Wayne Gretzky and the hockey world will ‘never forget’ Ace Bailey, Mark Bavis and 9/11 (2024)

The 17-year-old boy looked to his 30-something roommate — a worn-out vet limping on one good knee — and asked him about greatness.

As Ace Bailey teetered through the waning days of a career that earned him two Stanley Cups as a bruising tough guy with the Boston Bruins, he did his best to tell Wayne Gretzky what it took.

He’d witnessed it first-hand playing alongside the young star’s boyhood idol, Bobby Orr. He knew about the expectation that weighed on him and the target he wore as he wove through opponents, writing a new chapter in the game’s history. Bailey knew the teenager — so young he was still enrolled in high school classes in Edmonton — was the next one, perhaps even better than any of the greats who came before.

“Kid,” Bailey said. “You listen to me, and if you follow what I’m telling you, you’re going to win a lot of championships.”

And when Bailey spoke, Gretzky listened. Far from home for the first time, he looked to his elder roommate as a figure of comfort and guidance.

“He reminded me so much of my dad,” Gretzky says.

During his rookie season in the WHA in 1978, the skinny boy from Brantford bombarded his Oilers roommate with questions about Orr. He was a sponge for the colorful stories Bailey told with wit and wisdom. Bailey looked after Gretzky inside and outside the locker room. He followed Bailey’s example on and off the ice.

After Bailey’s playing days were through, he remained a constant in the greatest career the game has known and was a part of five more Stanley Cup celebrations as a scout with Edmonton. The Oilers brass flew him in to chat with Gretzky whenever he found himself in a slump or needing a pep talk. There were only two people whose presence in a rink would make Gretzky play even greater: his father, Walter — and Ace Bailey.

“He was like my best friend. Like a brother,” Gretzky says. “My second dad.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, Garnet “Ace” Bailey and Mark Bavis — both scouts for the Los Angeles Kings — boarded United Airlines Flight 175 at Logan International Airport in Boston. The flight, bound for Los Angeles, was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists and deliberately flown into the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Mark Bavis was 31.

Ace Bailey was 53.

They were among the 2,977 people killed in the attacks.

Two decades later, memories of their lives and tributes to their legacies reverberate through the tightly knit hockey community — a small but powerful part of the countless lives taken and forever changed that day.

Today when Mike Bavis thinks of his identical twin brother, Mark, he tries to think of the happiest times — those early days when it was just the two of them, the youngest in a family of eight, playing minor hockey in Massachusetts.

It was the Bobby Orr era in Boston — an age of greatness — when everyone wanted to live at the rink.

“We just had so much time together,” Mike says. “We were inseparable in so many ways.”

The Bavis boys starred in high school at Catholic Memorial, where the talent they’d forged through competitive battles of brotherhood caught the attention of Jack Parker, the long-time coach at Boston University. The twins landed full scholarships with the Terriers where they were so in sync and inseparable that they were referred as “the Bavi.”

The identical twins were almost impossible to tell apart off the ice. Parker had to look at the freckles on their ears to distinguish them. But they were complete opposites on the ice. Mike was a hard-nosed, intense right winger — while Mark was a clever, creative player. Their personalities mirrored their on-ice play, Parker says. Mark was always quick with a laugh and joke, while Mike seemed much more serious.

The Bavi carved out successful collegiate careers skating alongside local talent and future NHL players like Keith Tkachuk and Tony Amonte. They took a trip to the Final Four — another national championship game.

“One of the reasons why those teams were successful was that they were all good guys. They’re all close-knit,” Parker says. “And I think Mike and Mark were a big part of that being good, good people.”

But while the Bavi had considerable ability on the ice, they both developed an ability to understand and teach the game. After a few seasons in the minors — teaming up one last time with the South Carolina Stingrays in 1994 — the brothers looked toward bright futures on the bench.

Parker recruited Mike to return to Boston University as an assistant coach, a job he almost passed up because his twin brother had told him he was interested. Instead, Mark took on the same role at Harvard, one of the Terriers’ biggest rivals about 10 minutes down the road. The competitiveness forged through years of minor hockey carried over into their coaching days, as both Bavis brothers stood on opposing benches. But that was where their identical paths diverged.

While Mike would spend 15 seasons alongside Parker with the Terriers, Mark saw other avenues in the game. Parker always believed his old player had the mind to become a front-office executive at the highest level. And after a couple seasons with Harvard and a stint coaching in the minors, Mark pursued an opportunity to join the Los Angeles Kings as an amateur scout on the East Coast.

With the Kings, Mark Bavis met a long-time mentor to greatness — Ace Bailey — who followed his close friend Gretzky from Edmonton to L.A. Bailey was now working for the organization as a pro scout in the Boston area, where he’d first found fame as a Bruin.

Bruce Boudreau was supposed to be on that flight. He had a ticket — a seat with his name on it.

As the head coach of the Manchester Monarchs, an affiliate of the Kings, Boudreau was set to fly west alongside his close friend Ace Bailey for meetings ahead of training camp on Sept. 11, 2001.

But instead of boarding United Airlines Flight 175, Boudreau was asked to fly into L.A. a day earlier to join a dinner with all of the coaches in the Kings organization.

“That’s how close it was for me,” Boudreau says.

He asked Bailey to switch the flight, too. They drove to Lake Placid together that weekend to attend the wedding of the daughter of their close friend Bill O’Flaherty, the Kings director of player personnel. They’d both accidently eaten potpourri in the room they shared, thinking it was a complimentary snack. In true Bailey form, always the life of the party, he’d shared the story during the reception to raucous laughter, with Boudreau as the only sucker to have eaten the stale, flowery surprise.

“He was always the center of attention,” Boudreau says. “And I was usually the brunt of his jokes.”

As Bailey dropped Boudreau off back at his house on Sunday, Sept. 9, he said that he’d tried to switch his ticket but the seat change would cost too much.

They’d see each other on Tuesday. And after one last weekend of fun that would remain etched in Boudreau’s memory, the old friends said goodbye.

It was a quarter to 6 a.m. in Los Angeles when Gretzky received a call from a friend saying that he believed Ace Bailey was on a plane that had just hit the World Trade Centre in New York. Gretzky’s parents were in the air, en route to visit him when he learned about the terror attacks. The moment never fades.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Gretzky says. “I still cry about it every now and then.”

Jack Parker received the call in Boston.

“Have you seen Mark Bavis this morning?” one of their mutual friends asked.

Terriers alumni living in the Boston area often worked out at the university gym and Parker was told that Bavis had planned to come back to lift weights if he was unable to get on standby to an earlier flight to Los Angeles for his meetings with the other Kings scouts. Parker called down to the gym — Mark wasn’t there.

Boudreau watched from his hotel room in Los Angeles after a frantic call from his wife woke him up two minutes before 6 a.m. He turned on the TV and saw the unfolding chaos and horror. Boudreau ran down the hall of the hotel to his assistant coach, Bob Jay, who was from Boston and told him to turn on his TV. They learned that a second plane collided with the south tower.

An hour later, Boudreau was at the Kings facility, watching the news with Dave Taylor, the Kings general manager, and Al Murray, the team’s director of scouting.

It still wasn’t clear what flights had hit the towers. They waited in agony for confirmation that they could feel coming.

Taylor finally pulled Boudreau out of the room to give him the news they all had feared. A moment that he’d never be able to erase. And a thought that has never left his mind, though impossible to confirm. Boudreau knew that Ace Bailey had fought — a feeling Gretzky carries just as strongly.

“He wouldn’t sit down. He was going to stand up and fight,” Boudreau says. “He would have sacrificed himself for the rest of the flight.”

It’s the baby chicken that still makes Boudreau laugh. He watched it follow Bailey around the large coop he’d built next to the pool in his backyard, as though he was its mother.

For all of the fear he instilled on the ice and the laughter he brought off it, Bailey was the kind of man who would care for a tiny animal, looking for someone to lead it.

When he looks at the picture of Bailey he keeps in his living room, with his glasses on, leaning on a table and smiling, it’s the memory of that little chicken that helps push back the tears.

“That was so emblematic to me of who Ace was,” Boudreau says.

For Gretzky it’s the warm fish in Paris. One of many trips their families took together over the years.

“The greatest times of my life were spent with him,” Gretzky says.

It was Bastille Day and a hot one, he recalls.

Walter Gretzky warned Bailey not to order the fish. But Bailey did not heed the advice. Hours later, he was curled up in the hotel bed, sweating through a brutal bout of food poisoning. Kathy Bailey, Ace’s wife, and Wayne tried to hold in their laughter as Walter leaned over him on the bed.

“I told you Ace,” the elder Gretzky said. “Don’t eat that fish!”

There are those happy memories, mixed with the agony of an absence that — two decades — it seems is still too soon to comprehend.

“Every year it’s awful. Every year that goes by, it’s bad. It’s something we can never forget,” Gretzky says. “It’s just — it was awful.”

Parker thinks about what could have been as he traces his finger over Mark Bavis’ name when he visits the 9/11 memorial in New York. He thinks about the cerebral player with a kindness to connect with everyone he met. He thinks of the Bavi — and his long-time assistant coach Mike, who lost his twin brother, his other half, his best friend. Parker thinks of all that could have been and how wrong it will always be that it never will.

“Why him,” Parker says. “Why then?”

When you walk into the playroom on the top floor at Tufts Children Hospital in Boston, you’ll see the image of Ace Bailey skating across a tiled mural as you move.

There are no doctors or nurses allowed in Ace’s Place. Children who visit know that it’s a space where they won’t be poked or prodded. It’s a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and be kids.

Kathy Bailey wanted it that way. She wanted her husband to be remembered for the heart he had for others — especially children. He was the one with the hilarious Daffy Duck impressions, which always amused his nieces and nephews. He was Santa Claus at Christmas and the Easter Bunny each spring. He visited sick children often during his days as a beloved member of the Bruins.

“It was a great help for the children, for their parents, and also for us to be able to turn our sadness into something positive,” Kathy says. “He’d be immensely proud.”

Since the first donation arrived in December 2001 — a gift from Ace’s teammate Bobby Orr — the Bailey family has helped make Tufts Children’s Hospital a warmer place for kids and families who need it. Along with Ace’s Place, they rebuilt the neo-intensive care unit and later built a smaller Ace’s Place in the pediatric emergency room.

As the Bailey family built their lasting tribute to Ace, the Bavis family did the same for Mark. They formed the Mark Bavis Leadership Foundation, which provides scholarships and support to high school students who have shown leadership in their schools and communities. More than 100 students have benefitted from the support the foundation provides over the past two decades.

The Bavis and Bailey families, both based in Boston, became entwined by their shared grief and pursuit of building something positive in the name of the men that were taken. They’ve spent holidays together and visit often. In the spring, Kathy joined the family for a memorial after Mary Bavis, the family matriarch, passed away.

It’s a connection forged out of intense pain and tragedy, Mike says, something that those who have experienced that kind of loss can understand. With each year — each missed birthday, each holiday, each 9/11 anniversary — there is a feeling that only they can really know.

“When you go through something like that with somebody who knows exactly what you’re feeling, in so many ways, you form a bond that is unbreakable in some sense,” Mike says.

Two decades on the legacies of both men carry on in what their families have built in their memory. They live in the lives of children who find a safe place to rest and the support to pursue dreams they hadn’t thought possible. And yes, they carry on in the grief that never fully wanes — but also in the laughter that can’t be muted.

In the hearts of old friends who mourn each September. And in the memories, shared and re-lived, as the lives they touched push forward — continuing Mark Bavis and Ace Bailey’s endless pursuit of something greater.

(Graphic: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Juan Ocampo and Mike Stobe, NHLI via Getty Images; Dan Goshtigian / Boston Globe)