In the spring of 1993, Wayne Gretzky played the greatest single game of his career at Maple Leaf Gardens, preventing the Maple Leafs from returning to the Stanley Cup final.
Three years later, a simple nod of approval from Steve Stavro would have made Gretzky a member of the Leafs — at a discount.
Over the past decade, his name often came up when the Leafs were looking for new hockey people to deliver a Cup to Toronto, but he was locked into a deal with the Phoenix Coyotes.
Now, the timing for Gretzky to finally join forces with the historic Original Six franchise may finally be perfect. Maybe the role, too.
On Wednesday, the Star’s Rick Westhead broke the news that a U.S. investment company called Providence Equity Partners has interest in purchasing the 79 per cent stake of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the company that owns the Leafs, NBA Raptors and the Air Canada Centre, from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund.
Thursday, Sportsnet added another blockbuster layer to the story, revealing that Gretzky had been contacted by Providence Equity to be part of their group. Gretzky confirmed that to Sportsnet, saying: “Yes, I’ve been approached by multiple firms considering the purchase of MLSE.”
Late Thursday night, a member of Gretzky’s camp tried to throw some cold water on the story.
“Wayne is often approached about becoming involved in various hockey opportunities,” said spokesman Darren Blake. “At this point in time there is nothing happening involving the purchase of the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
Nevertheless, Gretzky, who has long professed his affection for the Leafs, would be a part of a grouping bidding for control of the team, just makes sense. That U.S. investors, who would almost certainly face criticism from fans, media and Canadian nationalists for scooping up hockey’s most valuable franchise, would want Gretzky as their front man makes even more sense, particularly at a time when the team has been criticized by some for it’s growing contingent of American players.
Gretzky had a minority equity position in the Coyotes during several ownership changes, a time when he also functioned as the team’s head coach and his longtime business partner Mike Barnett was the Phoenix GM. When Phoenix went into bankruptcy, Gretzky’s relationship with the club was eventually severed, and he is still owed millions of dollars in deferred monies currently locked in legal battles over the future of the Arizona-based team.
That was an unsuccessful hockey venture for The Great One. Overlapping that, however, was his role as executive director of the Canadian Olympic team. Under Gretzky’s leadership, Canada won gold in men’s hockey for the first time in 50 years at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
There are those who would suggest he wasn’t a very good NHL coach, or at least that he couldn’t make the necessary time commitment to do the job because of all his other business interests.
But as a front man, or even a senior executive position with the Leafs? That might be a perfect fit for a team that has progressed under Brian Burke this season but nonetheless remains distant from the ultimate goal of competing for the Cup.
The controlling chunk of MLSE, of course, has been on the block for months, and any number of groups have been mentioned as possible bidders. Westhead’s story revealed bidders from south of the border for the first time, although it’s unclear who, if any, have made an actual formal bid or are poised to do so.
While some Leaf fans might recoil at U.S. ownership, it’s worth nothing that both the Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens were owned by American interests over the past 15 years. In fact, George Gillette overcame skepticism about his purchase of the the historic Montreal franchise to become enormously popular in La Belle Province, credited with improving the Canadiens’ fortunes on and off the ice.
The involvement of Gretzky would undoubtedly smooth the way for U.S. investors to buy the Leafs. His father, Walter, still lives in Brantford, and while Gretzky lives in California, he owns a restaurant in Toronto and has a winery in the Niagara region.
Plus, he has all kinds of memories here.
It was in the 1993 Western Conference final, Game 7, when Gretzky almost singlehandedly lifted the Los Angeles Kings past Pat Burns, Doug Gilmour and the Leafs and on to the Stanley Cup final, where the Kings lost to Montreal.
In 1996, Gretzky was a 35-year-old free agent, and set up an arrangement with then Leaf GM Cliff Fletcher to leave St. Louis and join the Leafs.
“We were talking about something between $2 million and $3 million a season,” Gretzky told Gord Stellick for the book ’67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory and the End of An Empire, published in 2004.
“And you know, the ridiculous part is that Vancouver was offering me $8 million a season. But I wanted to be a Leaf in the worst way. I told Cliff, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work. You can defer my salary for 25 years if you have to. Whatever it takes to get the deal done.’”
Ultimately, partly because Stavro was forced to pay millions to the charities named in Harold Ballard’s will, the Leafs declined to sign Gretzky, who joined the New York Rangers, instead.
“(Fletcher) said he couldn’t get the deal approved,” said Gretzky, who said he was convinced at the time he was going to play for the Leafs. “Oh, definitely. I thought that way for a few weeks.”
This time, Gretzky is relatively unencumbered, although he has said publicly he’s not sure whether he wants to become involved with the NHL again.
It’s believed commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s board of governors would be thrilled to have Gretzky join the lodge again in some capacity. That said, it’s not clear whether he’s seriously interested in joining forces with Providence Equity or any of the groups that have approached him.
Leaf fans, meanwhile, just want a winner. Burke came here with a Stanley Cup ring from Anaheim, but many Leaf supporters have already grown restless in the short time Burke has run the team.
For the most part, whether it’s the nameless, faceless Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund owning the team or some nameless, faceless U.S. investment group, Leaf fans couldn’t care.
They just want a winner. And many would embrace the notion that Gretzky could play a role in building one.
Gretzky could join Leafs?
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