Free Agency Possible Before He Was Traded to Kings, Gretzky Says

Wayne Gretzky said he had no interest in going to court to find out, but there was a chance that he could have become a free agent--at liberty to sign with the team of his choice--before he was traded in August to the Kings.

In a situation reminiscent of the Pat Quinn affair, in which the Kings lost their coach to the Vancouver Canucks 18 months ago, Gretzky could have challenged his contractual obligations to the Edmonton Oilers because the contract was never registered with the National Hockey League.

Had he made that challenge, his legal advisers said, Gretzky could have skated freely away from the Oilers. That also was the opinion, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, of a special five-man committee appointed by the NHL’s board of governors to investigate the situation.

Instead, Gretzky made an oral agreement, before a league deadline of June 30, to sign a contract that would bind him to the Oilers. Less than two months later, on Aug. 9, Gretzky was traded to the Kings by Edmonton owner Peter Pocklington, who had feared losing Gretzky as a free agent without compensation when his contract expired in 1992.

“I think it was a situation where whether or not I would have become a total free agent, nobody knows for sure, but it didn’t go that far,” Gretzky said Tuesday at the Kings’ British Columbia training camp.

“There were some people who advised me that I would be and others who said maybe I wouldn’t be, but I really had no interest in trying it, anyway.”

On the day he was traded, Gretzky said tearfully at an Edmonton press conference that the deal had been made at his request. Since then, however--especially since Pocklington called Gretzky “a great actor” for his show of emotion--it has become clear that arguably the biggest trade in sports history was far more complicated.

Gretzky said Tuesday that it wasn’t until after King owner Bruce McNall--with the permission of Pocklington--had telephoned him on July 22, while he was on his honeymoon with actress Janet Jones, that he asked Pocklington to trade him.

“Basically, the deal was done with that first phone call from Mr. McNall,” Gretzky said. “It was as simple as that. As far as I’m concerned, the deal was done then. There wasn’t any hanging back once he said, ‘Do you want to play for the Los Angeles Kings?’ ”

That phone call from McNall, Gretzky reiterated Tuesday, came with no advance warning from Pocklington. But Gretzky stressed that a trade was not really a shock, either. He said he had predicted a year ago--after he refused to extend his four-year contract with the Oilers for two more years, or drop his right to become a free agent--that he would be traded.

“The free agent without compensation clause was the turning point,” Gretzky said. “I said . . . I’d be traded, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Although he said he at no time expressed a desire to be something other than an Edmonton Oiler before McNall’s call, Gretzky tried to share responsibility for the trade with Pocklington again on Tuesday.

“I guess I’m as guilty, or more guilty, than anyone because at that point in time I could have said, ‘I’m staying in Edmonton,’ or ‘Yes, I’m signing a new contract,’ ” Gretzky said. “But I didn’t want to sign a new contract unless a lot of things were added and done to it.

“No, I wasn’t a heavy, but I wasn’t willing to change my situation. I was happy with (his contract with Edmonton).”

The day after the Oilers won the Stanley Cup, beating the Boston Bruins in four games, Gretzky said he learned that Pocklington had been talking about trading him to Vancouver. Pocklington has said that the Canucks offered $22.5 million, through an intermediary, for Gretzky.

“My father and Jim Taylor (a Vancouver columnist and family friend) knew about it, but they didn’t want to tell me during the playoffs,” Gretzky said.

“But I’m not naive. I’m not silly. I knew something was going on. I knew they’d been shopping me around for two years. It kind of makes me mad that they said they didn’t shop me around.”

Complicating matters, Gretzky said, was an article that appeared in a West German sports magazine--and was cited in Edmonton reports--that quoted the player as saying he intended to play for the highest bidder when his contract expired. Gretzky said he was victimized by a bad translation. He said he had even asked the Oiler publicist to set the record straight before publication, but even the revised version was bungled.

“I guess the Oilers thought I was going to leave in four years,” he said.

He never told them he would, Gretzky said, but he was adamant about retaining his right of testing the free-agent market in four years. Pocklington said he couldn’t take that risk and sold Gretzky to the Kings for $15 million, plus center Jimmy Carson, first-round draft pick Martin Gelinas and three more first-round picks.

“I understand their position,” Gretzky said. “I had the Oilers in a situation they were uncomfortable with.

“But at no time did I or the Oilers put a gun at each other’s heads. I never threatened not to be there or walk out.”

Had he chosen to, of course, Gretzky could have increased the Oilers’ discomfort greatly by testing his Edmonton contract in court. And although it might appear shocking that the league’s greatest player did not have his contract on file--Globe and Mail columnist Al Strachan called it “an example of the NHL, a multimillion-dollar enterprise, being run in pushcart fashion”--apparently it is not an uncommon practice.

Sam Simpson, a spokesman for the NHL Players Assn., said there have been lots of players whose contracts have not been filed. He cited the case of former Toronto star Darryl Sittler, who thought he had a no-trade clause in his contract with the Maple Leafs, only to learn that that provision had not been registered with the league. He subsequently was traded.

Gretzky has yet to sign his new, 8-year, $20-million contract with the Kings, but when he does, it will be registered with the league, he said.

“A lot of times it’s not the league’s fault,” Gretzky said. “There are so many things that have to be reworked and redone in a contract. It’s awfully time-consuming. I’m not making excuses.”