Tag: Wayne Gretzky

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Gretzky the Vacant

One of those vulgar Facebook posts that claim to be enlightening you about the amazingly consequential achievements of some celebrity or another called Wayne Gretzky a “national treasure”.  A talented athlete is not a “national treasure”. It’s just sports.  It’s just an individual with extraordinary physical gifts who does well in a sport.  Sports are not important or consequential.  They are fun, when done well, and toxic when not.  They are sometimes toxic when they are done well, as when the U. S. national women’s football team starts to act like they are entitled to the championship every time.

Gretzky was always kind of a blank slate, a super-talented athlete with very little depth of character. He was a master of the sports interview, giving his 100%, thanking his team-mates, making the obligatory charitable gestures, hauling his money off to the bank.

Now we see more of his character and it’s not pretty.  It’s tacky and tasteless and self-serving and tone-death.  He did not have to endorse Trump, or show up at Mar a Lago to hang out with him or conspicuously salute the American team or hand out hats to the Canadian team that seemed inspired by MAGA.   I am mystified that a man with Gretzky’s profile didn’t have a smart PR agent to tell him how bad all of that would look.

Maybe Gretzky never cared all that much what Canadians thought of him anyway.  He lives almost exclusively in the United States.

What idiot made him “honorary captain” of the Canadian team at the Four Nations tournament?  (Answer: someone in the NHL League Offices.)

For the same reason that people should not make too much of any professional athlete people should not make too much of their faults.  Big deal.  Big deal that he scored a lot of goals.  Big deal that he’s all cozy and snuggly with the appalling Mr. Trump.

Move on.

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Black Eye for Canadian Athletes at the Olympics

CBC Radio just reported on a “visit” by Canadian Olympic athletes to a Japanese elementary school near Nagano. This event had been planned months ago and the school had been told that even Wayne Gretzsky and his wife might show up.

Well, the only people who showed up were a few Olympic Committee Functionaries and Atina Ford, an alternate on the Canadian Women’s Curling team. The entire event became a dismal embarrassment to all concerned. The children had prepared elaborate gifts and ceremonies, and games designed to include the honored athletes. The teachers had brushed up on their English and arranged an assembly and invited parents.

Atina Ford saved the day to some extent. She is a teacher by profession, and she quickly gathered the children around her and got some games started and had the children laughing and clapping. The Japanese were exceedingly polite and gracious, but there was no hiding the crushing disappointment, especially among the staff of the school who had been preparing for the event for three weeks.

I surprised myself at how ashamed I felt about the behaviour of the Canadian athletes, far, far more ashamed than I did about Ross Rebagliati testing positive for marijuana. In the back of my mind, I think I understand how busy their lives are and how it must feel to have everyone clamoring for a piece of you all the time. But this story twists a knife in your guts. Maybe it’s because we do know how busy our athletes are: signing endorsement contracts, going to parties, receiving congratulatory calls from the Prime Minister, posing for pictures, exchanging Olympic paraphernalia with other athletes, meeting with their agents, their trainers, their personal chef, or whatever… and none of them had a few moments to spare for a group of hopeful Japanese school children?

I just know that when our athletes find out about this humiliating situation, a number of them will step forward and immediately schedule a visit to the school as soon as possible. If they do, we’ll know they really do have class, and all will be forgiven. If they don’t, I know what my strongest memory of these Olympic games is going to be.

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What’s all this blather about how beautiful and elegant and graceful the figure skaters are? As far as I’m concerned, Joan McCusker of the curling team is the only goddess on ice at these Olympic games.

 

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The Canadian men’s hockey team is far more dominant than I think most people give them credit for. I’ll go on record: they will stroll into the Gold Medal. Remember, you heard it here first.

March 8, 1998: Obviously, I was wrong. However, I will observe that Canada lost to the eventual champions, Czechoslovakia, by the slimmest of margins. Then they lost an embarrassment to the Fins, but did anybody really believe the Canadians cared deeply about the Bronze medal?

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The Canadian women’s hockey team deserved to lose, but I wish they had won just so I wouldn’t have had to watch the U.S. women actually sing their national anthem after receiving their medals. Don’t they know that you’re supposed to just move your lips up and down vaguely so, just in case anyone accused you of patriotism, you could always say you were mouthing the Lord’s Prayer or just chewing gum instead?

Anyway, Women’s hockey should not be an Olympic sport. There were only two countries in serious contention. It was a medal giveaway for the U.S. and Canada. Come back when there are at least six contenders.