For decades, ice hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky was a Canadian national hero. They even called him the Great One. Take a look at the featured image and ask yourself if that’s still true. And that is why Wayne Gretzky is malaka of the week.
Former First Draft writers Athenae and Doc are hockey aficionados They’re both obsessed with the 1980 US gold medal hockey team’s miracle on ice. In contrast, you could fit what I know about Canada’s national sport in a shot glass. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a bunch of guys on skates carrying sticks while wearing sweaters.
I do, however, know what the “ball” is called and what Don Rickles would call me at this point:
I was hoping to find a GIF of Mr. Warmth mocking someone as a hockey puck but could not. I decided against posting a picture of Rickles with his legendary putdown because BlueSky has a nasty habit of getting the featured image wrong in my shares. It’s the only thing I don’t like about the platform.
Insert obligatory movie GIF:
I’m glad y’all are used to my aggressive digressive tendencies after all these years. It beats the hell outta being passive aggressive.
Let’s return to the malakatude on ice of Wayne Gretzky.
Gretzky’s record for most career goals was broken by another player whose politics suck, Alex Ovechkin. He’s a pro-Putin Russian who plays for the Washington Capitals. Among those seated with the artist formerly known as the Great One was crazed Trumper Kash Patel. At least they didn’t storm the Capitol after the game…
Chris Jones wrote a swell article for The Atlantic about the downfall of this Canadian national hero:
“Trump soon enraged Canadians with his “51st state” and “Governor Justin Trudeau” garbage, his trade war, and his open desire to annex our country. Anthem singers started getting earfuls at hockey games. Gretzky, who appears to have spent more time at Mar-a-Lago than in Canada lately, stayed a little too quiet about everything. When Canada and the U.S met in the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, Gretzky was named our honorary captain and seemed reluctant to do it, without so much as a maple-leaf pin on his jacket lapel. After Canada won in overtime—I haven’t yelled at my TV like that in years—Gretzky gave the players red caps that said Be Great, a Trumpian echo that was either intentional or tone-deaf. He ended that debate on Friday night when he watched Ovechkin’s chase alongside Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director. They sat together again this afternoon.
By then, Canadians were already calling Gretzky the “Great Once.” Someone smeared literal shit on his statue outside Edmonton’s Rogers Place; petitions were launched to rename the city’s Wayne Gretzky Drive and a parkway and arena in his hometown of Brantford, Ontario.”
The ice hockey malakatude, it burns.
Wanna see the Great Once in a MAGA hat at Trump’s victory party last November?
Hockey legend in a MAGA hat. Wayne Gretzky is dead to me.
— Cheeto Voodoo (@cheetovoodo.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T01:23:23.365Z
Wanna see an image of Gretzky and the Insult Comedian by Canadian cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon?
This one is well earned by Wayne GretzkyThank you Bruce MacKinnon @mackinnonart.bsky.social
— Robert McMillan 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 (@robertmcmillan13.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T12:42:02.937Z
As I said at the top of the post, I don’t know much about hockey, but I know from malakatude. The artist formerly known as the Great One is a hockey puck in the Rickles sense of the word. And that is why Wayne Gretzky, Canadian pariah, is malaka of the week.
Repeat after me: Canadian Trumper, stay away from me.
The last word goes to Warren Zevon: