Orr and Gretzky: fallen heroes

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/03/2025 (209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I grew up idolizing NHL hockey players. I wanted to have a sizzling slap shot like Bernie (Boom Boom) Geoffrion. I admired the coltishly athletic skills of Bobby Orr. I hoped to emulate the sublime talents of Wayne Gretzky.

They were my childhood heroes. But no more.

I have grown up. I now realize that a hero is not merely someone who has won the genetic lottery and can play a sport at a high level.

No, a hero is someone who courageously fights adversity in an unselfish pursuit of the common good.

One of my heroes was my father. After graduating from university as a civil engineer he spent five years in Europe building bridges and dodging shrapnel, supporting the war effort. He didn’t avoid his military responsibility like Donald Trump did by claiming that he had bone spurs in his foot.

When he returned to Winnipeg he was instrumental in creating a safer Winnipeg through the construction of the Red River floodway.

In 2020, Bobby Orr took out a full-page ad in a New Hampshire newspaper declaring his support for Donald Trump in the presidential election. In his ad, he stated that Trump was “the kind of teammate I want.”

Personally, as a former hockey player, I don’t want a teammate who boasts about assaulting women.

Bobby Orr has continued to support Trump.

In a recent op-ed in the Toronto Sun, Orr defended Wayne Gretzky and his friendship with Donald Trump calling Gretzky “the greatest Canadian ever.” In this piece he went on to state that “we all have our personal beliefs as they pertain to such things as religion and politics. Wayne respects your rights and beliefs. Why can’t you respect his?”

There are several reasons that I can’t support Orr’s or Gretzky’s political choices.

First, I don’t admire former Canadian citizens who choose to live in Florida because Florida does not have individual income tax.

The average citizen pays for the absence of an income tax in Florida. I feel for my friend whose daughter lives in Florida with a soon to be 18-year-old multi-handicapped daughter. When this girl becomes an adult, the family will no longer be able to access state-supported resources.

I am sympathetic to the teacher who told me that their public school system has no state-supported resources to assess the ever-present danger of gun violence in their school.

Janet Gretzky, Wayne’s wife, stated recently that it “broke his heart to read the mean comments” written about him. To be fair to Wayne historically, he has been personable and generous with his time and money in Canada.

But that is history. He has lived in the U.S. now for over 30 years.

He was photographed at Trump’s election victory party wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.

And now he has aligned himself with a person who has been referred to as a bigot, misogynist, con man, fascist and would-be dictator.

Orr and Gretzky have badly miscalculated. Canadians have been critical of Gretzky calling him “disappointing, a sellout and an embarrassment to Canada.”

There is an applicable adage here: “show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Orr and Gretzky are showing us who they are through their choice of Donald Trump and his cronies as their friends.

When you hang around with someone who threatens Canadian sovereignty, abandons a democratic country like Ukraine, runs roughshod over the rights of women, government officials, minorities and immigrants and sides with the psychopathic Vladimir Putin, do Orr and Gretzky really think we will respect those choices?

Being a hero is all about making tough choices during hard times.

Throughout this period neither Orr nor Gretzky has said a single word in defence of Canada or in protest against Trump’s disdainful treatment of it.

Their silence speaks volumes.

They are not heroes.

Mac Horsburgh writes from Winnipeg.