Gretzky: Gretzky

He imagines the kids who played with and against him growing up hated him because of his God-given talent. He takes a perverse pride in impregnating his wife 4 months before their wedding. He resentfully informs us that if a family member or friend wants to go to a game, the player has to buy the ticket. He gratingly talks about himself in the third person. Yet, his egomania is almost understandable, though not inexcusable. In an amazingly frank 1990 interview with the L.A. Times, he revealed how Walter Gretzky got his jollies toying with his boy's psyche and pushing him unforgivingly to make it beyond the 3rd line of his pee-wee team (the apex of Gretzky pere's career).

He slams everyone from his houseboy (for not being a coffee expert even though he comes from Columbia) to a woman at a newsstand (for demanding he pay for an issue of Time he was on the cover of). But he saves most of his bile for Peter Pocklington. True, he would've become a mega-star anyway, but Pocklington came along at a time when the NHL wouldn't touch him due to his age; for that alone, Gretzky should be thankful. Promblem is, he doesn't know the meaning of the word...I don't know what bothers me more, how he paints himself as the hapless victim of The Trade (he wasn't) or the smirk on his face on the cover. If Gretzky proves anything, it's that he's petty, emotionally immature, at times, a real jerk, and even something of a bigot ...anything but the "class act" the media - and himself - believes he is.