When Rhinestones Were an Owner’s Best Friend : Hockey: Despite NHL titles, the Oilers’ Pocklington was a miserly gift-giver, Kings’ Gretzky says in his autobiography.

The Kings’ Wayne Gretzky has written his autobiography and, not surprisingly, he doesn’t have many kind words for his former boss, Edmonton Oiler owner Peter Pocklington.

In “Gretzky: An Autobiography,” the captain of the Kings describes Pocklington as a cheapskate and says “sometimes he could be a complete jerk.”

Pocklington sold Gretzky to the Kings in August of 1988 for a reported $18 million, only months after Gretzky led the Oilers to their fourth Stanley Cup in five years.

In the book, co-written by Rick Reilly, Gretzky says the first time the Oilers won the Stanley Cup, Pocklington gave diamond rings to everyone on the team. But the size of the diamond varied depending on how Pocklington viewed contributions to the team effort.

“That meant the trainers and the equipment guys got these tiny diamonds and the guys who sat on the bench got a little bigger diamond, but not much, and so on until you-know-who got a huge one,” Gretzky says in the book.

“Here we’d spent the last five years trying to bang through everybody’s skull that we were a team . . . and Peter goes and ranks us all by karat.”

Gretzky says he didn’t know anything about the rings until then-assistant coach John Muckler told him that the hand on the diamond meter went the wrong way when Muckler got his ring appraised. Muckler, assistant coach Ted Green and all the training staff were given fake diamonds.

Gretzky says then-coach Glen Sather made Pocklington get the coaches genuine diamonds. “I was so embarrassed I took all the trainers’ rings and had them done properly,” he said.

Gretzky says the Ferrari that Pocklington “gave” him when he tied Marcel Dionne for the scoring title his first year in the NHL was actually a three-year lease.

“I had to pay the licensing and insurance on it and I had the option to buy it out at the end of the term. I ended up selling it and I think I lost $3,000 on the deal. Any more gifts from Peter and I was going to go broke.”

Gretzky says he was thrilled when Pocklington gave him a $50,000 bond for his first-born child after he broke Gordie Howe’s all-time assist record in 1987.

“Then I found out the thing matured at $50,000--in 25 years. What that bond cost Peter was about $3,500.”