With his Stanley Cups and World Cups as a player and Olympic gold as a manager, The Great One always seemed to know the right place to be in the biggest of games.
So it’s no surprise Wayne Gretzky was spotted at the biggest party of them all at Mar-a-Lago in Florida to celebrate Donald Trump’s huge presidential election win Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
The NHL’s all-time leading scorer and Hockey Hall of Famer was not only in a picture posted to social media with his wife Janet, daughter Paulina and her champion golfer-husband Dustin Johnson, and his son Trevor, but he was also in a second picture with executive v-p of the Trump Organization Larry Glick wearing a white Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat.
As Wayne’s wife Janet posted to Instagram of herself wearing a MAGA hat and a picture of the hockey icon with Trump, the Brantford-born Gretzky was hanging out with the winners.
But not everybody was happy about 99 celebrating with 45 and soon to be 47.
“I have no problem with Gretzky being a conservative,” CBC political panellist and newspaper columnist Andrew Coyne posted to X. “I do have a problem with him hanging with Trump. Who, for starters, is not a conservative.”
My reaction was defensive toward Wayne because I remember all too well what this Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd did to Bobby Orr when he supported the 45th president in 2020.
So I jumped on X with my response: “Who cares what you think? Wayne doesn’t and neither do most people. Nobody answers to you or worries about what you have a problem with. You’re as bad at playing God as you are at reading politics. You lost and are too arrogant to accept it. 99 was on the winning side.”
I respect Coyne and his freedom to feel however he wants to but shaming one of our icons for being at a political victory party seemed wrong to me. It’s not the first thing Coyne has got wrong this week — it’s on record he called for Kamala Harris to win the election.
I saw how Gretzky was attacked before when he supported Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2015 and I wrote a similar column at that time about the reaction to that.
But I got into it this time, mostly, because I am still not happy about how Orr was treated four years ago. The wounds from that have not healed for No. 4, who told me himself many of his long-time acquaintances didn’t have his back.
For a minute there I could see that happening to Gretzky — the same kind of nasty cancellation game that far-left crowd pulled off with Don Cherry five years ago this week over his position on Coach’s Corner on wearing the poppy for Remembrance Day.
But I sense things are changing. Rapidly. On X, I wasn’t alone in my push back on Coyne’s shot at Gretzky. Many others expressed their own views.
“If only they’d discovered a photo of Trump in blackface (Andrew Coyne) would have adored him,” posted ParksNWreck on X.
Shannon B on X asked: “Should he submit a list to you quarterly so you can approve who he is publicly seen with? Monthly? Maybe you could draft the list of acceptable associates. Do you provide this service to other Canadian athletes?
But Coyne had his supporters on this.
“It is revolting that the two leading scorers of our national pastime are simps for the worst rulers on Earth,” posted Peter Gabriel’s Monkey.
Andrew Perez posted: “Woah. Wayne Gretzky attended Trump’s victory party. Not sure this guy is the Canadian icon and encapsulation of Canadian values that many think he is.”
Duncan Dee responded that “Wayne Gretzky was a hockey player” and “what he says about politics matters to me as much as what he says about how airlines work. He didn’t ask people to vote for a candidate, he attended a party. Not sure we need to dwell on this.”
But that’s what the mob does. Back in 2020 they went after Orr with incredible nastiness after he took out an ad in a Boston newspaper showing a photo of himself with Trump at Mar-a-Lago with the words the president is the kind of “teammate I want.”
Karli Zschogner wrote in the Parry Sound North Star: “Dear Parry Sounders … it’s time to dump Bobby Orr.”
Famous Montreal sportswriter Jack Todd wrote, “You have embarrassed a nation, made a complete fool of yourself, and tarnished your reputation forevermore.”
It was ridiculous then and it is ridiculous now. Celebrities who supported Joe Biden in 2020 or Harris in 2024 don’t face any kind of backlash like this and nor should they.
Back in 2019 and 2020, the pile-on of Cherry and later Orr worked. Neither have been as public since they were so rudely treated. Parry Sound hasn’t had the annual Bobby Orr golf tournament that raised $75,000 a year for local charity since.
It’s obscene how they were treated. Neither did anything wrong. What was done to them was wrong.
But things seem different now with Gretzky’s backing along with fellow sports legends like football hall of famer Brett Favee. People don’t seem to care about what progressives on the losing side think anymore.
Gretzky is a winner and is entitled to hang out with fellow champions or with anybody who he darn well chooses to.