"Operation Slap Shot" isn't going away any time soon. According to this article from The Star-Ledger out of New Jersey, wiretaps caught The Great Wayne Gretzky discussing the multimillion-dollar gambling operation run by his friend Rick Tocchet before the ring was dismantled Monday. This contradicts what Gretzky told us Tuesday night when he claimed he had no knowledge of any gambling allegations until Tocchet called him Monday night.
This Star-Ledger article makes the following claim about Janet Gretzky, f.k.a. Janet Jones, wife of The Great One.
Jones was among the gamblers who placed more than $1.7 million in wagers in the past six weeks with the ring allegedly run by Tocchet and a New Jersey state trooper. Jones put down $500,000 on games during that period, including $75,000 on last weekend's Super Bowl, sources said. She even wagered on which team would win the opening coin toss -- winning $5,000 with that bet.
Apparently, investigators are looking into whether The Great Wayne Gretzky placed any wagers through his wife at a CAD Casino. My admiration for Gretzky has been well documented in these pages. There isn't a blemish on his record, he's the best to have ever played the game, the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had and the architect of our 2002 Olympic and 2004 World Cup champion teams. In 1982 I secured a copy of The Great Gretzky by Terry Jones that I read to pieces. There's a reason we refer to him as The Great One. He's Canadian royalty.
When this was a story about Rick Tocchet and a few NHL players like Jeremy Roenick and Travis Green throwing a few bucks on football and basketball, I was filing it under "live and learn". Now that it's seeped into #99's realm, I'm raising the threat level to Elevated.
