Of course, Wayne Gretzky was two years old when Justice Nadon claims to have been drafted...whatevered by the Red Wings. I'm sure he's just paraphrasing his Father, as Judges are obviously well known for their loose and imprecise interpretations of such things.

On what he really meant when he said he'd been drafted, he offered:

I certainly didn't lie...I used 'draft' in the way that I would have used it in those days, loosely termed to say that I would be part of the organization. The exact details I never knew exactly. So it wasn't a draft the way they are now, that you are drafted and you go and play for the Red Wings or — no, no, I was 14. So, it was employed very loosely. Not to imply that I would play for the Red Wings, that somehow I was part of the Wings' organization and I was a decent hockey player that's what really what it was meant to say, nothing further.

Justice Nadon is well known for his expertise in maritime law - sometimes called the 'law of the sea' - so we can probably assume this is just one of those fish stories that gets bigger in the telling. So the fact that he once passed Jack Adams in the halls of the Olympia Arena got exagerated into his being the top prospect of 1963. I mean, who doesn't have a story like that?

Of course, Adams was GM for 36 years on a handshake - so maybe back then a team really could draft a 14 year old kid with nothing more than a wink and a nod.