Monday Morning Halfback: Gretzky still draws the scorn of many Canadians

Jamie Ross is the Sports editor at the Globe; Cathal Kelly is the national sports columnist.

Jamie Ross: Cathal, how would you rate the Blue Jays’ response to oft-injured outfielder Anthony Santander’s Islamophobic social media post after the midterms last week?

Cathal Kelly: You’re talking about their boilerplate disclaimer that the opinions of employees do not necessarily reflect those of the employer. I’d rate that low on moral principle and high on business cunning.

A lot of people have analogized Santander’s reposting spree to the 2023 incident in which reliever Anthony Bass did the same thing with a post calling Pride-related merch “demonic.”

The two things are superficially similar, but create a very different calculus of reaction.

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Bass was a scrub owed almost no money. Santander is (theoretically at least) a star owed a great deal of it.

Bass decided to get freaky in the middle of a lost campaign. Santander did it at the deadest point of the off-season, when spring is still a decade away.

Because the Jays were playing at the time, Bass was forced to explain himself, and made a hash of it. Aside from deleting the offending reposts, Santander hasn’t had to say anything, and hasn’t.

For all those reasons, cutting Bass was both pressing and easy, while cutting Santander is less so and not.

So the Jays have done the PR 101 thing – kick the can down the road to see if this is still an issue when players report in February.

My guess is that by that point, it can be solved by a half-hearted apology, and some mumbo jumbo about learning and growth. Santander can steal the second part straight off the Jays’ statement – “Baseball is for everyone.”

There’s also a more than good chance that by that point, Santander will have dislocated both kneecaps getting out of his car or something. The man is the baseball equivalent of Sideshow Bob walking through a field of rakes.

Were you running a club, how would you handle the general issue of players getting the club into social media jackpots? Ban Instagram? Get them those phones that have no internet access that I’m always thinking of buying? God forbid, talk to them about the issues of the day?

J.R.: Social media has ruined our brains, but good luck telling multimillionaire pro athletes they’re not allowed to use it. Talking to them about issues of the day, meanwhile, assumes the business has its finger on the pulse, or cares about it in the first place. So that leaves you with a ‘write me a non-specific, non-committal apology’ prompt through Claude, and call it a day.

Speaking of apologies, it would appear Canadians are still looking for one from Wayne Gretzky. I’ve always lived by the Don’t Read The Comments rule on my own stories. (Sorry to the what I assume are five or six people, most likely immediate family, who do post their thoughts to these columns.)

But I indulge when it’s someone else’s story. So I found it notable the near-unanimous negative reaction to Gretzky’s latest appearance in Canada, where he popped up at an unveiling with the Hockey Hall of Fame and Upper Deck to launch a new activation named after his late father Walter. Is there anything this guy can do to win back his fans north of the border?

C.K.: I doubt it.

His mistake wasn’t just in being the only famous Canadian intimate of this country’s great modern enemy. It was to be seen endorsing that enemy at the moment when the first shots were fired.

The defining Canadian image of the last 10 years isn’t some professionally taken picture of a goal or a celebrating politician. It’s that poorly lit bordello shot of Gretzky in a MAGA hat, a little grin playing on his face like he knows he’s been caught doing something naughty. Canadians had been falling out of love with Gretzky for years, but that picture launched 40 million serious grudges.

Gretzky has a bad mix of old-man pride and young-man obliviousness that apparently makes him incapable of saying he’s sorry. He dances around it every time he speaks in a public free-for-all – which is almost never – but he can’t quite bring himself to admit fault. It’s always some version of ‘I’m sorry if I offended you’.

I suspect it’s too late to do anything about it now. It’s baked in that he’s Canada’s most famous traitor.

So, yeah, he brings it out in people. I know every time I write about him, my e-mail indicator turns flaming hot red.

If Gretzky is a 10 on Canada’s Hate-O-Meter, who’s a zero? I’m not talking about the most popular athlete. I’m talking about the one who best represents our current national mood. It’s not Sidney Crosby. He’s roundly beloved, but he’s too much of a neutral on anything political. So who is it?

J.R.: Is there one? I’m not sure I can tell you who, based on this criteria. We’ve got world beaters but you’re fishing for something political, which I’m not seeing. Nathan MacKinnon is probably the scariest, as in, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry’ scary, in terms of talent, will and rage, but he’s not walking around with a Maple Leaf painted on his face. I have a feeling you’re about to tell me who it is anyway.

C.K.: I’m about to agree with you – there isn’t one. Even Alberta has its sporting nationalists (Carter Hart), though I’m not sure why any ‘nation’ would want him.

The only genuinely famous rah-rah-Canada type I can think of is Mike Myers – a guy with no current career to speak of who wandered home to soak up some glory for a few weeks, and then receded back over the border once the applause died down.

Canadian sport doesn’t have anybody close to that. Everyone who’s ever worn the maple leaf talks about their pride in doing so, but there’s not a one of them you’d classify as a nationalist. Certainly not in the way that America, Russia or China have a bunch of those.

Part of that may be reticence. A much larger part of it is probably terror at the idea of alienating American employers and/or sponsors.

In the last while, post-fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall, this weak patriotic sensibility has been seen as a good thing. We’re not exclusionary or jingoistic. We’re more elastic in terms of what it means to be ‘us’.

I wonder how much longer that will last? Given the current trend line of international relations, not long, I’m guessing.

Last one – in terms of the unlikeliest things ever to happen in sport, where do you rank Winnipeg’s 159-second, four-goal comeback against Montreal the other night?

J.R.: It’s remarkable, but at the same time, it’s the regular season. Could’ve been a bit of hazing for their rookie goalie, who faced 47 shots. The Habs are on a roll regardless, with no regulation losses in their last 10 games (8-0-2). They’ve bounced back with a couple of wins since the Winnipeg game, most notably over the Maple Leafs on Saturday. When the going gets tough, that’s an outcome you can rely on.

C.K.: The Leafs are in a weird spot to begin with this year. So far, what they seem to be is the team that other, better teams measure themselves against. So if you can’t beat the Leafs, you’re not much. But if you can, you’re in with a shot. For Toronto, not a great – or sustainable – place to exist.