Goodbye to Gretzky
I was born just weeks before the start of the 1985–1986 NHL season, at the height of Wayne Gretzky’s decade-long domination of the game, when his skill and prowess on the ice seemed superhuman. For eight years running, from 1980 to 1987, he was awarded the Hart trophy as the league’s most valuable player. From ’81 to ’87, he was the NHL’s leading scorer. It was never a question of whether Gretzky would score on any given night—only how often.
Growing up in Caledon, Ontario, as a hockey fan, I knew I had to be the first to shout “I’m Gretzky!” when playing pond hockey with friends. I knew how controversial it was to leave him on the bench during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. And I knew that I was watching history unfold on the April afternoon in 1999 when he played his final game, against the Pittsburgh Penguins. I was watching on TV in a local barbershop when Gretzky scored his 2,587th point—an assist—further cementing a scoring record that still stands. I’ll never forget the sight of him skating around the ice after the game, waving goodbye in his sweat-soaked Rangers jersey, tears streaming down his face while my barber kept trying to turn my head back toward the mirror.
It’s hard to convey just how impressive Gretzky’s career was. He set dozens of NHL records, and some of them—like most career points, most points in a single season, or scoring 50 goals in 39 games—may never be broken. But one is likely to be surpassed in the next few weeks: his 894 career goals. For the past few months, the NHL has dedicated a nearly obsessive level of coverage to Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin, who is just a few goals shy of surpassing that number. Every time Ovi scores, the league quickly uploads a highlight of the goal on a webpage with the heading “The GR8 Chase” (a play on both Gretzky’s “Great One” nickname and Ovechkin’s number eight.)
When it became clear that Gretzky’s record was in danger, I hoped it wouldn’t happen. I’ve always been proud to say the sport’s best scorer is Canadian—and I certainly didn’t want the title to be lost to Ovechkin, a longtime supporter of Vladimir Putin. Yet as the record inches closer to breaking, my feelings toward Gretzky and his achievements have grown more complicated. Canadians spent close to two decades cheering for him, watching him grow from a quiet Brantford boy into the most dominant player in the history of the sport. Yet now, at 64, his friendship with President Donald Trump—a man who is upending the world order, launching an economic assault on Canada and expressing desires to annex us as the 51st state—has come under intense scrutiny.
Gretzky was photographed wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat following Trump’s election win last November. He and his wife attended Trump’s inauguration this January. He’s spent time at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump has called Gretzky a friend. Last month, in response to Gretzky’s apparent MAGA affiliations, a petition was launched in Edmonton, where Gretzky began his NHL career, to rename the city’s Wayne Gretzky Drive. It currently has nearly 13,000 signatures.
The cracks in Gretzky’s patriotism have been showing for years. In 2009, he was promoted to companion of the Order of Canada—the nation’s highest civilian honour—but he wouldn’t come home to accept it. “It’s just embarrassing,” Christopher McCreery, an expert on the Canadian honours system, said in 2018, after nearly a decade had passed and The Great One still claimed the honour.
But it was during the recent 4 Nations international hockey tournament that anger against Gretzky and the U.S. hit a crescendo. The games had already been a source of tension between the two countries, with the threat of Trump’s tariffs and the president’s annexation talk looming. It exploded onto the ice during a round-robin match in Montreal, when players got into three fights in the first nine seconds of play. Those fights were triggered, at least in part, by some American players who had discussed in a group chat the idea of sending a message to the Canadian players and fans.
When the two sides played again in the championship game in Boston, Gretzky was named honorary captain for the Canadian squad. He was handed a golden opportunity to put the Trump controversy behind him and portray himself as a pillar of national pride. Canadians, awash in renewed patriotism, were primed to accept it. It was a role Gretzky had embraced in the past, representing Canada at numerous World Championships, Canada Cups and Olympic Games as both a player and an executive. Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur spoke for me and many other Canadians when he wrote of Gretzky on X: “I honestly hope he makes a genuine—even conspicuous—show of patriotism.”
To borrow a sports analogy, Gretzky fumbled. He entered the rink near the U.S. bench, instead of the Canadian one, and gave the Americans a thumbs-up as he passed. He wore a blue suit that made him look more like a member of the U.S. coaching staff than Captain Canada. For me, it was the body language that was most troubling. His forced smile and demeanour made it appear as if he was unwilling to pick a side. That feeling hit harder when the Americans’ honorary captain walked onto the ice. Mike Eruzione, who scored the famous game-winning goal against the Soviets during the 1980 Olympics, came out wearing a Team USA jersey, took the time to fist-bump players on the American bench, then riled up the hometown crowd. After seeing Eruzione’s unbridled passion for his country’s players, I found myself questioning which team Gretzky was really cheering for that night.
As I texted friends, the consensus was that in the current political climate, asking Gretzky to be the captain was foolish. Gretzky was pilloried online and in print too. The Globe and Mail’s Cathal Kelly wrote that Gretzky has been “coasting on fumes from the ’90s for years and years. Mr. Gretzky used to stand for only one thing—Canada. He hasn’t for a long time.”
Symbolism and narrative are part of the fabric of hockey. Consider the heated 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union, or the 2002 women’s Olympic gold medal game, when a victorious Hayley Wickenheiser offered to sign the Canadian flag she alleged the Americans had on their dressing room floor. Gretzky’s perceived lack of Canadian pride is the final step in his transformation from hockey hero to a villain and a pariah—in his home country, anyway.
Gretzky has remained quiet on the controversy. But a week after the 4 Nations final, his wife, Janet, posted on Instagram a letter of support from hockey legend Bobby Orr in which he implored Canadians to extend grace and respect to Wayne. Orr, who himself endorsed Trump for re-election in 2020, said he couldn’t understand how those who were angry with Gretzky could be so fickle. Janet Gretzky said the public backlash had broken her husband’s heart.
Is it unfair of us to take out our collective frustration on one man? To expect more greatness from the Great One after he’s given fans so much throughout his career? Gretzky is a grown man after all, capable of making his own decisions. But Canadians also expect our hockey stars to be more than just great skaters and amazing scorers. We expect them to be ambassadors of all it means to be Canadian: courteous, caring, empathetic and morally upstanding. With every passing day, it seems those qualities no longer align with the current American administration—or anyone who aligns themselves with it.
Former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden recently wrote in the Atlantic that Canadians will need to be more than just “anti-American” to withstand the next four years of Trump’s presidency. “Canadians,” he wrote, “need to be defiantly Canadian.” Gretzky has failed that test of defiance. And if the greatest hockey player this country has ever produced isn’t willing to stand up for the country that catapulted him to superstardom, I’m fine with watching his records fall.
