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February 14, 2006

If only there were something he could do to change it!

Mike Ulmer has a startlingly lucid and damning indictment of his fellow sports hacks over their handling of the Gretzky affair:

Journalists are fun at parties. We're great at Trivial Pursuit but we are subject to the same mathematics as any group. Put more than two of us on the same story and the group IQ lowers by 50%. Keep taking off 50% with each addition until we become this big stupid mass of microphones and notepads, a dumb, braying jackass convinced that somewhere, just beyond our scent, lies scandal.

The rule of thumb we use for famous people is that they forfeit the right to be treated fairly when they become public figures. Small wonder, then, that the phenomenon of writing about how things look and ruminating about the effects of whatever crap we dredge up occupy so much time.

Look, he's right of course — "this will continue to be the story no matter what anyone says" is the quintessential sportswriter's phrase — but sweet Jesus, has this only occurred to Mike Ulmer now that Wayne Gretzky is involved? The below is dead on, but it could apply to Ulmer's Sun colleagues any day of the year:

There isn't smoke here. There isn't fire. There aren't even two sticks rubbed together. An earlier leaked report that Gretzky talked to Tocchet about Janet prior to learning of the gambling ring was proven false.

Yesterday another "insider" claimed the Gretzkys spent big money gambling at Vegas. Again no attribution. Again no inference of illegality. But that was enough for a reporter to question Gretzky's extravagant ways.

A Canadian sportswriter complaining about lack of attribution in the Toronto Sun. If I'm dreaming, I don't want to wake up.

Bruce Arthur proves Ulmer's point in most execrable fashion in today's National Post:

Hockey's old boy network has sprung into action on his behalf, and Gretzky's defenders have been in full throat. But this scandal keeps creeping, as do the facts. The Great One said he never bet on sports, then Janet said, "other than the occasional horse race, my husband does not bet on any sports."

OK, maybe he does not consider horse racing to be a sport. But he might be more of a gambler than we thought -- the Las Vegas Review-Journal, citing an anonymous casino executive, reported yesterday that Gretzky and his wife have lost more than US$2-million in Vegas casinos. If true, it may establish the couple as relatively high rollers, and it is not a huge step from betting on blackjack to betting on, say, football games. In gambling, the slippery slope is a well-worn road. Tocchet is proof.

This is absolutely crazy. I expect this sort of nonsense from the Sun chain, but CanWest's stable of writers has been every bit as slimy on this file and enough is enough. Furthermore, I would suggest to CBC that their Olympic coverage is not a news program — it's supposed to be entertainment, and now that pretty much everyone in the country is in agreement that this whole thing is just an excuse for the media to finally piss on Gretzky it's in the network's best interest to shut the hell up about it and show us all hours and hours of human interest stories, possibly interspersed with 48-second intervals of taped sports.

Posted by Chris Selley at February 14, 2006 07:04 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Matt at February 14, 2006 11:32 PM

Posted by: Chris Selley at February 15, 2006 09:27 AM