Young players still know No. 99 Players and fans coming of age today know Wayne Gretzky only by the legacy he left before he retired in 1999 -- the videos they see on NHL.com or the NHL Network, the books and stories they read about him. That doesn't mean today's young guns don't know about Gretzky -- or want to know more -- as the Great One reaches his 50th birthday Jan. 26. "You get lots of the young guys asking about what it was like playing with Gretz, what kind of guy he was and things like that," Dallas Stars assistant Charlie Huddy told NHL.com's Robin Brownlee when asked about Gretzky, a teammate in Edmonton and Los Angeles. "They're always going to be asking about him. Did he really score all those goals? Did he really get all those points?" Not surprisingly, the interest especially is big among the youngsters trying to make their own history in Edmonton -- the city Gretzky helped put on the hockey map by leading the Oilers to four Stanley Cups in a five-year period (1984-88). "I get asked something about him literally on a daily basis," former teammate Steve Smith, now an Oilers assistant coach, told Brownlee. "His name comes up all the time with our young players. "It's funny because, sometimes as coaches, we find ourselves bringing up names of players from the past. The kids don't know a lot of them. You bring up the names of some players who were real stars in this League and it's like, 'Who is he talking about?' With Gretz, everybody knows and everybody will continue to know. His is a name that will stand the test of time. It'll never change." Though it's been a dozen years since Gretzky's last NHL game, Huddy feels Gretzky's fame will live on. "It'll never end, and rightfully so," he said. "The player he was, he deserves that recognition for the next, well, forever."