretty penny for Rick the Stick back then, with a large chunk also going to the Oilers Community Foundation. The Gretzky rookie jersey sold for $126,000 at Classic, then it went for way more.

“Somebody told me it resold for half a million,” he said.

Record price

Also, a Gretzky autographed “To Rick, Best Wishes, May 26, 1988” stick (Gretzky’s last game as an Oiler) that sold at Classic for $5,622 on their final bid website 19 years ago, was resold at Sotheby’s for a record hockey stick price of $336,000 this summer.

Elaschuk kept some sticks aside from the original batch of items, and has them in a glass cabinet of his condo a few miles from the old Rexall Place, has two unique sticks for sale. He has the Gretzky Titan wood stick from the Oilers first Cup celebration, the only one Gretzky ever signed to “Rick the Stick” and also the Howe Sher-Wood stick for sale at Kastner Auctions with the bidding online starting Monday and the auction Oct. 26.

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“To have both of these sticks up for auction just seems right to me, Gordie and Wayne together again., two of the most iconic names in hockey. Gordie has a bridge named after him and Wayne has a freeway and both have hockey records up the ying-yang,” said Elaschuk, who certainly remembers the 1972 photo of an 11-year-old Gretzky and the great Howe at a sportsman’s dinner in Gretzky’s hometown of Brantford —Gordie playfully wrapping a stick around No. 99’s left ear. Two minutes for hooking, the captain said, on the Brantford Expositor newspaper front page.

The Gretzky 1984 stick is very sentimental to Elaschuk.

“Somebody said to me this is like the bat boy from the Yankees getting a game-used Babe Ruth bat from a World Series and one day the bat boy says ‘I have to get rid of this,’’’ he said.’ “I know baseball’s much bigger than hockey but I’m that stick boy.”

The second stick in the auction was autographed by incomparable Howe to Rick when Elaschuk was 17 and “Mr. Hockey” was then 46 years old, playing for the Houston Aeros. He was the big name on the WHA all-star squad that played the Russians in a series of games.

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“I was the only guy around that day. I decided to ask if Gordie could autograph a stick for me. He said sure, grabbed an old beat-up stick and got out a felt marker. I just ran home, man was I excited. I mean I just got Mr. Hockey to sign a stick for me and nobody else was asking for anything,” said Elaschuk.

The 1984 Oilers-Islanders Cup final was a 2-3-2 best-of-seven that ended in five as the Oilers won at home, their first of five Stanley Cups. With the Oilers up 3-1 in the series, the morning of Game 5, Elaschuk asked Gretzky for a stick, figuring it would be pandemonium post-game if the Oilers were celebrating the Cup.

How high will the bidding go?

“I knew after the game it would be crazy if we won and it was wild, so I grabbed one off the stick rack (the tape is ripped) the morning of Game 5… I think it was the stick he had used in the games on the Island and maybe Game 3 or 4 here, but not Game 5. It was the most beat-up stick. I asked Wayne to please date the stick which is why he put May, 1984. And to “Rick the Stick” was different from all the other  times (1985, 1987, 1988) he signed sticks in Cup years,” said Elaschuk.

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“That series in ’84 was David and Goliath, that was a very big deal, the first one for the Oilers. We were having the time of lives back then and we all thought it (winning) would never end. A collector told me that getting a stick signed to “Rick the Stick”, sounded way better than just “To Rick.”

So how high will bidders go for Elaschuk’s stuff now?

“I’m guessing this Gretzky stick will bid up to half-a-mil in our auction,” said Dan Modi, the chief operating officer of Kastner, who said the online bidding will start Monday. Who will be bidding on not just the Gretzky Titan but the Howe stick? Elaschuk wants both as a package set.

“Someone who is an Oilers fan who lives in the U.S. now will probably buy the Gretzky. They are investing money in this, storing it and they will sell it in the future. Yes, even if the item is not signed to them. All they see is the signature of Wayne Gretzky,” said Modi.”

“When I had my other auction in 2005 with Classic, they asked what I wanted to keep back and I said the Gretzky stick because it was used in the final series of the first Oilers Cup and it was autographed to “Rick the Stick”, and the Gordie Howe because it’s Gordie Howe.”

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So, now both are for sale.

He’s being selling off his memorabilia, obviously for some financial gain, but also because he wants other people to love what he’s loved. He doesn’t have any kids to give it to. “I’m not getting any younger, then I caught COVID a few years ago and I had some bad days. A guy told me ‘Rick, if you drop dead tomorrow, there’s no story to all of this.’ So, with these two sticks, one that 40 years old and the other 50… it’s Wayne and Gordie. I look at it like two of the most iconic guys back together once again,’’ said Elaschuk.

“When Gordie Howe was playing with his sons (Mark and Marty) in the WHA, Gordie had grey hair on the back of his chest. I kept calling him Mr. Hockey. He said to me, ‘Rick, call me Gordie.’ When they giving out pucks for a warm-up one night, I said ‘go get ‘em Mr. Hockey.’ He gave me a big whack with his elbow. I fell into the sticks because I was the stick-boy when Houston came to town. I could hear people saying behind the glass ‘Gordie warmed up his elbow on the stick-boy’s face,’’’ laughed Elaschuk.

Elaschuk is the king of collectors, even asking his late mom into helping out.

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“I always wanted an autograph from (Vladislav) Tretiak and one day I heard he was having a signing at West Edmonton Mall but I was working (Brick), so I asked my mom if she would go for me. I said ‘mom, here’s fifty bucks for taxis, go upstairs to the Bay at the mall where he’s signing, tell Tretiak it’s for me… he might remember me from being around the rink because I was the Russian’s stick boy,’’’ said Elaschuk.

“What does my mom do? She takes the bus, pays $2, talks to Tretiak, gets the autograph on a stick for me, then she’s on TV, talking to Tretiak in Ukrainian and they’re having a great time. She gets back on the bus for two more bucks and takes the other $46 I gave her and she goes to bingo,” laughed Elaschuk.

And probably collected her winnings.

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