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Dear Wayne (Gretzky):
I'm writing to you not as an acquaintance (one of your most disarming and endearing traits is the way you always ask how our sons are doing ... by name), nor as a sports journalist who's been writing about hockey for more than three decades.
No, I'm writing to you instead as a fan, as one person who loves The Game as an observer, commentator and spectator -- perhaps almost as much as you loved playing it.
I'm writing to remind you, now that you're a couple of months removed from the excitement, poignancy and stress of retirement, that your job in professional hockey is far from over. You may have retired from playing The Game for an NHL team, but The Game is never going to let go of you. Furthermore, The Game still needs you. Badly.
Only now the wonderful, exciting, breathtaking, violent, flying game we all know and love as professional ice hockey needs you to lend your legendary goal-scoring touch and play-making abilities off the ice instead of on it.
But what can you do?
Become a goodwill ambassador for The Game and the NHL? How? You always did that best as a player; as the player who put people in the seats because of your enormous talents. While the Carolina Hurricanes were losing money hand over fist and playing to an empty arena, they could count on at least one "sellout" (by virtue of hiding more than half of the seats behind a tarpaulin), when Wayne Gretzky and the Rangers came to town.
As player/ambassador your presence in Los Angeles turned movie stars into avid fans, turned a Kings ticket into a chance to rub elbows with the glitterati of Hollywood. Los Angeles even made it to the Stanley Cup finals one year, partly because your quiet charisma helped the team to coalesce, to perform at its best for one failed-but-glorious run.
How could your gracing the sidelines equal what you did on the ice, by dint of both presence and performance? Will you to sit around at a thousand games waiting for some young "phenom" to break one or some of your records -- the way Gordie Howe did ( so graciously, I might add), while you shattered most of his once-seemingly unsurpassable records?
Perhaps you should own a team, as Mario Lemieux is in the process of doing. I'm sure you're aware that rumormongers say you're going to buy a piece of the Kings or the Toronto Maple Leafs -- that you might even come out of retirement and play for them. Let's face it: You and Mario both could come back in uniform for the teams you might own and play better than 99 percent of the chaps on the ice, Sedin twins or no.
But what would that do for The Game? It might fill the seats for a while, but would it win your club any Stanley Cups? Both of you also learned, the hard way, that one mighty talent does not make a Stanley Cup-winning team.
Maybe you should join your longtime agent and friend, Mike Barnett, and become an agent -- as Bobby Orr has done in Boston by becoming a consulting partner in Woolf Associates. Just having the Gretzky name on the door would draw clients like the proverbial flies.
But what would it do for The Game -- that wonderful, beautiful, breathtaking game of NHL hockey?
Many more teams than the Pittsburgh Penguins are toying with bankruptcy; expansion has spun completely out of control (witness an NHL team in Columbus, Ohio, if you can); rule changes occur so often and so much that it's a miracle anyone knows how to play the game -- and all of the Canadian teams except for the Leafs are threatening to fold, sell or re-locate.
As we who love, watch and write about The Game await your next move, Wayne, remember that on the night you retired, you said you owed everything to hockey. There are those who will say emphatically that you, with the records and numbers and stunning moves, have more than repaid The Game -- that you should be able to disappear gracefully into whatever else you want to do with your life.
But don't listen to them, Wayne. Because The Game needs you more now than ever. Maybe it's just another example of your perfect timing that you simply moved your "office" from behind the net to off the ice.
ST. LOUIS (Aug. 20) -- Jim Campbell, a forward with the St. Louis Blues, was arrested Wednesday night for driving while intoxicated.
Police stopped Campbell in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton after he drove through a red light. A breathalizer test indicated that he had a .15 blood alcohol level. The legal limit is .10.
Campbell was cited for running the light, and for driving under the influence of alcohol. He's expected to appear in court Sept. 13.
Campbell suffered a groin injury earlier this year that kept him out for a portion of the season.
He was named to the National Hockey League's All-Rookie team in 1996-97, and was a runnerup for the Calder Trophy, given to the NHL's top rookie. He led the Blues in seven goals and 10 points in the 1998 Stanley Cup playoffs.
TORONTO (June 28) -- With another team threatening to move to the United States, the federal government on Monday said it is ready to reverse past policy and provide financial help to protect Canada's six National Hockey League franchises.
"The federal government is prepared to be part of a solution, but not the only part of the solution,'' said Industry Minister John Manley after an unprecedented one-day "hockey summit'' devoted to the financial problems of the Canadian franchises.
He said a new round of talks would be held next month to pursue specific financial remedies. These might include channeling a share of lottery revenues to NHL teams.
Attending the meeting were federal, provincial and local officials; executives of the six teams; the head of the NHL players' association, and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who says he wants the six teams to stay in Canada.
According to the NHL, the six teams collectively lost more than $100 million from 1996 through 1998. Their problems include tax burdens that are higher than the league's U.S.-based franchises, plus having to pay player salaries in U.S. dollars even though their revenues are derived from weaker Canadian dollars.
Teams based in Quebec City and Winnipeg moved to the United States in recent years, and the Ottawa Senators -- one of the league's top teams last season -- say they will move after next season if they get no government help with their tax burden.
Senators owner Rob Bryden, along with his fellow owners, emerged from Monday's meeting with newfound optimism.
"I was very encouraged,'' Bryden said. "The meeting was more positive than I would have expected.''
The Canadian teams are not lobbying for reductions in corporate or individual income taxes, but they do hope for breaks on local taxes. They say most of the U.S. franchises play in publicly financed areas and pay little or no local tax.
"We're not here to help out the owners,'' Manley said. "We're talking about the fact that hockey in general is one of the key elements of Canadian life.''
Manley indicated the federal government would be willing to pitch in to help only if local and provincial governments also contributed.
DETROIT (Aug. 20) -- Nicklas Lidstrom had one good reason to return to Sweden and nearly 22 million others to stay in the NHL.
The restricted free-agent defenseman agreed to a three-year, $21.75 million deal to remain with the Detroit Red Wings, bucking his homeland for the NHL, it was announced Friday during a teleconference.
Lidstrom's agent, Don Meehan, and Red Wings general manager Ken Holland addressed the media Friday. They seriously began negotiations a week ago and concluded Thursday night.
The pair agreed there were two parts to the negotiations: Lidstrom, who earned $2.05 million last season, returning to Sweden to raise his children or re-signing for big money.
"It was a balancing of considerations on the personal end and the professional end," Meehan said.
Lidstrom, speaking from Sweden in a release from the team, said he and his wife, Annika, made the decision after consulting friends that had gone through a similar situation.
"Like us, they felt it was important to raise their families here in Sweden," he said. "But they all agreed that there was no problem with their kids living there longer than what we already have."
The deal puts Lidstrom, 29, in the upper echelon of salaries among NHL defensemen -- with Brian Leetch, Al MacInnis and Rob Blake. Lidstrom likely would have made $500,000 a year in Sweden.
"The money was never part of the decision," Lidstrom said. "If it was about money, I could have worked out a deal last year."
According to Meehan and Holland, Lidstrom approached the team about his concerns 18 months ago. But Meehan called Holland in mid-June.
"That was a real sign that Nick had the interest in coming back to Detroit," said Holland, who admitted he grew more concerned with time.
Lidstrom decided last week that if negotiations between Holland and Meehan went well, he would return to Detroit.
"We both knew that we were going to have to deal with a negotiation and a result that was representative of Nick's stature in the league," Meehan said. "Nick had a good appreciation of that and once he fulfilled last year's contract, he knew the range he would be at. He balanced that against his personal objectives."
Deals of one or two years had been discussed, even though Lidstrom would have become an unrestricted free agent in two years.
"It was important from Kenny's end that Nick be committed to Detroit at least one year into free agency," Meehan explained.
"We didn't want to go through this again in one year," Lidstrom added. "So we agreed to a three-year contract. We wanted to make a committment. When this contract is up, who knows?"
Lidstrom, an eight-year veteran who has recorded at least 57 points each of the last four seasons, helped lead the Wings to Stanley Cups in 1997 and 1998.
"Obviously, getting Nick back is a tremendous impact on our hockey club," Holland said. "We feel with Nick in our lineup we're one of the premier teams in the league and a Stanley Cup contender. Without him, we're going to fall a fair bit because he has that kind of impact on our team."
A three-time All-Star, Lidstrom led all Detroit defenseman last season with 14 goals and 43 assists in 81 games as the Wings were eliminated by Colorado in the Western Conference semifinals.
Lidstrom, a third-round pick in 1989, has 101 goals and 322 assists in 612 NHL games, all with Detroit.
The Wings also announced Friday that defenseman Uwe Krupp has been suspended indefinitely for failing to release his medical history to the team.
Krupp played only 22 games last season due to a herniated disc in his back after signing a four-year, $16.4 million free agent deal.
Holland said me met with Krupp and his agent in early June to discuss medical reports. According to Holland, "One suggested that given his back condition that retirement was a possibility and unless something changed not to count on him."
The Wings GM met with Krupp's agent "on a couple of occcassions" and in July asked Krupp to sign medical release forms. Krupp initially declined. Holland then "changed and tigthened" the forms, but Krupp still declined to sign them.
Holland claimed that under terms of the collective bargaining agreement and as a member of the NHL and an employer, he should have access to Krupp's medical history.
The NHL announced this morning the league's Board of Governors has formally approved the sale of the Washington Capitals from original owner Abe Pollin to a Washington-based group comprised of Ted Leonsis, Jon Ledecky and Dick Patrick.
Pollin, who brought the hockey franchise to the Washington Metropolitan area in 1974, announced his decision to sell the team on May 12.
"Jon, Dick and I are grateful for the faith that Mr. Pollin has placed in us," Leonsis said. "We are also very appreciative of the confidence the NHL Board of Governors has in us."
The sale marks the end of Pollin's 26-year tenure as majority owner of the Washington Capitals. He purchased the Caps in 1972 and the team began play in the NHL in 1974-75. The franchise made its first-ever trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998.
"I believe that these men will do a great job with the Washington Capitals," Pollin said. "I feel the Capitals franchise is in great hands."
Leonsis and his group also purchased a minority partnership in Washington Sports and Entertainment.
Leonsis, the President of the Interactive Properties Group for America Online, is making his first personal foray into sports ownership. Ledecky is the founder of three Washington-based, publicly traded companies with sales in excess of $1 billion each. Patrick currently serves as president of the Capitals and represents the team at the NHL Board of Governors meetings.
Leonsis stated that he had no plans to make any changes in the management team of general manager George McPhee and coach Ron Wilson. After reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in 1997-98, the Capitals failed to make the playoffs this past season.
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