Wayne Gretzky Masterclass Review 2023: Is It Worth It?

Some people may have never heard of Wayne Gretzky, but if you’ve ever been interested in Ice Hockey, then you’ve probably jumped at the bit to hear some words of wisdom from this absolute legend. 

For the uninitiated, Wayne Gretzky boasts a 20-year-long hockey career, winning 4 Stanley Cups, and making it in the NHL record book. He was named by Sports Illustrated as the “hockey player of the century” and is overall known as a class act of Ice Hockey. 

So to get a Masterclass from a true maestro and Athletic genius sounds like a dream come true, but does it hit the mark? It would be easy for a class like this to turn into Gretzky reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” or coming off as blasé.

After all, so many athletes’ mindsets needed to perform for granted. 

Through this Wayne Gretzky Masterclass review, we will discuss Wayne Gretzky’s Masterclass, the content, and quality, and decide whether it’s worth your time and money. 

Who Is Wayne Gretzky? 

As mentioned previously, over the masterclass course of his decades-spanning career, Wayne Gretzky has become known as the best Ice Hockey player to skate on the rink. 

Though he started his career for the Indianapolis Racers, Gretzky was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in 1979, where he would go on to lead the team to 4 Stanley Cup wins over the course of about 10 years. 

In 1988, Gretzky was traded to the LA Kings. Here he once again took an unsuccessful team and spearheaded them all the way to the finals. 

In California, he was credited for making Ice Hockey popular, and even now he continues to support the game. 

Currently, Gretsky runs a Hockey school that helps and encourages kids from all over the US and Canada to get into the game, and how to get good. 

You don’t get this good or be this successful without an incredible winning mindset and dedication to your craft, so if anyone is qualified to teach a Masterclass on attitude and the athlete’s state of mind, it’s him. 

What Does The Masterclass promise?

“You don’t have to be an Athlete to make an athlete’s state of mind work for you.” 

This is what Wayne Gretzky teaches and says in the trailer for this Masterclass, and is a prime example of the promise that this course is offering. 

It’s not specifically for hockey players, or even for people looking to become the most accomplished professional athletes (although it is obviously tailored more in that area.) 

This class teaches the athlete’s mindset and what goes through the fundamentals of honing your craft, finding your motivation and passion, and how you can make the right decisions. 

This class is not just about becoming a world-class athlete, but about how dedication and perseverance can bring success to those who pursue it. 

What Is Included In The Masterclass

This class consists of 19 video lessons, with the average length being around 6 minutes long. Overall the masterclass courses come out at just over 2 hours long (2 hours and 7 minutes to be precise), which makes it one of the shortest Masterclass series. 

Due to the bite-size nature of each video, it’s easy to break this course up and tackle it over a week, although you can power through it all at once if you want to. The short videos make the information a lot easier to digest. 

As well as the videos, you also get a 21-page workbook that you can read through at your leisure. The book summarizes the different stages of Gretzky’s own life and the lessons that can be learned from each. These lessons on this online learning platform are broad and can be assigned to many different parts of life. 

What I liked

Just because you’re a great athlete doesn’t mean you’re going to be a great speaker, but Gretzky just so happens to be both. He is a really engaging speaker and has a way of encapsulating the student in his stories. 

There’s a feel of fatherly advice that runs through the heart of the course, which, when combined with the casual, almost conversational tone he takes, makes the information a lot easier to take in and understand. 

Though some people may prefer a more serious and academic approach to the topic, the personal take that Gretzky gives this course feels more apt. You really feel like you’re getting a special talk from a retired legend, rather than a scientist talking to a teleprompter. 

Personally, I’ve never been much for hockey, but even I found myself entranced by the stories that Gretzky tells throughout the course, and feel like I have much more of an interest in the sport than I did before I watched it. 

If you’re already an ice hockey fan, or even a fan of Wayne Gretzky himself, then you will absolutely love the insights that you get into the man and the sport as an industry. 

Does It Deliver On Its Promise?

Although I think that this Masterclass is a wonderful character study into Wayne Gretzky, and the world of ice hockey, I’m not sure that the advice given is as actionable as he hoped it would be. 

A lot of the actual advice boils down to “work hard and learn from your mistakes”, which maybe isn’t as deep or detailed as we’ve come to expect from Masterclasses. 

However, there are great tidbits about life and passion in there that might be very inspiring to a lot of people. 

If you were hoping for an academic study on the psychology of athletes, you’ll find it very lacking. However, if you’re young and looking for how you should start your career, then you’ll definitely find something interesting here. 

That said, some advice is only really applicable if you’re playing a championship team sport, like hockey, or football. If you’re looking at getting into professional boxing, for example, then there are going to be some sections that aren’t applicable to you at all. 

As well as this, the workbook is unfortunately somewhat lacking. It’s well-written and user-friendly, but it doesn’t really add much to the course.

It most just summarizes what Wayne Gretzky has already said. In this case, I’d much rather just listen to him speak as he is, as I mentioned, a wonderfully engaging speaker. 

Bottom Line

Would I recommend this single Masterclass and ask you to subscribe for an annual membership? Well, that’s complicated.

If you’re a fan of Wayne Gretzky or ice hockey in general, then you’ll probably find some very interesting anecdotes and tidbits of knowledge in there that you didn’t already know, as well as classic footage of Gretzky’s old games. 

However, if you were hoping to get a thorough understanding of how to build yourself up as a professional athlete, then you’re pretty much out of luck. 

For the price of a Masterclass subscription (see also ‘Can You Cancel Your Masterclass Subscription At Anytime?‘), you expect more than anecdotal stories with little nuggets of advice at the end. You’re better off signing up for the Lewis Hamilton course, as that is more technical-based. 

Wayne Gretzky is a fantastic storyteller and an engaging speaker, if you’re a fan or a beginner athlete, check out his Masterclass, if not, you can probably give it a miss.