Blame it on the Wayne

Sure, it’s easy to chuckle at the malfunctioning torch during the Olympic opening ceremonies Friday night. The images were priceless; three hours of what can only be described as a First Nations version of an acid trip followed by the flawless painfully awkward lighting of the four-legged triangular cauldron.But let’s be honest; laughing at Canada is like laughing at the kids in the Special Olympics. You don’t feel good about it; in fact, you rather admire their guts and determination. But even that doesn’t cover the brutal reality there is something utterly fucking hilarious in everything they do.  

They do this on purpose. You are supposed to be distracted asking your self questions like:    

• “Why the hell is Anne Murray out there? Did Gordon Lightfoot die?”
• “Is that really Batman playing a violin in a flying canoe?”
• “Did they include entertainers because they didn’t have enough athletes? Nobody could find Stubby Clapp?”
• “If they were going to use entertainers, why didn’t they get somebody who doesn’t suck? Like Geddy Lee…or Shatner?”

Naturally, all this obfuscation is designed to keep you away from the real question: Is that a hint of evil in Wayne Gretzky’s eye? 

"The Great One" knows you are waiting for him to make his move.

 

Damn straight it is. Look at that sideways glance. That’s the same look the kid across from you in 8th grade study hall had right before he was going to launch a flaming paper airplane. Pictures like this are worth a thousand words…they make it easy to see that Wayne Gretzky is now and has always been evil. Many great world tragedies, from the end of the German airship industry to Milli Vanilli, have something in common. They can all Blame it on the Wayne.   

The evidence is everywhere. First of all, do you know Wayne Gretzky isn’t even who he says he is? Here he is Friday clearly acting the part of a Canadian when in fact he is an American citizen. We all know anything found at the 42,788th hit on a Google search has to be true, so why should anybody be shocked to learn that somebody claiming to be Gretzky’s nephew is offering the cover story?  

Dual citizenship. Of course he does-he was born in Canada and continues to be heavily involved with their national game. If you ask him his nationality, he will say Canadian. He lives and works in the U.S so he has dual citizenship.   

Bullshit. Even if you buy that story, there’s only two types of people with dual citizenship: People whose parents are from two different countries and international arch-villians. So, “The Great One” either has a forked family tree, or he’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld.   

As far as the “alleged” family tree is concerned, we are led to believe Gretzky’s ancestry is that of a middle-class Ukrainian who emigrated to Canada. Gretzky’s father supposedly worked for Bell Telephone in Brantford, ON where he married a stay-at-home mother of four. Even if that could all be proven true, it still isn’t the clash of cultures needed for this purpose, which means the only explanation left is he is evil.  

 The saddest part is we live in a society that glosses over the foibles of athletes. Gretzky knew that; he became “The Great One” for exactly that reason. He knew that once he eclipsed a legend like Gordie Howe, that whole “Hindenburg” incident would vanish from the public conscious.   

 

You may ask “Why would a man who earns the undying respect of an entire nation need to be evil? Why wouldn’t he be happy with that?” We humans have a funny quirk. We have this need to think we can choose we can pick the attributes for which we will be loved. Canada loves Gretzky, but not for what he would have them do. As a boy back in Brantford, he fancied the stage lights of Hollywood rather than the rinks of the NHL. The trouble was, not only did he already know about the exculpatory power of athletic glory, he also knew that a career as an entertainer doomed him to being “the other guy from Brantford.”    

In other words, it mattered little that Canada loved “The Great One;” they loved him for the wrong reason. And for that misguided love, we all would pay. He already tried once. It was that same desire from his youth for the light of the stage that led him to commit one of the great evils of all time – his appearance on Saturday Night Live.   

 

God help us if we ever let another pissed-off hockey player do comedy. It was like his performance reached out of my TV, pulled out my eyes, skull-raped me, and even when he stuck my eyes back in, the part that could see comedy would never see it the same way again.  

It was the Canadians’ love of “The Great One” that caused them yet again to be the world’s “Special Olympian.” After the Saturday Night Live debacle, the last place anybody should put Gretzky is on live TV. After all, he has caused televised carnage before. Why would you think he wouldn’t do it again?  

"Where's the damn death ray?"

 

Luckily, Gretzky did such a good job of pretending to be Canadian, he fucked up just like a Canadian. The death ray intended for incinerating the crowd was housed in the leg of the torch that wouldn’t come out of the floor. 

For the rest of the world, I beg you…learn from Canada since they apparently can’t. Never put Wayne Gretzky on live television again. Ever.

About J-Dub

What your view of sports would be if you had too many concussions

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