the podcast<\/a> that he \u201chad a lot of support,\u201d Gretzky did not specifically discuss his political views or his relationship with Trump, but said the booing he received when he appeared at the 4 Nations Face-Off final likely would have bothered his late father, Walter.<\/p>\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got to take the good with the bad,\u201d Gretzky said. \u201cI\u2019m glad he didn\u2019t have to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gretzky was pictured, along with his family, attending a party at the Trump-owned The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla, on the night of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Gretzky and his wife, Janet, attended Trump\u2019s second presidential inauguration in January.<\/p>\n
Trump has drawn the ire of the Canadian government and people by derisively suggesting that the country become the 51st state.<\/p>\n
Introduced as Canada\u2019s honorary captain before the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game against the U.S. in February, Gretzky was booed by a majority of fans inside Boston\u2019s TD Garden. He did not wear a Team Canada jersey.<\/p>\n
Still, Gretzky said on the podcast, \u201cI had a lot of support.\u201d That included a phone call from Justin Trudeau, who was then Canada\u2019s prime minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a wonderful phone call that he reached out,\u201d Gretzky said. \u201cHe gave me a great line. He said, \u2018I\u2019m giving you a hug call.\u2019 I said, \u2018OK, I needed it right now.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
Gretzky, the NHL\u2019s all-time leading scorer and Hockey Hall of Famer, is a Companion in the Order of Canada, where he was born and played for 10 seasons as a member of the Edmonton Oilers. He is widely considered hockey\u2019s greatest player, and certainly is viewed as the sport\u2019s most well-known ambassador.<\/p>\n
Gretzky said in the podcast that he understood why he was criticized in Canada and booed at the 4 Nations Face-Off final. He described Canadians as \u201cproud,\u201d but noted that despite finishing his NHL career with three U.S.-based franchises after a trade to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988 and since residing in the U.S., \u201cI never became an American citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Canadian,\u201d Gretzky said. \u201cI can\u2019t vote in the U.S. because I live in the U.S. and I\u2019m Canadian. I can\u2019t vote in Canada because I don\u2019t live in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not into politics. And so I can\u2019t stop the prime minister from saying something. I can\u2019t stop the president from saying something. I just kind of like, well, I\u2019m just a hockey player, simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, Wayne Gretzky addressed recent criticism he has received \u2014 particularly in his native Canada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-280410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}