Kings’ Duo Putting CFL Deal on Ice : Football: McNall and Gretzky, already partners in horse racing, are near agreement on purchase of Ornest’s Toronto club.

Bruce McNall, the owner of the Kings, and Wayne Gretzky, his highest-paid player, are close to buying the Toronto Argonauts, according to Harry Ornest, the owner of the Canadian Football League team.

McNall was traveling Monday and couldn’t be reached for comment, but Ornest, who bought the Argonauts in 1988 for an estimated $5 million, said from Toronto that a deal with McNall and Gretzky might be completed within a month.

Besides their employer-employee relationship via the Kings, McNall and Gretzky are partners in several race horses. McNall, who owns hundreds of horses that race in the United States and Europe, sold Gretzky a 50% interest in Golden Pheasant, and the colt won last year’s Arlington Million. McNall and Gretzky also owned Saumarez, who last year won the Arc de Triomphe, France’s most prestigious race.

The Argonauts, who had a 10-8 record last year and came within one victory of playing in the Grey Cup, the Canadian league’s championship game, averaged 30,000 fans in the SkyDome, but they are dwarfed by the Blue Jays, who drew nearly 4 million.

Gretzky, who grew up in Brantford, Ontario, not far from Toronto, is considered by CFL officials to be someone who could boost interest in the Argonauts through his local popularity and numerous corporate contacts. Toronto is the largest market among the eight CFL cities.

Plans for the deal might have begun last summer when Ornest, McNall and Gretzky spent a few hours discussing football during a plane flight. Gretzky told Ornest that he had been an Argonaut fan since he was a boy.

McNall and Ornest are board members at Hollywood Park, where a proxy fight involving Marje Everett, the track’s chief operating officer, is under way. McNall and Ornest have sometimes been on opposite sides in the struggle and recently McNall was part of the board majority that elected casino owner Steve Wynn, an Everett nominee, president and chief executive officer of the track. Ornest voted against Wynn.

“Despite some of these things, Bruce McNall and I have remained good friends,” Ornest said.