Losing National Treasure Leaves Edmonton in Shock

For the last five years, Yvonne Passey has watched the tour buses turn off Jasper Avenue and slowly cruise by the Arcadia, the brick high-rise that overlooks the Saskatchewan River in Edmonton’s fashionable West End.

She has shooed away the autograph-seekers that have loitered in the lobby, and the star-gazers on the sidewalk hoping for a glimpse of their hero in the penthouse suite above.

But on this Tuesday night, there were no tourists, no kids in their No. 99 Oiler sweaters clutching their hockey sticks, no joy. Wayne Gretzky, the Arcadia’s most famous tenant, was moving to Los Angeles, and the English woman who manages the Arcadia with her husband, Michael, joined an entire city in mourning.

“Of course I feel badly,” Passey said. “He’s not only a great hockey player but a personal friend. When you see a guy every day . . . we’re going to miss him. It was a shock to everybody. The whole city is in shock.

“He was a special kind of guy. He’s the sort of guy who doesn’t forget people, let’s put it that way. We were one big family, and everybody here is going to miss him.”

But while others in Edmonton chose to blame Gretzky’s departure on his wife, actress Janet Jones--”That blonde Jezebel,” one radio talk show host called her--or Oiler owner Peter Pocklington, widely roasted as a money-grubbing heartbreaker, Passey chose to believe that Gretzky was following his own wishes.

“He’s got to do what he’s got to do, for his family and his career,” she said. “He doesn’t owe Edmonton anything, that’s for sure.”

Yet though the ledger may show Gretzky was paid in full--after all, he gave the city four Stanley Cup championships in the last five years--it was a loss many here vainly tried to comprehend.

“Devastated,” said Gary Shinn, a bartender in Earl’s Tin Palace, the lounge restaurant from which--the story goes--Gretzky proposed by telephone to Jones.

“I sat at home with some friends and watched (the press conference) on TV, and I felt like, betrayed. It’s like when Bobby Orr left Boston. You kept hoping he’d re-sign with Boston, but he left, and it just wasn’t the same to see him in another uniform.”

Christine Verchomin, a rental-car agent who works at the Edmonton airport, supported Gretzky’s decision to leave.

“It was good,” she said. “It gives him an opportunity to see other things than Edmonton. He’s building his own aura, I should say. And it also gives the Oilers a chance to rebuild again.”

The thought of Gretzky, a national treasure whose wedding took place last month just a few blocks down the street in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, putting down stakes in La-La Land was almost too much for some fans to abide, however.

“He was born in Canada, he lived here--it’s like he’s defecting, going to the States,” said Lana Polack, a season-ticket holder who was in the Tin Palace with friends discussing the deal.

Valerie Bishop said her father, a long-time season-ticket holder, was debating renewing his tickets because he didn’t want to put any more of his money in Pocklington’s pockets.

“If the truth be known,” she said confidentially, “Pocklington is doing it because he needs the money. He’s really in trouble.

“I don’t think Wayne wanted to leave. According to the grapevine, Pocklington told Wayne before the wedding that he couldn’t afford him any more. . . . I think (Pocklington) bought him off to say he wanted to go.”

It was a sad day, Bishop said, brightened only by the thought that Gretzky was hardly joining a contender by going to the Kings.

“The L.A, Kings aren’t that good,” she said. “Maybe they’re not good enough to win even with him.”

The only thing worse, said Sherry Riauka, would have been if Gretzky had gone to Calgary, which is Athens to Edmonton’s Sparta in Alberta.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Randy Friesen, a doorman at a downtown hotel. “I’m a Flames fan.”

Rick, another patron at the Tin Palace who preferred not to give his full name, said Los Angeles hockey fans can’t yet comprehend what they’re in for.

“People here started to take him for granted, like Magic Johnson with the Lakers,” he said. “But in Los Angeles, Gretzky won’t be a disappointment.

“Trust me. The man does things on the ice every night that just blows you away.”

But now, Gretzky has blown out of Edmonton, Alberta, and Canada,

“We’re not going to fold up and die,” Edmonton Mayor Laurence Decour said bravely. “We’re going to recover.”