Mark Messier, left, and Wayne Gretzky, centre, watch the boys’s semi-final between Canada and Finland. Gretzky appeared on a CBC panel forward of the sport.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
More than a yr after Wayne Gretzky blew up his relationship with Canada, he determined to lastly handle it.
Gretzky’s been swanning round Milan. I assume he’s Canadian once more, as a result of how American can anybody 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 of the hockey banter, host James Duthie put the query to him.
Duthie talked about an “unsettling year for Canadians” as a result of tensions with the U.S. have been at a stage “that we’ve never seen in our lifetimes.”
“You have been pulled into this,” Duthie stated.
“Right,” stated Gretzky, who’d taken a two-handed grip on his mic when he realized the place Duthie was going with this. “Ha ha ha.” He stated it identical to that – ha ha ha. This was not a glad man.
Duthie: “What would be your message to Canadians today?”
“Very simple,” stated Gretzky. “First of all, let’s worry about the game. That’s most important.”
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Say this for Gretzky – he’s at all times been a wonderful deflector of the puck. That he thinks that is about hockey suggests he both doesn’t get a lot, or that he’s come to the belief that there isn’t any manner of explaining how he’s carried on.
He appeared to counsel that everybody’s drawback 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 household 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 shedding their job within the manufacturing sector. It will hearten them immensely to be taught that that is how household operates. You signal contracts after which dad accuses you of drug dealing, tells you China is about to steal hockey after which decides that he’s throwing you out of the home.
Through his reply, you can pretty really feel Gretzky’s resentment – principally at having his loyalty put into doubt, after he’d very intentionally put his personal loyalty unsure. That’s what occurs once you put on the colors of somebody who’s attacking your nation.
If there’s any defence of Gretzky, it’s that he didn’t ask to be a consultant of our nation. That job was pushed on him.
However, he didn’t have to simply accept it. If he bored with it, he may have give up. Moved to Arizona, and by no means made a huge deal about visiting house.
He didn’t have to start out coming again right here to make a couple of bucks as soon as NHL groups and American advertisers misplaced curiosity in him. He didn’t should flood our airwaves along with his crummy playing adverts. You received’t see these on ESPN.
Having spent many years capitalizing on his picture as a Canadian icon, he doesn’t now get to cover behind the outdated ‘I’m simply a hockey participant’ excuse.
On Friday night time, he did that exactly – “Listen, I’m a hockey player. I’m a Canadian. I’m a true Canadian.”
Duthie is clearly not going to get into a political slanging match on a pregame broadcast CBC paid a lot of cash for. That’s not his job.
But the subsequent apparent query is, what does “true” Canadian imply to Gretzky? Is it just by advantage of being born right here? Does having received the Canada Cup give him mulligans the remainder of us don’t have? And for those who don’t dwell right here full time, and haven’t completed so for a few years, how “true” are you able to be?
These are philosophical questions that Gretzky is both unwilling or unable to grapple with. But figuring out that, why does he proceed to insist on pushing himself on Canada at any time when there may be a little mirrored glory available?
You received the sense from the tone he took – and the truth that the panel went straight again to hockey after one robust query – that Gretzky now assumes that is over. True Canadian over right here. He simply stated it.
Now he can return to being a Canadian for televisual functions, and a Floridian for social, tax and political ones. Maybe if his buddy in Palm Beach does a cope with Russia, he can go do the rubber rooster circuit in Moscow. Talk concerning the dangerous outdated days. Good night, comrades. As a true Canadian, let me let you know about Viktor Tikhonov…
Friday’s prevarication demonstrates once more how little Gretzky will get it. He doesn’t appear to know that Canada isn’t enthusiastic about his excuses, or his justifications. What it desires is an evidence adopted by an apology. No one’s asking anybody to grovel. Just say you’re sorry, and wait to listen to again that it’s okay.
If Gretzky’s critical about getting previous this, he’ll have to take a seat down with somebody extra arduous hitting than a sports activities journalist, and never earlier than the massive hockey sport.
He can inform all of the Canadians he feels so related to why he doesn’t select to dwell of their midst, however desires to have the ability to wave the flag for them at any time when he’s feeling starved of consideration. Something tells me his Republican friends aren’t up on the newest Canadian goalie controversies. That could also be a part of it, too.
It’s not too late for Wayne Gretzky, a true Canadian, to grow to be an precise one once more. But one canned reply about successful a gold medal isn’t going to do the trick.
