Gretzky Can’t Be Seen Associating With Gamblers

Because Wayne Gretzky was a skater of slight build and astonishing scoring skills, he presented a tempting target for dog-breath blackguards. Which is why God invented the enforcer Dave Semenko.

Called “Cement Head,” and not only because the nickname shared the sound of his name, Semenko was Gretzky’s on-ice bodyguard. To mess with the Great One was to invite Cement Head into your life. That, you didn’t want.

Alas, real life is not so simple.

Muscle won’t get Gretzky out of this one.

Only the truth will set him free, and certainly he has long since earned the benefit of the doubt. Across the past 20 years, Gretzky has been the shiniest of sports stars. Hockey’s greatest player ever, he has been, as a co-owner and now head coach, a happy, handsome, wholesome ambassador whose continuing presence has enriched the game.

For the moment, then, let’s take him at his word.

He says he has never bet on sports. Gretzky told the Toronto Globe and Mail that had he made a sports bet, he would call NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and say, “You know what, I resign, it’s over,’ even if I made a $1 bet.” By way of emphasizing his belief that sports and gambling should not mix, Gretzky says he does not enter sports books in Las Vegas. “That’s how serious I am.”

Again, alas, life is not so simple.

He might not walk into a sports book in Vegas.

But he does walk into his home.

There is his wife, the actress Janet Jones.

New Jersey state police investigators have identified her, along with a half-dozen unnamed hockey players, as a high-stakes sports bettor placing wagers with an illegal bookmaking operation. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., reported that Jones bet close to $500,000 during the state’s 40-day investigation; that includes $75,000 on the Super Bowl.

In her only public statement, issued in writing by Gretzky’s Coyotes’ organization, Jones did not deny her gambling; instead, she said she had never placed a bet “on my husband’s behalf.” She also said, “Other than the occasional horse race, my husband does not bet on any sports.”

It doesn’t matter if Gretzky did or did not bet on sports. He simply cannot be seen as an associate of big-time sports gamblers, especially one who sleeps with him. A week after police showed up at Gretzky’s door looking for his wife, he still was insisting that day was the first time he was aware of any of this, disputing reports that he had asked the accused mastermind earlier how to keep Janet’s name out of it.

He knew nothing? As his wife bet with both hands, police said the gambling ring was the work of Gretzky’s best friend and assistant coach, Rick Tocchet -- the same Tocchet who, while playing for the Flyers in the 1980s, was linked by the Philadelphia Inquirer to organized crime figure Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, a reputed gambler/killer who went to prison on racketeering charges.

Two degrees of separation between Gretzky and Skinny Joey? No sport can abide such a relationship. Although leagues voice no moral opposition to gambling -- why should they when government sanctions gambling at every 7-Eleven? -- there is a concern no less real for being unspoken. The fear is, organized crime will control games.

Gamblers on the hook to mobsters likely have decided games. That unspoken suspicion was the subtext for Mike Holmgren’s nasty little speech to Seahawks’ fans. He played the zebra card. By blaming the “striped shirts” for his team’s loss to the Steelers, he exploited Joe Fan’s willingness to believe that the officials’ seeming incompetence was a cover for crime. As to why anyone would think officials care who wins, here’s an answer:

Mendy Rudolph.

Into the 1970s, Rudolph was the NBA’s best official. He also was a compulsive gambler, as Pete Rose and Monday Night Football director Chet Forte were, as Michael Jordan, Lenny Dykstra and Jaromir Jagr might be. Rudolph told his wife he was $100,000 down when someone offered him “a lot of money to shave points in games.”

Rudolph’s wife, Susan, told the story to the New York Times in 1992. The referee said he could fix a game by just looking away once or twice. She said her husband refused, saying, “I love the game too much.”

But the offer was there. Are we to suppose that was the only offer ever made to an official? And that all officials turned down all offers?

In today’s world, sad to say, it may be only one small step from sleeping with Janet Jones to being in bed with Tony Soprano.