Why Wayne Gretzky Must Address Trump’s Threats to Canada

Canadians are outraged that former hockey star Wayne Gretzky, the golden boy from years past, is hanging out with Donald Trump, who insults Canada and threatens to annex us.

Gretzky is a golfing buddy of Trump’s and wears MAGA hats. He and his family, adult children and partners included, attended a party at Trump’s Mar Lago lair celebrating his November 2024 election victory. Gretzky’s wife Janet posted a photo of the two men smiling, cheek-to-cheek, on Instagram. The Gretzky’s also attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington early in January 2025.

Trumps threatens Canada

Since his re-election, Trump has repeatedly threatened to force Canada to join the land of school shootings. He is threatening punishing tariffs on Canadians as leverage to enforce his intentions. He refers to Justin Trudeau sarcastically as “governor” rather than prime minister. Trump also says that Gretzky would be a good “governor” of Canada.

The threat to our sovereignty is real. Ordinary Canadians are alarmed and angry. Cabinet ministers and premiers are spooked. Witness the parade of political delegations to Washington to meet with mostly low-level aides in the Trump administration.

Travesty on ice

Then there was Gretzky’s appearance on ice in Boston as the honourary captain of Canada’s hockey team at the Four Nations Faceoff. He appeared in a sombre blue suit which bore no Canadian symbol or colour. When he walked past the U.S. bench he gave thumbs up, something he did not do for the Canadian team. Given Trump’s string of provocative comments about annexing Canada, the NHL’s choice of Gretzky as honourary captain was tone deaf and insensitive. Why not former NHL stars Carey Price or Jerome Iginla?

Canadians have read much into the symbolism of the event in Boston. They feel betrayed and many have responded. In Edmonton, a city that Gretzky once owned, there is a petition to rename a street called after him. On social media he is regularly denounced as a traitor.

Orr supports Gretzky

Throughout all of Trump’s goading of Canadians, Gretzky has remained silent. It was left to former NHL star Bobby Orr came to his defence in a column in the Toronto Sun, which is controlled by a New Jersey-based hedge fund.

After praising Gretzky for his hockey prowess and character, Orr wrote:” How fickle can people be, when someone who has given so much time and effort to Canadian hockey is treated in such a way. Listen, we all have our personal beliefs as they pertain to things such as religion and politics. Wayne respects your right to such beliefs – why can’t you respect his?”

Parsing Orr’s comments

It is worth parsing these comments. Orr’s argument would apply in normal times, but not in Trump’s wannabe authoritarian world of today. In 2015, Gretzky supported Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, even though Gretzky, who had long lived in the U.S. could not vote in that election. Fine. Let him support Harper, who at least believes in democracy.

But who and what is Gretzky supporting in befriending Trump? In an audio recording unearthed during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump bragged about being able to grab women by the genitals at will because he is a celebrity. He is also on the record as describing women as “fat pigs” and “dogs.”

Rape and toxic masculinity

Trump frequently describes asylum seekers as rapists, but it is he who is the rapist. In a civil suit against Trump launched by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, a Manhattan judge concluded that Trump had, indeed, raped her in the mid-1990s.

Gretzky has a wife and two daughters. Does he agree with Trump’s preening toxic masculinity, his sexual predation, and his contempt for women?  Or does Gretzky simply ignore it?

Orr supports Trump

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Bobby Orr purchased a full-page newspaper advertisement in a New Hampshire newspaper supporting Trump as “the kind of teammate I want.” In the ad, Orr went on to say: “Perhaps you do not like his Tweets or how the President says things sometimes, and this is your right. But remember”: this is not a personality contest: it’s about politics and the people those policies assist.”

This is the kind of free ride that MAGA supporters have been giving Trump for years. For them, if you like his policies, it is okay to have a president bragging about how he gropes women. But look at some of these policies. He has since his election ruled by decree, ignoring the U.S. Congress, and appointing his unelected billionaire friend Elon Musk to take a chain saw to the country’s civil service.

Trump’s disastrous policies

Trump has mused about flaunting the 22nd amendment of the U.S. constitution and running for a third term. He has described himself as a King, who is above the law. Retired marine general John Kelly, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, says that Trump fits into the “general definition of fascist.”

Since the 2024 election, Trump has threatened to take over Greenland by force if he chooses. He will seize the Panama Canal, by military means if he deems. He will force more than a million Palestinians to leave Gaza so that the U.S. can create a real estate Riviera on the beach. That is called ethnic cleansing.

He would force Ukrainians to submit to war criminal Vladimir Putin’s desire to annex large chunks of their country and cripple their democracy. One might think that Gretzky would be sensitive to that since he is of mixed Polish and Ukrainian heritage.

Rich men and tax cuts

In the U.S., Elon Musk is firing thousands of civil servants who provide safety for air travel and food inspection, create vaccines, and provide services to military veterans. Trump is poised to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid, food stamps, and social security. He plans to use the money clawed back from those programs, and from tariffs slapped onto Canada and other countries, to give billionaire oligarchs a $4.5 trillion tax cut.

That may well be what Gretzky and Orr find most attractive about Trump. They were elite athletes, and they are rich. Rich men are pampered and protected. They mingle with celebrities and have no idea how most people live. And they do not like paying taxes.                      

Gretzky must speak out

Orr’s column in the Toronto Sun was amplified when Gretzky’s wife Janet posted a now-deleted comment to Instagram. She thanked Orr for his support. Of her husband, she said, “I  have never met anyone who is more proud to be a Canadian and it has broken his heart to read and see the mean comments.”

Trump persists in his claims that he can squeeze Canada economically, until we cry Uncle Donald and become a vassal fifty-first state.  If Wayne Gretzky is a proud Canadian, it is time for him to speak out against that rhetoric, in the first person. He should also remember that anyone who gets involved with Trump, friend or foe, is eventually betrayed and comes away damaged.