Wayne Gretzky has refused to speak up against Donald Trump’s anti-Canada rhetoric
Wayne Gretzky was once Edmonton’s favourite adopted son. The greatest ice hockey player in the history of the game had made that town’s team, the Oilers, the best in the game, winning four Stanley Cups in five years in the mid-1980s. He turned a quiet, provincial capital into the centre of the ice hockey world.
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Today, outside the Oilers’ modern arena, Rogers Place, there is a statue of Gretzky holding the giant trophy aloft.
A week ago, someone smeared faeces on the sculpture and the reaction of many was “makes sense”.
For decades he sat near the top, often at the peak of, “favourite Canadian” lists. However, Gretzky, known as “The Great One”, is no longer cherished by many Canadians and it is all because of his friendship with Canadians’ public enemy No 1: Donald Trump.
The Gretzky statue outside of Rogers Place, the home of Edmonton Oilers, covered with excrement – AP/Jason Franson
When Gretzky was traded in 1988 from the Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, he wept.
That transfer ushered in the modern, big-money era of professional ice hockey in North America, sending a beloved Canadian superstar from a widely admired but small bastion of Canadian ice hockey power, to a big American city, one famed for bright lights but not ice hockey.
Gretzky in action for the Edmonton Oilers against the New York Islanders in 1988 – AP/Wa Funches
He wept because an era was closing: he had played in Edmonton since he was a teenager and had taken up the mantle as the game’s greatest player. But the team’s owner, Peter Pocklington, was running low on money in his other businesses and could no longer afford Gretzky. The Kings’ owner, Bruce McNall – who would later go to jail for fraud – could.
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Pocklington’s sale of Canada’s biggest sporting name outraged many. He was burned in effigy. His other businesses were boycotted by pockets of fans.
Fourteen years later, Gretzky’s patriotic emotions were to the fore again. At the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Gretzky had been tasked with directing the men’s ice hockey squad, hoping to win the country’s first gold in the sport in 50 years. “Everybody loves to see us lose,” Gretzky crowed, in response to reports in the American press that the Canadian squad was not exactly united. He planted his flag for his country and they would go on to beat the United States in the final.
But two decades later, Canadians have turned on him.
Gretzky and his wife, Janet, were guests at a Mar-a-Lago party for Trump on election night last November. Gretzky was photographed wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. They were guests of Trump at his inauguration in January.
The connection is long-standing. Gretzky’s son-in-law is Dustin Johnson, the two-time major-winning golfer who has been friends with Trump for years.
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Gretzky has also been close to Canadian conservative politicians in the past, such as former prime minister Stephen Harper and Patrick Brown, a former leader of the opposition in Ontario. That he would be friendly with a conservative American is not really a surprise – but it is how he has responded, or rather not responded, to Trump’s escalating anti-Canadian rhetoric that has provoked this sudden vitriol.
Trump said before his inauguration that he had told Gretzky to run for prime minister of Canada, adding that Gretzky would be sure to win. As Trump then quipped: “But he said, ‘Am I going to run for prime minister or governor, you tell me’. I said, ‘I don’t know, let’s make it governor’.”
That use of “governor” inflamed the anger Canadians feel towards Trump. In the waning days of Justin Trudeau’s premiership, Trump’s rhetoric about Canada focused on the nation’s sovereignty: Canada should really be the 51st state in the union and the Canadian public supports this, Trump has suggested with a mocking tone.
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Trudeau was just the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada”, Trump had said in December. Trudeau had become a deeply unpopular figure but Trump’s insult was too much for many Canadians and ever since citizens have rallied to the flag. There has also been a noticeable increase in booing of the US anthem before ice hockey, basketball and baseball games.
Trump’s claims that life would be better for Canadians as part of the United States has riled them. Similarly, suggestions that Canadians are bad allies has been seen as a ludicrous charge for a country that has long stood by the United States – new prime minister Mark Carney recently visited a Newfoundland town that sheltered thousands of stranded American passengers in the aftermath of 9/11, while many of the aircraft fighting the wildfires torching Los Angeles earlier this year came from Canada. In business, half of Canada’s crude oil exports go to its southern neighbour and there is a long-standing “Auto Pact” between the two nations.
And yet Gretzky has not said anything publicly. He has been called on to comment, but has not. His wife has said on social media that her husband is saddened by the criticism while Bobby Orr, another all-time ice hockey great, has said that Canadians should not be mad at Gretzky. It is worth noting that Orr has publicly endorsed Trump in the past. Either way, their pleas have been largely ignored by Canadians.
Gretzky waves a record book listing his career scores presented to him after he set an NHL record with 80 goals for the LA Kings in 1994 – AP/Eric Draper
All they have seen of Gretzky lately was his appearance at the inauguration and then an awkward pre-game scene before the recent Canada versus USA international ice hockey match in February, in Boston.
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It was the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off, a mini World Cup that the National Hockey League staged this year during a mid-season break. When Gretzky appeared on the ice in Boston, carrying a Hockey Canada pennant to be exchanged with an American counterpart, he was dressed smartly, but markedly differently from the honorary captains who had supported Canada in previous games. Retired UFC star Georges St-Pierre, for instance, had worn a red Canadian ice hockey jersey for his appearance before the previous game in Montreal.
Gretzky did not wear red. Rather he came out in a navy suit. His choice stood out immediately to Canadians. They wanted a demonstration of pride, which Gretzky had never shied away from before.
It has also been raised by many that Gretzky was promoted to companion of the Order of Canada, the highest rank in the nation’s honours system, but he has yet to appear in Ottawa for an investiture ceremony.
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Other Canadian celebrities in the US have spoken up against Trump’s rhetoric, like comedian and actor Mike Myers. “Elbows up,” Myers has said to Canadians, as an ice hockey player would, ready to defend his space from aggressive opponents. He has also appeared in a pro-Canada election spot with Carney, who replaced Trudeau as prime minister earlier in March.
On 31 March at the Junos, Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards, Michael Bublé told the crowd: “We are the greatest nation on Earth… And we are not for sale.”
A recent national poll by Abacus Data found that 78 per cent of Canadians disapproved of Trump and only 12 per cent said they approved of him. He has become the central topic of the ongoing electoral campaign.
Even Terry Jones, an Edmonton sportswriter who covered Gretzky for years and remains a supporter of the former ice hockey star, was critical of The Great One’s silence.
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“I can’t believe in my heart and soul that Wayne Gretzky believes Canada should be the 51st state,” he told The Canadian Press after the 4 Nations Face-Off. But he did add that Gretzky needs to take a stance. “If I’m right that [Gretzky] doesn’t think Canada should become the 51st state, he should step up and say it.”
