This is fascinating stuff… A depressed league that is trying to stay relevant, one of its few (its only?) superstars with a MJ or Pete Rose-esque Q-rating, and a gambling scandal that nobody, nobody can afford.
Wayne can’t afford this… hockey is all he has, all he is.
His wife can’t afford this… she’s got a gambling addiction (assume the bets are actually hers and not just in her name). (Note that she was the first one, other than Totchett, that was cast over the side* in the effort to Cover Ass.)
The NHL can’t afford this… they’re fighting oblivion as it is. Gambling? The (always implied if never proven) potential for fixed games? Mob Bosses getting preferred seating? One of its few superstars now forever tainted?
Now they have descended to the level of professional boxing. With the help of Wayne Gretzky, nonetheless.
What a waste.
*(BTW, if any ladies are reading this and caught Wayne on TV the past few days, how’d y’all like that shining example of “standing by your (wo)man”? :dubious: Shame, Wayne!)
So I’ve got this mat, it’s called a Jump to Conclusions Mat…
This AP story says (as I’d heard elsewhere) that so far, there is no evidence anybody bet on any hockey games. So no fixing. The story that you’ve linked to says that not only is there no evidence that Gretzky was involved in the betting, but that the purported betting is not illegal anyway.
I think you’ve got the zamboni just a wee bit before the… um… zamboni operator here. If he’s charged with something like obstruction or conspiracy, that could have that effect, but we’ll see.
Well he at least knew about it , and if you’re the head coach of a professional sports team, and your assistant coach is running a sports gambling ring, you’re already in the deep doo-doo. If it turns out you knew he was doing it, you’re even deeper.
It does not look good for the great one, but all early reports and scuttlebutt is that there was no betting on hockey, almost completely on NFL.
Mrs. Gretsky is suppose to be a big gambler and supposedly gambles with her own (Hollywood money? When was the last time she worked?)
The Asst. Coach is in deep and probably ties to NJ {what a frigging surprise} Organized crime.
This may not hurt Hockey too badly. It might hurt Gretsky a lot.
Janet Jones will probably make a big deal about going to a rehab program for gambler and the NHL might not lose their biggest star.
As of five days ago, there was no “evidence” of anything.
True… there’s a lot of speculation in my OP. That’s why I put it in IMHO.
However…
Aren’t phone calls about how to save his wife a form of “obstruction of justice?” If he knew about a gambling ring, and didn’t report it, isn’t that evidence of possible conspiratorial actions on Wayne’s part? (IANAL, of course, nor do I have any sources other than what I can gather on the net.)
Even if the legal system can’t do anything, what about the NHL? There is direct evidence that a coach knew about a gambling ring run by his assistant, one in which the coach’s wife bet up to a reported $500,000 - $75,000 of that less than two weeks ago. Even worse, the coach is their one bona-fide superstar, a man who earned the moniker “The Great One” long before his playing career was over.
What are they going to do with Gretzky?
In regards to future potential revelations… This thing has come from nowhere… why assume the story ends where it stood yesterday?
Logically, there’s no reason to set up a gambling ring of hockey insiders if you’re not going to bet on hockey games. Logically, there’s no way you can see half-a-mil. from your bank account go missing and not know what’s going on. Logically, when a person is caught in one outright lie* they tend to be caught in others.
So… IMHO, this thing hasn’t reached it’s full fury yet. We have a hyper-competitive athelete (HCA) who can’t stay away from the game, one who’s wife happens to have a gambling addiction ( :dubious: ), one involving HCA’s assistant coach… and we’re to assume that HCA has no knowledge of this?
It defies precedent. Just ask Jordan. Or Rose.
*On Tuesday, Gretzky claimed to have been informed about the entire gambling ring just within the past 24-hours… then it’s released that, well, you know he’s been calling Tochett for the past month, wondering how to cover for his wife (not “don’t you take another bet from my poor, gambling addicted wife, you bastard!”, but “how do we cover her azz?”)
I don’t get it. In a league that permits/encourages players to smash the shit out of each other, that traditionally gouges fans at the ticket booth, and that has an ugly and ongoing history of racism, I just can’t see getting so worked up about the wife of a superstar - a superstar with an unblemished on-ice and off-ice record, I would add, one of the most widely respected Canadians around the world - placing some bets.
The NHL lost all moral authority after Bertuzzi-gate.
The “fuss” is whether you’re seeing an actual competition or a staged event. For the enjoyment of the sport, that makes all the difference in the world. Why bother watching, participating, if the outcome is fixed?
It’s akin to the difference between seeing the 1980 US Ice Hockey victory while in the stadium, live, and watching Miracle. But worse, as there is no deceit in regards to the movie.
\So far all the feds are saying is that Gretzky knew. He was talking on the phone to tocchet a month ago about how he could keep his wife from being implicated. As of right now, I believe, his wife if nothing but a witness. The three people being charged are some new jersey guy, a state trooper, and tocchet.
Gretzky, in every area of his life since he was thrust into the spotlight as a teenager, has been beyond reproach. I can almost guarantee that he personally has done absolutely nothing wrong. What is angering me about this whole situation is how people seem to be deserately hoping that he does become involved for the purposes of a story (Not to mention the fact that people seem to just love to see a hero fall. It’s an infuriating fact about our society).
If tocchet is in fact guilty, I hate him for it. Janet deserves to get yelled at over this too. She had to know this would come back and hit her husband.
As far as I can tell from the wording of the article, that’s not neccesarily the case. They say the wiretaps were recorded within the last month - but then 24 hours before it broke is within the last month, isn’t it? The problem seems to be that we have only scattershot information, released in what clearly seems to me to be an irresponsible manner to the media from the investigating police department, and which makes it far from clear about what’s happening. In any event, everything I’ve read indicates that Janet isn’t in any legal trouble anyway.
I guess I’m just annoyed that the buzzards are circling before there’s any evidence of any fixing, whatsoever.
IF it turns out games have been fixed, and IF it turns out that Wayne was involved, then yes, we have a serious problem.
At this point, we do not. An uproar at this point is unwarranted, especially considering all the other garbage that is associated with the NHL.
Of course it’s debatable, as is any accusation of racism, any time, anywhere. However, there is sufficient evidence that the characterization is accurate.
It is my opinion that an organization which professes to include people on the basis of something other than race, should reflect the racial make-up of the population from which it is selecting. The NHL does not.
The NHL tolerates racist verbal abuse from fans directed at players:
although to their credit they have been known to suspend players for racist comments.
In Breaking the Ice: The black experience in professional hockey, the author argues
To be fair I will broaden my comment from “NHL” to “hockey,” because the problem clearly runs deeper than the league and the league seems to be making some efforts to address it.
However, my original point stands: the problems that the NHL ignores/permits/enables, including racism, dwarf the problem of Wayne Gretzky’s wife and assistant coach betting on non-hockey sports.
I am actually more concerned with the Bertuzzi incident than I am with the racism, so please let’s not take this thread too far into the racist-hijack territory.
First sentence: “Wayne Gretzky was recorded on a wiretap talking to the alleged financier of a gambling ring, discussing how the hockey great’s wife could avoid being implicated…”
As I said in my post, those things are both possible.
I’m not assuming it ends. But I can’t assume where it’s going to continue, and as of now, they say that Gretzky is not the focus of the probe and that he’s not connected to the actual betting by any evidence.
I completely disagree. Tocchet is a retired hockey player; ‘hockey insiders’ are the people he’s known and worked with for a long time. And he knows they have plenty of money.
Right, and at the time, he probably couldn’t have know where they stood. But if you read other articles on this, you have statements such as this , where it seems as though Janet’s only role will be as a witness.
I really don’t get the stigma behind athletes betting on games. Ok, there’s an obvious conflict of interest if they’re betting on their own sport. But hockey players betting on football? The only substansive argument against that I’ve heard goes like this: “Well, what if they run up gigantic debts, and then to pay them off, they agree to throw games?” It’s totally ridiculous. Shall we ban athletes from spending any money at all?
Im with you on this one, everyone is so fast to cast a stone at Gretzky on this issue. The guy is THE Canadian role model for Christ sakes, and everyone is dying to see him go to shambles. I’ve seen pedophiles cast in better light then he is now in the media, and over what? People around him being caught up in some gambling. Small potatoes I think. As if us ourselves or our family and friends Don’t get our hands dirty every now and again
Its really frustrating and i hope it does not overshadow the amazing work he has put into team Canada for this Olympics. But I think that’s almost inevitable. Even today in the Globe and Mail there were articles calling for him to not go to the games. Its very sad
Wayne has a lot more than “just hockey”. He has consistently proven himself to be a class act, on and off the ice. He is a role model as an athlete, but also an excellent father, husband and son. People are always quick to jump to judgment about those that rise above, it seems that while we want to put him on a pedestal, we are anxious to tear him down. In a sport where violence is often glorified or at least ignored (Bertuzzi, it still burns me), he ruled with speed and finesse, not penalty minutes.
He won hearts when he played for a Canadian team (little guy was GREAT), and although tears were shed when he went to the US, we understood he was doing it for his family.
He was the only player that simultaneously hurt the game (by breaking the 1 million mark) and was also an ambassador to save it.
Whether or not this turns out bad or good for him, I know that it will either prove him a good example, or just a fallible human being. I have not always been a hockey fan (for shame) and can’t claim to always grasp all of the nuances of the game, but even I can recognize what Gretzky means to many of us.
Yeah, I understand the issue with that. But commentators all over have been decrying any gambling whatsoever by hockey players, which I don’t understand. I really suspect that the media is making this out to be much bigger than it really is – like by going after Gretzky with innuendoes before they have the facts.
