Take Gretzky, and lay the 3 points

This thing with Rick Tocchet and Wayne Gretzky is starting to get real ugly. Now I am going to try and be fair to Gretzky but it is hard for me to do so. I am one who was always especially critical of Michael Jordan’s gambling addiction, and the fact that it led to most of the problems in his life (see James Jordan’s death). Now it appears that Gretzky has the same affinity for spending his money through illegal gambling. Again, much like in the Pete Rose and Michael Jordan situations I do not think this in any way detracts from any of their accomplishments on the playing field. However, off the field they are looked at by their sports and by society as people that have a high moral standing and as ambassadors for their games (Ed. I know we got into this one time about TO and how we seem to care more about our athletes morals than we do some of our elected officials, but in this case I think that we need to keep in mind Gretzky holds a high place in our society and he should be held to a very high standard, one that he created for himself).

The problems for these guys arise though because of the way we deify our athletes in America. They feel a lot of the time as if they live above the laws of society. And secondly they feel they can control any situation. This is where gambling steps into the forefront, and guys like Gretzky, Rose, and Jordan get into trouble. All of these men were great athletes and they could control all things on the field of play, with gambling they feel they can do the very same thing. They think they know sport so well they can easily predict what is going to happen. Athletes’ gambling is nothing new, but when it is someone like Wayne Gretzky it becomes a serious issue. Why do you ask? Because it will always call into question the integrity of that person, and when a person like Gretzky’s integrity is in question than so is the league as a whole. He represents something bigger than the game, and Gary Bettman knows this.

Gambling is a very serious addiction and people who do it usually don’t stop at “just betting on the super bowl,” as Janet Jones Gretzky is alleged to have done through this illegal gambling ring. And lets be honest here, Janet Jones Gretzky acted about as alone as Lee Harvey Oswald. I am not naïve enough to think that occasionally Gretzky just bet on big sporting events, these guys like to win, and win big. Once the win big, they try and make another score. And maybe they do, maybe they win again, but eventually they start losing. And when you begin to lose you look for a sure thing, well if you are Wayne Gretzky what is the surest thing you know, hockey. That is where all of this is leading, we know that. Eventually it will be discovered that somewhere along the line bets may have been placed on hockey games through this mafia gambling entity. If Wayne Gretzky or Janet Jones Gretzky’s names appear anywhere in these record books (as they allegedly do) then things can get real hairy.

Now I know some people will say, “Hey fat man the Gretzky’s are loaded, and if they want to blow a couple hundred grand on betting, who cares?” Well normally I would not disagree with that assessment; however they have been placing bets with an illegal bookmaking agency. Although, technically (and I am not sure how) right now it appears that placing the bets is not “illegal” but the bookmaker taking the bets is the guilty party here. I guess it is like saying the john is not guilty for paying, just the hooker is guilty for accepting, I think. So they may not be punishable by the letter of the law, but they were still involved in illegal activities.

Is Wayne Gretzky telling the truth? We are a forgiving society; we want to know the truth. If Gretz comes out and says, “Hey, yeah, we placed some bets with Tocc and his people and we know it was wrong and we are sorry for doing so,” we will forgive him. What we don’t want is for him to pretend like he knew about as little as I did about this a week ago. They apparently have him on audio tape making sure Tocchet can keep he and Janet’s name out of the investigation. That is what we hate most about people in America, when the lie. That is all we were really on Bill Clinton about with Monica and the same with George W. Bush about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Did you lie to us? That is all we want to know. I hope in the end Gretzky gets absolved from all these proceedings, but the evidence seems to be mounting against that outcome. To paraphrase the most famous quote NEVER said “Say it ain’t so Wayne, say it ain’t so?”


Did you guys know there is a movie coming out today called Final Destination 3? That is basically triple redundancy.