
Canada hockey legend Wayne Gretzky was already facing a strained relationship with the Canadian public when he emerged from the tunnel at his country’s 4 Nations Face-Off final against the United States in Boston last week.
But that strain reached a full-on breaking point on Thursday night when Gretzky gave an eager thumbs up to the US players and wore no Canadian colors to a game where he was his country’s honorary team captain.
Gretzky’s perceived disloyalty to his home country, where hockey is almost a national religion, may have caused an uproar among Canadians even at the best of times. But his actions were interpreted by many as traitorous amid heightened nationalism as Donald Trump threatens a trade war and muses about making Canada the 51st state.
Regardless of Gretzky’s reputation, some observers say the reactions are proof that many Canadians could be looking for their sports heroes to take a stronger stance on Trump.
“Observers of Canadian hockey look at Wayne Gretzky as essentially an immortal, a god, right? But the truth is, his relationship to the Canadian hockey public has been very different than say it was in 2002,” says Taylor McKee, an assistant professor of sports management at Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario.
In 2002, Gretzky was the executive director of Canada’s gold medal-winning Olympic hockey team in Salt Lake City. There he was considered “Mr Canada,” says McKee. Canadians who want that version of him to emerge at a time when there are external threats to the country, were left disappointed by Gretzky, he says.
“They wanted a guy who was willing to stand up there and take bullets for the team,” he says. “Instead, they got the guy they saw essentially as a saboteur, or certainly someone they couldn’t trust.”
Trump has insisted he will levy a 25% tariff on goods from Canada, set to be implemented next week. There have also been threats to annex the country and rumors of Gretzky as a possible prime minister under a Trump regime. All of it fueled the tensions that ran high in the crowd in Boston last week.
Canadian singer Chantal Kreviazuk sang O Canada amid a smattering of boos from the Americans in the crowd. That came after the Canadian crowd in Montreal had loudly booed the US national anthem at their 4 Nations game against Finland on 13 February.
At the final, Kreviazuk also changed the lyrics of the anthem from “in all of us command” to “that only us command” as a response to Trump’s annexation threats.
Canada’s sudden-death overtime win in the final on Thursday, which became symbolic of the geopolitical fight, led to huge celebrations in cities and towns across the country in a way that was previously unexpected when the tournament was planned, says McKee.
To fans, the game itself became important in a way not seen since the 1972 Summit Series, between the USSR and Canada, he explained. That all heightened Gretzky’s blunder through this moment.
Aaron Ettinger, an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa who specializes in international relations and sports, agrees. “I’m not surprised people are so angry about it,” says Ettinger. “It’s the combination of the immediacy of the Trump problem and the slow, long-term erosion of the love affair with Wayne Gretzky over the last 25 years.”
Gretzky’s coaching stint with the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes in the mid-2000s was considered a failure and his political affiliations with then-prime minister Stephen Harper in 2015 ended up latching him to a sinking ship as Harper lost the election – which may have affected his image, says Ettinger. A continued affiliation with the US (where he has been a longtime resident) rather than Canada has been a contribution to some Canadians’ further souring on him over the years.
Grant Prete, an 31-year-old Edmonton resident and hockey fan, says it’s Gretzky’s previous actions that led him to question the so-called Great One – but Trump’s threats toward Canada and the former hockey star’s continued affiliation with the president were the final straw. Gretzky has visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence on several occasions and attended his inauguration last month.
Last week, Prete launched a petition to remove Gretzky’s name from a highway in the city where he shot to stardom on the Edmonton Oilers. It’s received more than 9,000 signatures and counting.
“Gretzky has been silent on his entire stance with the annexation part of Trump’s political platform. … He’s just known to be very close and affiliated to Donald Trump,” says Prete. “I feel like it reaches a point where his silence on this topic becomes a response in itself.”
Prete says he was already upset with Gretzky – for not making the effort to receive his promotion to Companion of the Order of Canada that was issued in 2009. But it hasn’t been an easy decision for him to create the petition. He said his older friends in particular have been upset at his criticism of Gretzky.
BREAKING: The greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky attended Donald Trump’s victory party at Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/iraCVi0xg6
— Ian Jaeger (@IanJaeger29) November 9, 2024
The generation gap is probably a factor with the current backlash. That’s because younger people may not have the same emotional connection with Gretzky, who has lived outside Canada for years and ended his NHL career in 1999, says Peter Donnelly, a professor emeritus of sports policy and politics at the University of Toronto.
“Gretzky’s absence in Canada means that his fame and face value in Canada has an age limit. Few children know who you are talking about, and it’s difficult even to use him as an example with students, without adding an explanation,” he says.
But it’s important to understand the Gretzky backlash is not tied to a political awakening for hockey in Canada, says Courtney Szto, an associate professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, who specializes in sports and injustice.
Hockey players are not typically asked to reveal political affiliations. The anger toward Gretzky’s association with Trump is about threats to Canadian national identity – not about other human rights issues under the Trump administration, she says.
“It’s more this notion of becoming the 51st state … not the deportation of immigrants. Our politics are not that different [from the US], it’s really just a fight about nationalism and loyalty.”
When it comes to Gretzky’s future though, Ettinger says the reaction from his compatriots has shown his status in Canada is changing for good.
“I can envision a situation where [Alexander Ovechkin breaks NHL’s goalscoring record], everybody gives Wayne Gretzky … a standing ovation, we say thank you for all the memories and then we go our separate ways,” he says.