A Country Mourns Passing On of The Great One

Somehow, words like mind-boggling, unbelievable and incredible are too shopworn, too limited, to describe it. In Canada, where a member of Parliament has already urged government intervention to prevent the horror from happening, the sky is falling, the rivers have all run dry and the sun ain’t gonna shine any more.

Wayne Gretzky has been traded -- at his request -- south of the border.

And if she ever again goes north of the border, the new Mrs. Wayne Gretzky better watch out. Yoko Ono only ticked off three Beatles. This lady’s got an entire country on her case.

So love is never having to say your’re sorry, eh?

Try telling that to the good people of Canada. If they’re crying in their Labatt’s as much as I think they are, we better build a dike across our northern border before the Lower 48 floods. Cry me a river? At this national tragedy, they’ll cry an ocean. And who can blame them?

Hosting the Winter Olympics may have eased their massive national inferiority complex a bit, but losing Wayne Gretzky, Canada’s national treasure, could send the populace into terminal depression. The least they can do is give every Canadian citizen free group psychotherapy for the next 10,000 years. They’ll need it.

This wasn’t a trade, this was a burnt offering. Gag me with a spoon. Displaying Wayne Gretzky with the Los Angeles Kings is like displaying the Hope Diamond in a fruit crate. For a city that prides itself on tackiness, a city that takes its garbage and turns it into television shows, this is a new low. The only way Los Angeles can top this for repugnance is if the pope moves to Pasadena to sell hot dogs at the Rose Bowl.

You say the Oilers got Jimmy Carson in the deal? Don’t you mean Johnny Carson? You don’t give up a national institution unless you get one in return.

Unless, of course, you’re moonstruck. In “A Chorus Line,” the dancers sing that they won’t forget, can’t regret, what they did for love.

In Gretzky’s case, don’t bet on it. What The Great One did for love was ask the Oilers to trade him to Hollywood -- where the only people who haven’t gotten divorced are the ones who are going to -- so his new bride, starlet Janet Jones, could continue to pursue her acting career.

Because Oilers owner Peter Pocklington acceded to The Great One’s wish, Gretzky, 27, will now play the game he loves in a town whose residents would rather eat tainted food at Taco Bell than attend a hockey game. Lyndon LaRouche will endorse Jesse Jackson for president before Wayne Gretzky makes Los Angeles a hockey town.

Gretzky’s hawk-nosed presence will be famous, all right. Los Angelenos who see him reporting to work at the Forum will call Disneyland on their car phones to ask if Snow White is short one dwarf.

The Kings are now owned by a man named Bruce McNall. He bought them from Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Buss bought them from Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke, who bought them from ... well, you get the idea.

When he bought the Kings, Cooke, who was born and reared in Canada, pointed out that there were a lot of Canadians living in Los Angeles. After years of frustration over the apathy of America’s second biggest city toward his team, Cooke said, “I finally figured out why all these Canadians moved to Southern California. They hate hockey.”

They won’t hate Gretzky. They’ll love his boyish smile, but they’ll be puzzled by his ghostly pallor. When he’s hanging around the set looking uncomfortable at one of his wife’s next great flicks -- Police Academy XXVIII, perhaps -- they’ll take one look and figure he’s Meryl Streep’s younger brother.

But what celebrities are going to come and see Gretzky play? I mean, how many times can you get excited when the camera pans to Alan Thicke? You think Lakers loonies like Jack Nicholson and Dyan Cannon are going to show up if they have to sit behind the boards?

If you ask me, the whole thing stinks. Trading Gretzky out of the country is like trading the Rocky Mountains to Europe for a few rolling hills and a pond to be named later. How’s Gretzky going to survive in Los Angeles when they don’t even serve Canadian food?

And don’t be shocked if the sport’s greatest player loses his winning edge, goes a little soft.

I hope you’re happy there, Wayne. I’m glad you didn’t get traded to the Central Red Army. I just hope your wife doesn’t up and leave you for some sleazy producer who promises to put her on the next “Hollywood Wives” miniseries. I hope Warren Beatty doesn’t fall for her. You could wind up in heartbreak hotel.

Oh, Wayne. O Canada. Who will stand on guard for thee?

Not The Great One.

He’s The Gone One.