Wayne Gretzky, centre, watches the men’s semi-final between Canada and Finland. The hockey legend appeared on a CBC panel ahead of the game.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
More than a year after Wayne Gretzky blew up his relationship with Canada, he decided to finally address it.
Gretzky’s been swanning around Milan. I guess he’s Canadian again, because how American can anyone who wasn’t born there be when Tom Brady’s hanging about?
Ahead of the Canada-Finland semi-final, Gretzky appeared on the CBC panel. Amidst all the hockey banter, host James Duthie put the question to him.
Duthie talked about an “unsettling year for Canadians” because tensions with the U.S. were at a level “that we’ve never seen in our lifetimes.”
“You have been pulled into this,” Duthie said.
“Right,” said Gretzky, who’d taken a two-handed grip on his mic when he realized where Duthie was going with this. “Ha ha ha.” He said it just like that – ha ha ha. This was not a happy man.
Duthie: “What would be your message to Canadians today?”
“Very simple,” said Gretzky. “First of all, let’s worry about the game. That’s most important.”
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Say this for Gretzky – he’s always been a wonderful deflector of the puck. That he thinks this is about hockey suggests he either doesn’t get much, or that he’s come to the realization that there is no way of explaining how he’s carried on.
He seemed to suggest that everyone’s problem with him was purely sporting – “I want Canada to win a gold medal. I’ve never wavered from that.”
He ended with some boilerplate about family squabbles.
“Canada and the USA are like brothers and sisters. They’re going to fight and argue, but eventually you come together, right? And that’s the way I see it.”
Tell that to a Canadian who’s losing their job in the manufacturing sector. It will hearten them immensely to learn that this is how family operates. You sign contracts and then dad accuses you of drug dealing, tells you China is about to steal hockey and then decides that he’s throwing you out of the house.
Through his answer, you could fairly feel Gretzky’s resentment – mostly at having his loyalty put into doubt, after he’d very deliberately put his own loyalty in doubt. That’s what happens when you wear the colours of someone who is attacking your country.
If there’s any defence of Gretzky, it’s that he didn’t ask to be a representative of our country. That job was pushed on him.
However, he didn’t have to accept it. If he tired of it, he could have quit. Moved to Arizona, and never made a big deal about visiting home.
He didn’t have to start coming back here to make a few bucks once NHL teams and American advertisers lost interest in him. He didn’t have to flood our airwaves with his crummy gambling ads. You won’t see those on ESPN.
Having spent decades capitalizing on his image as a Canadian icon, he doesn’t now get to hide behind the old ‘I’m just a hockey player’ excuse.
On Friday night, he did that precisely – “Listen, I’m a hockey player. I’m a Canadian. I’m a true Canadian.”
Duthie is obviously not going to get into a political slanging match on a pregame broadcast CBC paid a lot of money for. That’s not his job.
But the next obvious question is, what does “true” Canadian mean to Gretzky? Is it simply by virtue of being born here? Does having won the Canada Cup give him mulligans the rest of us don’t have? And if you don’t live here full time, and haven’t done so for many years, how “true” can you be?
These are philosophical questions that Gretzky is either unwilling or unable to grapple with. But knowing that, why does he continue to insist on pushing himself on Canada whenever there is a little reflected glory to be had?
You got the sense from the tone he took – and the fact that the panel went straight back to hockey after one tough question – that Gretzky now assumes this is over. True Canadian over here. He just said it.
Now he can go back to being a Canadian for televisual purposes, and a Floridian for social, tax and political ones. Maybe if his buddy in Palm Beach does a deal with Russia, he can go do the rubber chicken circuit in Moscow. Talk about the bad old days. Good evening, comrades. As a true Canadian, let me tell you about Viktor Tikhonov…
Friday’s prevarication demonstrates again how little Gretzky gets it. He doesn’t seem to understand that Canada isn’t interested in his excuses, or his justifications. What it wants is an explanation followed by an apology. No one’s asking anyone to grovel. Just say you’re sorry, and wait to hear back that it’s okay.
If Gretzky’s serious about getting past this, he’ll have to sit down with someone more hard hitting than a sports journalist, and not before the big hockey game.
He can tell all the Canadians he feels so connected to why he doesn’t choose to live in their midst, but wants to be able to wave the flag for them whenever he’s feeling starved of attention. Something tells me his Republican pals aren’t up on the latest Canadian goalie controversies. That may be part of it, too.
It’s not too late for Wayne Gretzky, a true Canadian, to become an actual one again. But one canned answer about winning a gold medal isn’t going to do the trick.