Gretzky’s trade to the L.A. Kings still stings
Globe and Mail reporter Stephen Brunt explores the Great One’s decision to leave Canada
by Steven Myers
Was it Gretzky’s wife, the Edmonton Oilers owner or financial paradise that sent the prodigal hockey player south? photo illustration Christopher Olson, Christopher Curtis
It starts with dusty socks and a slide across the marble floor. Then, hot humid breezes surrender to northern winds, your dad lets the water run free and—abracadabra—come Christmas morning the backyard transforms into your very own Bell Centre ice.
You glide and slide and nothing else matters. A stick, a puck, a goal and a gang of friends appear. Maturity is measured by points-per-game in pond leagues. It’s a Canadian ritual much purer than maple syrup.
But we’re seduced by our southern neighbours. We do what the Beverly Hillbillies did—pack up our bags and move somewhere sunny. But we thought this would never happen: not to Canada, not to Wayne Gretzky.
On Aug. 9, 1988, the announcement of Wayne Gretzky’s trade to the Los Angeles Kings changed the National Hockey League forever.
In Gretzky’s Tears: Hockey, Canada and the Day Everything Changed, author Stephen Brunt’s explosive flare as a writer cannot be understated. In it he traces the trail of pivotal players involved in that infamous moment when Canadian hockey lost its innocence.
Brunt, a Globe and Mail sportswriter, identifies the motives and origins of all parties involved in Gretzky’s departure. This book is as much psychological as it is historical. As a result, the supposed end of Canada’s hockey fairy tale becomes much more digestible.
The cast of characters spans Betty Crocker to Al Capone—from Wayne Gretzky’s hardworking father to the strange criminal mind of Kings owner Bruce McNall, who wound up in
prison.
Brunt begins with a tale we all know, that of the once-in-a-lifetime hockey talent. Nurtured by a father preaching skates and ice and skates and more ice, Wayne could do no wrong early on. He was the “great one” destined for the top, and when he made it there the world quickly took notice.
Piecing together what happened is cold detective work which Brunt pulls off with an incomparable writing style prone to colourful bursts as well as all the background research and provocative interviews. Readers are left with more questions than answers.
Did Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington announce the sale without consulting the necessary parties? Was Gretzky smitten by his lovely model of a wife Janet Jones and, as a result, more vulnerable to her need to be under L.A. lights, like a Canadian version of Yoko Ono breaking up the The Beatles? Or was McNall’s offer, to ride the esquire’s coattails into financial paradise, too good to refuse?
Brunt ultimately identifies Gretzky as the pioneer of a new age of hockey stars that no longer swear blind allegiance to tradition and loyalty. Gretzky opted for money instead, when he skirted the entrenched 19-year-old draft rule and signed with the rival World Hockey Association.
While Wayne laced up his skates and dad iced a rink, Bay Street venture capitalists dreamed of American greenbacks. The door was open. It was Canada’s gift. In Brunt’s words, “Gretzky made the game relevant where it had never mattered before.”
In Canada, we can always look to our five-dollar bill as a reminder of what is most important. In the words of Roch Carrier, “our real life was on the skating rink.”
Gretzky’s Tears
Stephen Brunt
Triumph Books
255 pp
$24.95
The Link Volume 31 Issue 01