The NHL / Jerry Crowe : Gretzky’s Engagement Gets Royal Treatment

He is a hockey icon in a hockey-mad country and, for a few more months at least, a bachelor.

So, not surprisingly, the engagement of Wayne Gretzky to actress Janet Jones is big news not only in Edmonton, but all across Canada.

“WEDDING BELLS!” trumpeted the Edmonton Sun on the day of the announcement. The Alberta Report said the July 16 event would be “the closest thing to a royal wedding this country has seen since Pierre Trudeau took Margaret Sinclair as his bride almost 20 years ago.”

And, said Peter Millar, a therapist for the Edmonton Oilers: “It will be like Charles and Di.”

Word of the engagement leaked after Gretzky joined a couple of teammates and their dates for a celebratory dinner at an Edmonton restaurant Jan. 11.

By noon the next day, the night manager of Earl’s Tin Palace said he had given about 50 interviews. Within three days, according to the Alberta Report, every copy of the March 1987 issue of Playboy featuring a semi-nude Jones had been snapped up from used book and magazine shops in Edmonton.

Gretzky’s marketing manager, Michael Barnett, said he fielded calls from all over the world. The Oilers’ offices were also besieged with calls, including one from a fan wondering if souvenir wedding invitations would be sold.

Printers offered wedding stationery. Church officials offered chapels. Studios offered photographers. Publishers sought rights to the official photo album. Motel owners offered honeymoon suites. Editors requested press passes.

Annoyed, Judy Pal of the Oilers’ publicity staff told one caller: “Look, this isn’t a circus or an all-star game. It’s a wedding.”

Not just any wedding, though.

Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly news magazine, ran a feature on “The Future Bride,” who never faced such scrutiny when she dated actor Bruce Willis or tennis players Vitas Gerulaitis and Nels Van Patten, son of actor Dick Van Patten. Or even when she briefly dated Gretzky’s teammate, Kevin Lowe.

As Jones told Maclean’s: “The Canadian press is so consumed by hockey coverage that it is almost frightening.”

Hold that pose: Coach John Brophy of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are winless in 15 games going into tonight’s game against the Kings: “Our players are the best models in the league. They don’t sweat. They model their uniforms.”

Mike Murphy mostly took it easy on the Kings during a stint as guest commentator for Washington radio station WMAL in its broadcast of the Washington Capitals’ 8-3 rout of the Kings Jan. 13 at the Forum.

“I didn’t go there to slam anybody,” Murphy said.

Still, the former King coach made some interesting observations.

Of Luc Robitaille, he said: “I don’t think anybody in the league, with maybe the exception of Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky, has quicker hands.”

And, no matter his intentions, not everything Murphy said about the Kings was complimentary.

Asked by Ron Weber, the Capitals’ play-by-play announcer, to run down the weaknesses of rookie goaltender Glenn Healy, Murphy said: “He often gets disoriented with the net. And in this league, you lose the net and the shooters are just too accurate. They’re going to pop (the puck) into the spot you’ve left (open).”

The only time he even came close to ripping the Kings, though, was when he said of the Capitals: “They’re getting a lot of scoring opportunities and they’re getting them in prime areas.”

Murphy’s appearance with Weber was set up through a mutual friend, and the articulate former King coach said that he might want to take up broadcasting on a regular basis at some point.

For now, though, Murphy wants to get back into coaching.

“I’ll do whatever I need to do to get back into it,” he said.

The Battle of Alberta between the Edmonton Oilers and their not-so-friendly neighbors three hours to the south, the Calgary Flames, may burn out before it gets a chance to really heat up.

Starting Feb. 3, the Flames will play 11 straight road games while the Winter Olympics take over their home, the Saddledome.

The Flames won’t have access to the arena for 31 days, but they aren’t about to bemoan their fate.

“One of the reasons we have this great facility is because of the Olympic Games,” General Manager Cliff Fletcher said of the Saddledome, which was built in anticipation of Calgary being awarded the Winter Games.

Gretzky, expected to return to the Oilers’ lineup this weekend after sitting out a month with a knee injury, seems almost resigned to losing the league scoring title to Mario Lemieux.

Lemieux has 103 points in 47 games, while Gretzky, who hasn’t played since Dec. 30, has 86 in 38.

If Lemieux continues to score at his current pace, Gretzky would have to average about three points a game in the last two months of the season to overtake him.

“I’m only human,” Gretzky told the Edmonton Journal. “I can’t score points from my living-room couch.”

If something seems to be missing from the Kings’ 1986-87 highlight film, that’s because there is: By order of management, a two-minute tribute to Marcel Dionne, the Kings’ all-time leading scorer, was edited out.

“The organization feels the highlight film is to sell the Kings and sell tickets,” General Manager Rogie Vachon told Steve Rosenbloom of the Los Angeles Daily News. “We wanted to sell our young stars, not players who aren’t with us anymore.”

Dionne, traded by Vachon last March to the New York Rangers, told Rosenbloom: “This is just cheap stuff. It doesn’t concern me.”