by Al Strachan
They saw the mob scenes that developed whenever they appeared in public. They saw a press conference that drew 100 media people in a city of 170,000 on a Sunday morning. They saw the packed arenas, even though they were staging only a small goodwill tour of exhibition games against a few club teams.
They learned that the communications industry in Europe was about ten years behind North America and poised for an explosion in cable TV and satellite TV, both of which had already taken place in North America. They became aware that network executives would soon be crying out for high-level entertainment and paying accordingly.
When all those factors were put together, the inescapable conclusion was that, not far in the future, high-quality professional hockey in the form of a rival to the NHL would evolve in Europe. As it happened, they were right. Roughly a decade after the Gretzky trip, a number of Russian oligarchs established the Kontinental Hockey League, paying big money to top-flight elite-level players, mostly of European origin.
Whether the NHL can maintain its position as the world’s best league in the face of that challenge remains to be seen. But at the time of the Gretzky tour, the players were more concerned with having their eyes opened than extending the vision for years into the future. They began to realize that every league has owners and players. But to have the best hockey league in the world, you must have NHL-calibre players. You don’t have to have NHL owners.
That’s why the owners fought so hard against the Gretzky tour. They had locked out the players to force them into agreeing to the labour landscape they had established. The last thing they wanted was a bunch of high-profile players finding out just how much they were worth.
Throughout the tour, the league’s misinformation machine relentlessly implied that Gretzky was hindering a settlement, even though out-clauses were part of every arrangement. Gretzky even paid five times the cost of commercial air travel to guarantee the use of a plane that could get every player to training camp within forty-eight hours of a lockout settlement.
Another story surfaced suggesting that Gretzky had staged the tour in order to line his pockets. In fact, he risked $500,000 of his own money in non-refundable costs to get the event rolling. Had the tour been cancelled after one game, Gretzky would have lost a lot of money. Once it reached the halfway point, he was off the hook.
As it happened, the tour played to its conclusion and raised about $300,000. One-third went to the retired players’ pension fund and an equal amount to the NHL Players’ Association. The remaining $100,000 was given to charity.
In addition, money was raised for European charities. In Helsinki, for instance, the children’s hospital was the recipient of the proceeds from the dinner. It also got a visit from Gretzky after the game.
To suggest that Gretzky staged the tour for his own financial benefit was nothing short of ridiculous. During the tour, Gretzky received four offers to appear in European club games. He could have cleared about $1 million by staying for another week or so, but wouldn’t because, “We came as a team, we’re playing as a team, and we’ll go back as a team.”
In contrast, Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider was among the NHL governors most vehemently opposed to the tour. The Flyers even prohibited their minor-league European players from taking part in any games. Nevertheless, when Gretzky and Friends played in Oslo, they did so in the Spektrum, a facility managed by Spectacor, one of Snider’s companies. As a result, Snider made a tidy profit off Gretzky’s appearance.
Not long after Gretzky and his friends returned from Europe, the players and owners hammered out an agreement. Perhaps a threat made by Mark Messier that the players were considering starting their own league was a factor. Perhaps the owners wanted to stem the rising tide of player independence before it became too entrenched. Either way, it was ironic that, even though the NHL did everything it could to sabotage Gretzky’s goodwill tour, it was the tour’s biggest beneficiary.
“It’s very obvious that the NHL could come over here and be tremendously successful,” said Gretzky as the tour wound down. “We opened a lot of doors, so to speak. We always knew that hockey was big here, but now it’s clear that the NHL is very big in Europe.
“I think it surprised all of us that hockey is so popular over here. When Team Canada came over in ’72, the people didn’t know what to expect. But guys like Borje Salming and Jari Kurri and the other European players who were successful in the NHL really opened the doors by getting people to watch our game. Now there’s such a following that the people knew most of the players, probably all of the players.”
Gretzky gave himself an incredible workload. The trip was gruelling for everyone, but, by choice, he assumed added responsibilities—kids’ hockey clinics in every city, hospital visits, television interviews and so on.
For the most part, Gretzky was happy with the tour.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “There was a lot of good hockey and a couple of really good games. I think we surprised some people with how hard we played, and the response of the players was fantastic. Every time we asked somebody to do something, we got full cooperation.”
His one disappointment?
“The fact that we didn’t get to play the Russian all-star team. They had wanted to play us and we wanted to play them, but these games are all approved by the Players’ Association and we couldn’t get that one arranged.”
When the tour ended, so did Gretzky’s career as a tour organizer. “This is my last tour,” he said. “I had fun and I enjoyed it, but I told Mess he can arrange the next tour and I’ll jump on board.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As 1995 wound down, so did Gretzky’s contract with the Los Angeles Kings.
At the end of the 1995–96 season, he was to become an unrestricted free agent, able to sell his services to any interested party.
He had lived in greater Los Angeles since 1988, and his three children had been born there. But at the same time, the desire to win another Stanley Cup still burned. The Kings had been plagued by a series of financial problems while he was on their roster, not the least of which was McNall’s imprisonment on fraud charges. The subsequent ownership had declared bankruptcy.
New ownership was now in place, but it was unclear whether the financial commitment necessary to win a Stanley Cup was also present. When those new owners were in the process of acquiring the team the previous summer, promises had been made that as soon as the sale was finalized, free agents would be pursued with a vengeance. But by the time the lawyers had finished their usual clause-by-clause analysis (which, coincidentally enough, raised their fees) and the ownership was formally transferred, most of the worthwhile free agents had signed elsewhere.
Accordingly, it was agreed that on January 20, 1996, Gretzky’s agent, Mike Barnett, would meet with the Kings’ new owners to listen to offers.
If the two sides weren’t in the same ballpark, it seemed safe to assume that Gretzky would be traded within a month or so. After all, if the Kings were liable to lose him in the summer for no compensation, common sense would dictate that they should trade him and get something in return. Like most teams unwilling to spend big money on free agents, the Kings had been musing about “rebuilding” and initiating the ever-popular “youth movement.” But Gretzky was a few days away from his thirty-fifth birthday. He had no interest in being part of a youth movement.
The status of the game’s premier player was widely known, and a number of teams approached either Barnett or the Kings about the possibility of acquiring him.
The Vancouver Canucks showed serious interest. Also making a pitch were the Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers. There were even discussions involving Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider despite the fact that, at the time, the Flyers were not big spenders and Gretzky was earning nine million dollars (two million plus a seven-million-dollar signing bonus) a year. But in what came as a surprise to most hockey fans, the most active pursuers of Gretzky’s services were the St. Louis Blues.
To the average fan, the decision was a simple one: the Kings would either deal Gretzky or they wouldn’t. And if they did, they had to try to get the best possible deal.
But as is often the case in matters of this nature, political considerations were being brought to bear. For one thing, even though the NHL owners were terrified of showing the kind of collusion that could bring on an antitrust suit, a good deal of pressure was being exerted on some of the more generous owners to keep salaries down. Only a few months earlier, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had imposed the first of his three lockouts and killed three months of the season in an attempt to reduce payrolls. If Gretzky, as the league’s highest-paid player, were to be the focus of a bidding war and be given another whopping contract, the reverberations would be felt throughout the league.
On the other hand, as far as his personal finances were concerned, Gretzky would be willing to play for less than nine million dollars. But he, too, felt an obligation to his colleagues—in this case, the members of the NHL Players’ Association. If a big Gretzky contract would drive up salaries throughout the league, a small Gretzky contract would drive them down. Even though Gretzky loved the game and wanted to continue playing, he wouldn’t do it if the offers were too low.
There was also some animosity within the Kings organization. Before Gretzky arrived in Los Angeles, the Kings tended to be a happy, cozy, country-club team. Salaries were high, the climate and lifestyle were enjoyable, anonymity was easily acquired, and the fans were not at all demanding. For people like Dave Taylor, Rogatien Vachon and some of their friends, this was a great life.
But when Gretzky arrived, he not only stole what spotlight there was, but, by his very presence, changed the whole atmosphere. Some players didn’t like it, and some of the broadcasters, whose opinion could influence fans, didn’t like it either.
So while it would be difficult to move Gretzky out of a hard-core hockey market, that was not the case in Los Angeles, even though the Kings wouldn’t be able to get anything close to equal talent in return.
After all, there wasn’t much time left on Gretzky’s contract, even though the Kings were on the hook for deferred payments until February 15, 2015. For another thing, the salary-first concept that dominates today’s hockey had already established a significant foothold in 1996. To illustrate that point, Patrick Roy and Joe Nieuwendyk had recently been traded for a small return, as far as hockey talent was concerned. NHL teams were starting to be run by the accountants. The hockey people—all of whom would love to have Gretzky—usually were well down the chain of command.
In St. Louis, however, the guy who was the driving force behind the decisions was most definitely not an accountant. He was Mike Keenan, the coach and general manager of the Blues. He not only wanted Gretzky, he wanted him in a hurry. With the meeting to determine Gretzky’s future originally planned for January 20 and then moved up to January 16, Keenan intended to make a deal the day after the meeting.
A week before that meeting, I was in Philadelphia, where the Blues were playing the Flyers. After the game, Keenan and I went out for a couple of beers. With the understanding that his comments on this particular matter were for attribution, he made his intentions as clear as was humanly possible without earning a million-dollar tampering fine from the NHL. “If Wayne Gretzky is made available by the Los Angeles Kings,” he said, “then the Blues would be very interested in having him. Very interested … that’s all I can say.”
In fact, the Blues had already held a high-level management/ownership meeting and had unanimously agreed to do everything within their power to make Gretzky a member of the Blues as soon as possible. They had even agreed to offer him something in the range of nine million dollars annually—on a two-year deal. The signing bonus, if any, was to be arranged. They felt that they could recoup much of that money and possibly even earn a bit extra through increased ticket sales.
Although the Blues’ announced home attendance in that era was usually in the seventeen-thousand range, a more honest figure would be closer to fourteen thousand. Their arena, then known as the Kiel Center, seats about twenty thousand, and with Gretzky in the lineup, all the seats were likely to be sold.
Furthermore, Gretzky’s presence would vastly improve the Blues’ chances in what could be a lucrative playoff run. Player salaries end with the regular season, so with each home game realizing about a million dollars from ticket revenue alone, the Blues envisioned a sizable windfall.
The Blues’ biggest fear at that point was that they might be outbid. The New York Rangers were also interested in Gretzky and reportedly were offering Mattias Norstrom and a first-round draft pick.
It was the Blues’ intention to offer the Kings a selection of young players and draft choices—as many as five if Gretzky were to bring along a friend or two. The Blues had in mind Marty McSorley and Rick Tocchet, operating on the assumption that if the Kings unloaded Gretzky, they had made a decision to rebuild and would therefore put other senior players on the block as well.
I called Gretzky and asked him if he knew about the Blues’ interest. He said no one had told him directly, but he did know.
The week before, the Blues had sent scout Jim Pappin to Los Angeles, and his appearance at the Kings’ practices caused a good deal of consternation among the players. Finally, Gretzky went over to him, laughed, and said, “Jimmy, you don’t have to hang around here all week. Go back to St. Louis and tell Mike I still work hard in practice.”
Usually, trade negotiations are secret. But I had published the details of this one in the Toronto Sun and now, there were almost daily updates. On the hockey front, most of the teams in the league had given some thought to their chances of acquiring Gretzky.
The Kings’ management, meanwhile, was under assault for answers, even though the proposed meeting between Barnett and the team was still a week away.
In a city like Los Angeles, image is always a factor. The team didn’t want to be seen as throwing away its short-term Cup hopes and insisted that Gretzky admit that the trade was his idea—which he did. Then the team had to say that it was trying to keep Gretzky, whether that was the case or not.
“We are prepared to offer a contract extension as early as tomorrow to Gretzky’s agent, Mike Barnett, to show our intent to keep him,” Kings general manager Sam McMaster told an L.A.–area radio station on January 14. “Ownership has told me we can increase our budget right now to acquire a veteran player.”
That was true. But what he didn’t say was that this was not a policy change. The money had been there all season. McMaster simply didn’t spend it.
On the same day, Gretzky spelled out his concerns during an ESPN interview. “My priority is to see if this new ownership group would be willing to go out and add a couple of guys,” he said. The “couple of guys” he had in mind, he explained, were a fifty-goal scorer and a defenceman of Paul Coffey’s calibre.
“If we aren’t going to better our team, then, yeah, I would just like to win a championship,” Gretzky added. “I’m not twenty-two years old anymore. I’m not at an age where I can play for another ten years. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep Wayne Gretzky around as a presence if we’re not going to go out and win a championship. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the Kings to pay me what they’re paying me if we’re not going to try to win.”
Up to this point, all the factors pointed not only to a Gretzky trade but to an imminent Gretzky trade. When the long-awaited meeting between the two sides finally took place, however, it did not go well. Gretzky did not attend, but was represented by his lawyer and Barnett. The Kings’ representatives were McMaster, alternate governor Rogatien Vachon, and hockey operations head Bob Sanderman.
The fact that this trio represented the Kings was in itself ominous. The top tw
o people in the Kings’ organization were not present, although perhaps the absence of majority owner Philip Anschutz should not have come as a surprise. In his four months of ownership, he had never attended a game, so it wasn’t a shock that he didn’t attend a meeting concerning a team he had never seen in action.
Afterwards, the Kings issued the following statement: “We had a productive meeting today with Wayne Gretzky’s representatives. We discussed many things including a contract extension for Wayne but there is no timetable as to when such an extension may be completed.
“We understand Wayne’s desire for the Kings to be a winning team. It is our desire as well. Our goal is to build a winner and keep Wayne Gretzky a part of the Kings’ organization. We are working hard to accomplish those goals.
“Meetings between both parties will be ongoing.”
In the news business, that kind of statement usually translates as “We’re miles apart.” It contained no indication that any progress was made. Furthermore, the Kings were clearly unable to suggest that Gretzky had any intention of signing the contract extension to which they referred.
All of a sudden it became clear that the Kings and Gretzky were not on the same page. They weren’t even reading from the same book.
In his ESPN interview, Gretzky had said, “We will have a good idea where everybody stands by the end of the week. I’m sure something will happen by then.”
But two days later, McMaster announced that he expected no further meetings until after the all-star break, which was coming up that weekend.
Thus began more than a month of half-truths and innuendoes, of one step forward and two steps back, of dawdling and indecisiveness.
The all-star weekend, which, naturally enough, usually centred around the all-star game, instead focused on the state of the Gretzky-trade negotiations.
By this point, the Blues weren’t saying much. They were still in the forefront of the talks, and they were still pulling out all the stops to get Gretzky. But Keenan, certainly not one of commissioner Gary Bettman’s favourite people, had been told to shut up about it. It was Keenan—and only Keenan—who spoke for the Blues.
