Village People in Wayne’s World

The jet, a charter, left San Francisco in mid-afternoon and stopped in Alaska for fuel.

On board were some of the top hockey players in the world, changing on the fly to a land where many wouldn’t know hockey from sukiyaki. A little past midnight, the jet landed in Japan. A welcoming committee met the wealthy Americans, got them their Olympic credentials, then promptly saw them to their rooms. . . .

Their dorm rooms.

Our hockey players have hit town--I hope they didn’t hit it too hard--and so have Canada’s. More than 100 of North America’s greatest, richest and most pampered sports stars have descended, and each of them has condescended to sleeping, eating and making new friends in the athletes’ village, right alongside all the other regular old Olympians, bless their puck-slapping hearts.

Now, I believe in miracles.

Six years ago in Spain, I took a $100 taxi ride from Barcelona to a town called Reus, to a remote airport where our “Dream Team” set down, like Armstrong on the moon. My cab driver asked, “Who you go see?” I told him the best basketball players in the world.

He got out at Reus with me, so he could see for himself. A mob began to form outdoors, on the tarmac. Word had spread to the middle-of-nowhere town that the Americans were coming. They could fly, but they couldn’t hide.

I spotted Magic Johnson.

He asked, “What are you doing here?”

I asked, “What are you doing here?”

The cab driver slapped me on the back.

“Majeek?” he asked.

“Si,” I said, speaking fluent Catalonian.

I heard the people call, “Magic! Michael! Larry!” A different time, a different place, they could have been bobby-soxers, crying, “Frankie!” They could have been teeny-boppers, crying, “Paul! Ringo!” Today they could be Gen Xers or hip-hoppers, crying, “Baby Spice! Snoop Doggy!” Hey, we all have our things.

Myself a baby boomer, I understood the Dream Team’s fame. These were my guys. Elvis and Lennon were dead. So were JFK and RFK. Marilyn was long gone. Ali didn’t box anymore. I couldn’t think of anybody else who could cause a fuss just by getting off a plane. I mean, these days, whose airplane draws a crowd? (Other than the pope’s when he drops by Havana, I mean.)

I enjoyed seeing my basketball big shots land in another land.

“And this one is who?” I remember my cabbie in Spain wanting to know.

“Christian Laettner,” I said.

“Ah,” he said.

Not knowing him from Christian Dior.

What I did not enjoy was my basketball big shots’ immediate retreat into semi-seclusion. I had better luck bumping into J.D. Salinger than I did any of these guys. Stay in the Olympic village? Them? No way. Apparently, this was like asking Leona Helmsley to stay in a Motel 6.

The guys had luxury hotels or private residences waiting for them. I don’t know if the king made his castle available, or what. I do know that Michael Jordan, who is a people person depending on the people, was in no mood to mix and mingle with the athletes’ village gang. I think the only thing he saw in Spain had 18 holes.

Too bad. I love the image of Jordan in a dorm, walking in his bathrobe with a toothbrush.

And some badminton player from Bora Bora or some Greco-Roman wrestler from Greece or Rome not recognizing Michael, and greeting him, “Hello. How is the food in the cafeteria today?”

Or maybe, “Excuse me, mister. You have pin to trade?”

And Mike saying, yeah, you bet, and giving the guy a pin from Cartier or Tiffany’s.

OK, it’s my dream, not his.

Wayne Gretzky doesn’t feel the way our basketballers do. (Perhaps he feels the way he does because they felt the way they did.) He is taking pride and pleasure in being just one of the guys here, even though he happens to be the most famous hockey guy on the globe.

Gretzky is a Four Seasons kind of customer. He is so rich, he could stay at a Five Seasons. Yet here he is, living in the dorms, saying, “When I walk into my room with the other guys, that’s when I know I’m an Olympian. Part of the charm of the Olympics is to stay in the village and be a part of it.”

Atta way, Wayne.

I don’t know if all the hockey guys feel the same, but they are going along. In for a penny, in for a pound. Keith Prom, who plays for Canada, is pretty funny about it. He says the novelty might wear off after a few days, and all the NHL guys might go looking for the nearest Holiday Inn.

Hope not. I find very few things in life as charming as the Olympics, where the world can come together as brothers and sisters. Naturally, this wouldn’t stop, say, Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers from giving one of his new brothers from Finland or France a concussion should he catch the guy borrowing Eric’s soap.

NHL guys are pretty cool.

On the road, a lot of them still double up in hotels. Real roomies.

Even an old-timer such as Ray Bourque, the been-around Boston Bruin, doesn’t mind bedding down on the Olympic bunks.

“I fell asleep on my kids’ beds once,” he says.

Atta way, Ray.