It Has Been a Tough Season for Carson

The great Reveen, magician extraordinaire, called for a volunteer to stick his head beneath the blade of the guillotine. Peter Pocklington obliged. The owner of the Edmonton Oilers placed his skull inside the wooden collar, which then was locked into place around his neck.

“Comfortable?” the magician asked.

Peter Pocklington would have nodded--if he could have.

“Uh huh,” he grunted.

The great Reveen asked for silence from the audience. With a grand wave of the hand, he addressed the subject whose head was on the chopping block.

“Only a magician,” Reveen told the spectators, “could have created this man.”

They laughed. Off with his head, they said.

“Ready?” asked Reveen.

“Uh huh.”

Down came the blade.

Ta-da.

Peter Pocklington, as an old joke goes, did not lose 20 pounds of ugly fat. He was not beheaded. He did not get the old Sir Thomas More “just a trim, leave the sideburns alone” treatment. He walked away, cranium intact, from Monday’s party at Jubilee Auditorium, just one of several soirees sponsored by the city of Edmonton before the 40th National Hockey League All-Star game, played Tuesday night at the Northlands Coliseum.

The man on the guillotine was the man who traded Wayne Gretzky. He traded Gretzky and a couple of other lesser players for a whole bunch of money and a couple of lesser players . . . . . . and Jimmy Carson.

Good old Jimmy Carson. It was a tough loss for Los Angeles--so tough a loss that the man who owns the Kings, Bruce McNall, dangled $5 million in front of Peter Pocklington and said, “This is yours. Just let us keep Jimmy.”

Peter Pocklington did what he couldn’t do in the guillotine: He shook his head from side to side. Sorry, he said.

And so, the trade was made. And they all lived happily ever after.

Well, almost all.

Gretzky is certainly making people happy. He has been the key to a King revival, and Tuesday night, in front of a sellout crowd of 17,503 that cheered his every move, Gretzky won the most valuable player prize in the Campbell Conference’s 9-5 victory over the men representing the Prince of Wales.

And Jimmy Carson?

Well, he did just fine. Not only did Carson play with Gretzky and former King teammates Luc Robitaille, Bernie Nicholls and Steve Duchesne on the winning side. He bagged an assist on Gary Leeman’s goal in the second period and scored the first All-Star goal of his career 5 1/2 minutes from the game’s finish, rebounding a Leeman shot and flipping the puck past Wales goalie Rejean Lemelin.

A nice night for everybody concerned, one would think.

McNall, the wheeler-dealer himself, was pleased both for the man he got and the man who got away. Regarding Gretzky, McNall said: “I don’t think he had one bad shift out there. I’m glad to see that the best player in the world played that way for all the world to see.”

And for Carson, McNall added: “I was thrilled to death that he got the goal, just as he probably was.”

Yes, Carson was pleased. Ten minutes earlier, his slap shot had struck the post, denying him a goal. He was happy to put one in for the “home” fans.

McNall said: “When he hit that post, I thought, ‘Poor Jimmy.’ But he stormed right back.”

Carson has done OK by Edmonton, no doubt about it. Already he has 41 goals this season, to Gretzky’s 38. Carson is among the NHL’s top 10 scorers. Carson, 20, also is considerably younger than Gretzky, 28--a real catch for the Oilers, one would think.

Except, rumors are flying up here--and Carson has heard them--that he is about to be traded. The hot one right now is that he is headed for his hometown of Detroit.

No wonder that when a guy from Los Angeles stopped by Carson’s locker after the game to ask if everything was all right, Jimmy knuckled the chair next to him and said: “Knock on wood. So far.”

He is braced to be traded. “The rumors really heated up last week, although they’ve cooled a little the last couple of days,” Carson said. “If it happens, it happens. I’m ready. It’s been a roller-coaster ride this year--all the hoopla of the trade and everything--and now all these trade rumors. I was glad to have this All-Star game come along to take my mind off it. Nice to play with my old buddies again . . . like this guy here.”

He slapped Robitaille on the thigh.

“Wasn’t it?” Carson asked.

“What?”

“Nice to play together again,” Carson said.

“Not at all,” Robitaille lied.

“He was a good friend. I miss him,” Carson said.

“Me?” Robitaille asked. “What was your name again?”

Carson laughed--which hasn’t been easy this season. Edmonton has struggled. Gretzky has not been easily forgotten. Following in his skate trails has been difficult. Even Tuesday, when somebody else--Joey Mullen, maybe--might have been named MVP, Gretzky was.

“Oh, I think it’s Wayne’s big return, so give him the car,” Carson said. “He needs it.”

“Yeah,” Robitaille said. “He’s only got 10.”

Carson said beforehand that the only thing he wanted to do on All-Star night was not embarrass himself. That was not his attitude going into the season itself--but one could hardly blame him if it had been. The Man Who Replaced Gretzky does not want to flop.

Possibly Peter Pocklington could remove that stigma from Carson--and help ease the transition of Gretzky’s being gone--by trading him. Others have suggested that Carson might even consider playing out his contract with Edmonton and eventually trying to work his way back to Los Angeles. He has even kept the house he bought in Redondo Beach. “Nice investment,” Carson said.

A trade to Detroit? Hey, Carson said, rumors are part of the game.

“And, remember,” he said, “if Wayne Gretzky can be traded, anybody can be traded.”

One of Carson’s best friends on the Edmonton squad was Keith Acton. The Oilers traded him Tuesday. One more reason not to be ecstatic here.

“Come back to L.A.,” the man from L.A. said to him.

“Hey, talk to the man in there,” Carson said, pointing.

He was pointing to the office of Glen Sather, Edmonton’s coach and general manager.

But he might as well have been pointing to Peter Pocklington, the head man himself.