{"id":488311,"date":"2026-02-20T19:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488311\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T19:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:41:07","slug":"in-saying-hes-a-true-canadian-gretzky-shows-hes-still-a-wonderful-deflector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488311\/","title":{"rendered":"In saying he\u2019s a \u2018true Canadian,\u2019 Gretzky shows he\u2019s still a wonderful deflector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Wayne Gretzky, centre, watches the men’s semi-final between Canada and Finland. The hockey legend appeared on a CBC panel ahead of the game.Andreas Rentz\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

More than a year after Wayne Gretzky blew up his relationship with Canada, he decided to finally address it. <\/p>\n

Gretzky\u2019s been swanning around Milan. I guess he\u2019s Canadian again, because how American can anyone who wasn\u2019t born there be when Tom Brady\u2019s hanging about? <\/p>\n

Ahead of the Canada-Finland semi-final, Gretzky appeared on the CBC panel. Amidst all the hockey banter, host James Duthie put the question to him. <\/p>\n

Duthie talked about an \u201cunsettling year for Canadians\u201d because tensions with the U.S. were at a level \u201cthat we\u2019ve never seen in our lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have been pulled into this,\u201d Duthie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight,\u201d said Gretzky, who\u2019d taken a two-handed grip on his mic when he realized where Duthie was going with this. \u201cHa ha ha.\u201d He said it just like that \u2013 ha ha ha. This was not a happy man. <\/p>\n

Duthie: \u201cWhat would be your message to Canadians today?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cVery simple,\u201d said Gretzky. \u201cFirst of all, let\u2019s worry about the game. That\u2019s most important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: How Canada\u2019s nearly 50-year romance with Wayne Gretzky came to an end<\/a><\/p>\n

Say this for Gretzky \u2013 he\u2019s always been a wonderful deflector of the puck. That he thinks this is about hockey suggests he either doesn\u2019t get much, or that he\u2019s come to the realization that there is no way of explaining how he\u2019s carried on.<\/p>\n

He seemed to suggest that everyone\u2019s problem with him was purely sporting \u2013 \u201cI want Canada to win a gold medal. I\u2019ve never wavered from that.\u201d <\/p>\n

He ended with some boilerplate about family squabbles. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada and the USA are like brothers and sisters. They\u2019re going to fight and argue, but eventually you come together, right? And that\u2019s the way I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tell that to a Canadian who\u2019s losing their job in the manufacturing sector. It will hearten them immensely to learn that this is how family operates. You sign contracts and then dad accuses you of drug dealing, tells you China is about to steal hockey and then decides that he\u2019s throwing you out of the house. <\/p>\n

Through his answer, you could fairly feel Gretzky\u2019s resentment \u2013 mostly at having his loyalty put into doubt, after he\u2019d very deliberately put his own loyalty in doubt. That\u2019s what happens when you wear the colours of someone who is attacking your country.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any defence of Gretzky, it\u2019s that he didn\u2019t ask to be a representative of our country. That job was pushed on him. <\/p>\n

However, he didn\u2019t have to accept it. If he tired of it, he could have quit. Moved to Arizona, and never made a big deal about visiting home. <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have to start coming back here to make a few bucks once NHL teams and American advertisers lost interest in him. He didn\u2019t have to flood our airwaves with his crummy gambling ads. You won\u2019t see those on ESPN.<\/p>\n

Having spent decades capitalizing on his image as a Canadian icon, he doesn\u2019t now to get to hide behind the old \u2018I\u2019m just a hockey player\u2019 excuse.<\/p>\n

On Friday night, he did that precisely \u2013 \u201cListen, I\u2019m a hockey player. I\u2019m a Canadian. I\u2019m a true Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duthie is obviously not going to get into a political slanging match on a pregame broadcast CBC paid a lot of money for. That\u2019s not his job. <\/p>\n

But the next obvious question is, what does \u201ctrue\u201d Canadian mean to Gretzky? Is it simply by virtue of being born here? Does having won the Canada Cup give him mulligans the rest of us don\u2019t have? And if you don\u2019t live here full time, and haven\u2019t done so for many years, how \u201ctrue\u201d can you be?<\/p>\n

These are philosophical questions that Gretzky is either unwilling or unable to grapple with. But knowing that, why does he continue to insist on pushing himself on Canada whenever there is a little reflected glory to be had? <\/p>\n

You got the sense from the tone he took \u2013 and the fact that the panel went straight back to hockey after one tough question \u2013 that Gretzky now assumes this is over. True Canadian over here. He just said it. <\/p>\n

Now he can go back to being a Canadian for televisual purposes, and a Floridian for social, tax and political ones. Maybe if his buddy in Palm Beach does a deal with Russia, he can go do the rubber chicken circuit in Moscow. Talk about the bad old days. Good evening, comrades. As a true Canadian, let me tell you about Viktor Tikhonov\u2026<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s prevarication demonstrates again how little Gretzky gets it. He doesn\u2019t seem to understand that Canada isn\u2019t interested in his excuses, or his justifications. What it wants is an explanation followed by an apology. No one\u2019s asking anyone to grovel. Just say you\u2019re sorry, and wait to hear back that it\u2019s okay. <\/p>\n

If Gretzky\u2019s serious about getting past this, he\u2019ll have to sit down with someone more hard hitting than a sports journalist, and not before the big hockey game. <\/p>\n

He can tell all the Canadians he feels so connected to why he doesn\u2019t choose to live in their midst, but wants to be able to wave the flag for them whenever he\u2019s feeling starved of attention. Something tells me his Republican pals aren\u2019t up on the latest Canadian goalie controversies. That may be part of it, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not too late for Wayne Gretzky, a true Canadian, to become an actual one again. But one canned answer about winning a gold medal isn\u2019t going to do the trick. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Wayne Gretzky, centre, watches the men’s semi-final between Canada and Finland. The hockey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,2922,1398,82,8023],"class_list":{"0":"post-488311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-noastack","12":"tag-nodelphi","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-topstory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}