72 points in 32 games with the same team, renamed the Seneca Nationals. Despite his offensive statistics—scoring 132 points in 60 games in Junior B—two teams bypassed him in the 1977 Ontario Major Junior Hockey League draft of 16-year-olds. The Oshawa Generals picked Tom McCarthy first, and the Niagara Falls Flyers picked Steve Peters second overall. With the third pick, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds selected Gretzky, even though Walter Gretzky had told the team Wayne would not move to Sault Ste. Marie, a northern Ontario city that inflicts a heavy travelling schedule on its junior team. The Gretzkys made an arrangement with a local family they knew and Wayne played for the Greyhounds, at age 16. It was with the Greyhounds that Gretzky first wore the number 99 on his jersey. He originally wanted to wear number 9—for his hockey hero Gordie Howe—but it was already being worn by teammate Brian Gualazzi. At coach Muzz MacPherson's suggestion, Gretzky settled on 99. World Hockey Association By 1978, the World Hockey Association, which had been in competition with the established NHL since 1972, was clearly struggling. The league, which at one point iced fourteen teams, was down to seven surviving franchises. The WHA had long sought to arrange some sort of merger with the NHL, but were constantly rebuffed by a group of hardline owners in the older league. With the WHA's long-term survival obviously in doubt, Birmingham Bulls owner John F. Bassett believed the only way to gain meaningful leverage over the NHL was to sign as many young and promising superstars as possible. The NHL did not allow the signing of players under age 20, but the WHA had no rules regarding such signings. Bassett saw Gretzky as the most promising young prospect. Several WHA teams courted Gretzky, notably the Bulls and the Indianapolis Racers. Ultimately, it was Racers owner Nelson Skalbania who, on June 12, 1978, signed 17-year-old Gretzky to a seven-year personal services contract worth US$1.75 million. Skalbania opted to have Gretzky sign a personal-services contract rather than a standard player contract in part because by that point it was well known that a majority of NHL owners, if not yet the ¾ required to add new NHL franchises, were willing to absorb at least some WHA teams. While Skalbania knew it was unlikely the Racers would be one of these teams (in part because the WHA