Life Without Gretzky (a tragedy) (lights up - a spotlight center stage - the jersey of ol'number 99 hangs suspended in mid air - enter Andrew Bogart - an Oilers fan who works as a window cleaner and performance artist in the off season - he speaks) Andrew Bogart: Lights up! A spotlight center stage! The jersey of ol' number 99 hangs suspended in mid air - enter Me. In true Canadian play fashion, I state my name, age, and what I do. My name is Andrew Bogart. I'm 28. I'm an Oiler's fan but in the off season I clean skyscraper windows and do performance art at the Fringe. It's a living. The light grows brighter - reflecting off the gypsy blue, the pumpkin orange and virgin white of ol' number 99's jersey. I (Andrew Bogart) slowly approach the jersey - raise an overworked hand and strive - nay! - attempt to strive to touch the hem of the greatest hockey player to ever grace the face of God's sweet and bountiful earth! But what's this? I'm driven back by an invisible force. My goal is just out of reach! Strive, Andrew! Strive! But no!! It's too late. The jersey is swept up - up - up into the jet stream. It departs - winging it's merry way south of the border to sunnier climes. Overcome with grief. I do an interpretational dance expressing my dismay over the trade of the Great One to the L.A. Kings. I dance. I throw in every bullshit move I've ever seen in any musical! I finish off with a jig of sorrow - summoning up my Irish roots in a swell of remourse. I stop my dance - and think. Y'know, it's always tough to reconcile my three passions. It's like...Here is Me (Andrew Bogart), the window cleaner, scraping the scum off the ivory towers of downtown Edmonton. Trying to make a buck like anyone else - a working man. And here is the second Me - the Artiste. Wowing them at the Fringe - breaking barriers onstage - dancing with a paper bag over my head, hurling liver into the audience and doing selective readings from the Moose Jaw phone book. And here is Me - the Fan. Jealously hoarding my copies of "Hockey News", phoning sports hot lines, stunning them with witty lines like: "Don't count those Jets out!" or "Now that Harold Ballard is dead is Anne Murray gonna buy the Gardens?" I try to balance these three passions. It makes for a very full life. At least, it used to make for a very full life. I crumple to the stage in defeat - memories of Wayne rush back to me - flooding my brain - images of the jersey tucked in on the right, baby powder on the stick, the little prize in the bottom of Pro Stars cereal. I continue. Once it was very sweet. Edmonton was the "City of Champions". "Everyone's a star!" I'm cruising down Jasper Avenue and it's Hey! and it's Whoa! and it's Gretzky, Gretzky GO, GO, GO! A spring in our step. Blue skies up above and everyone's in love with our Wayne. Yeah. You couldn't believe what this city felt like. A family of millions and all because of one guy. Hockey messiah! - whatever. You see Him live and you just know you're seeing the best there ever was - ever. Take a look. He skates like a giselle - if giselle's could skate. Long strides. Smooth motion. Stillness - a flurry of motion - then stillness. Zero to fifty in 30 seconds. A frosty rooster tail off the skates as he evades yet another check. Pass the puck. Play it cool. Hang out by the blue line. Wait for that onside pass then fire it upstairs. Man, that is some mean hockey. Even Mario Lemieux was impressed. Fall. 1987. Last game - the Canada Cup - Gretzky and Lemieux on the same line against the Red Army Regulars. Lemieux to Gretzky, evades the check, spins, back to Lemieux, shakes off the attacker, over to Gretzky streaks past the blue line, pass back to Lemieux, fakes the shot, back to Wayne, Wayne deaks the goalie but passes to Lemiuex in the slot, screen shot - they score!! Mario Lemieux spins in slow-mo, he clutches Wayne to his breast, gives him a big sweaty kiss (on the cheek) and promptly announces to 12 million lip-reading fans: "Wayne Gretzky! I wish you were a fucking Penguin!" "I wish you were a fucking Penguin." That sort of sums it up, doesn't it? He commanded respect from everyone. He was the Greatest. He was loved by us and feared by all the others. But now...now it's all tainted. We hate him now. We feel betrayed. To us, Wayne is no longer the Greatest. (a silence) I wonder why we do that? I mean, it's not just with him. We do it with all our heroes and I don't know why. Just look at - uh - Brian Orser. He was the best but he did the old traditional Canadian "chokeroo", got silver at the Olympics and everybody trashed him. I wonder why we set 'em up like that. Y'know - just to knock 'em down again. Is it that good ol' Canadian inferiority complex that Pierre Burton keeps going on and on and on about? Or is it something else? So, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. On with the show. (he takes out a hockey puck and slaps his head with it.) I always hit myself with a hockey puck in my performances. It's a truly Canadian statement. It's also good for Government grants. The arts councils love it. I guess I better explain how I got into performance art. I'm not an actor. No true performance artist can act. You don't need any formal training or background. You just need to be an asshole. That's how I started. I was bopping down White Avenue one night and this guy leaps out of an alley about twenty feet in front of me and starts attacking this yuppie couple who are on their way to a film. He's yelling at them, and he's brandishing this riding crop and screaming some stupid poem by W.O. Mitchell and these people are freaking out! The woman is screaming at the top of her lungs, and her boyfriend is fending off the blows from the nutcase and all hell is breaking loose and sure enough up pops one of Edmonton's finest and collars this guy. I close in hoping to catch some of the fun but it's over before it's started. The nutcase pulls out a permit and, sure enough, he's a street performer, who specializes in "Theatre of the Obnoxious" and the cop explains to the people that the Fringe festival is on and it's not safe to walk the streets because there a lot of actors out after dark so they should just go home and forget about it. I was just blown away. This guy had a license to be an asshole! Amazing! I knew right then that I'd found my niche. Anyway, that's that. Back to the show. August 9th, 1988. "Black Tuesday". The Edmonton Oilers trade Wayne Gretzky, centre Mike Krushelnyski, defenseman-winger Marty McSorley and minor-league defenseman John Miner to the Los Angeles Kings for center Jimmy Carson, left winger Martin Gelinas and an estimated 15 million dollars! That's 15 million American dollars. Kings center (Carson), a fifty goal a year man, cleverly quips, "Shit...I'm gonna be the answer to a trivia question!" Too true. Too true. Thousands of rabid Oiler fans (me included) jam the Oiler's hotline with questions, questions, questions. What!? Where?! How much?! How could they?! - and most importantly - Who!! Who's responsible?! Somebody must pay! Who can we lynch!? And could they answer our questions? No. So we had to fill in the blanks. Make our own answers. We knew who's fault it was right off the bat! It was her! The Yoko Ono of hockey! Janet Jones. Aha! It was all too clear now. Take one impressionable boy from Brantford - give him fame and fortune - throw in some hormones and Wham! Naturally he's gonna fall for the first piece of greased thigh that comes his way. Hey! You ever notice how Superman's girlfriends always had the same initials? Lois Lane. Lana Lang. Lex Luthor. It really used to bug me. Anyway, there's "Soops" with all these L.L. chicks and here's our own Man of Steel boinking a J.J. Mere coincidence? I don't think so! So, they meet on a talk-show or something. She's just finished Police Academy 12 - which actually isn't a bad film. I saw it twice - and she's busy plugging away. Wayne is enraptured. The camera pans to him and he's sort of staring at her with his mouth hanging open and a bit of drool dribbling down onto his lavaleer. She flashes one of those pinched smiles of hers (you know the type) and Bingo! It's game over for our Wayne. Next thing you know the Oiler's have won the cup - naturally - and there's a picture of Janet kissing our Wayne on the cover of every goddamn newspaper from here to Tasmania. That picture. It's etched in my memory. There's Wayne puckering his lips in that way that only people from Brantford can do - you know, a nice Wasp kiss - and there's Janet, with her tongue stuck out a mile, like some Gila Monster, probing for our man's dental work. It's enough to make you puke. So we had it all figured out. She's to blame for dragging ol' 99 down to California (which is more famous for it's mass murderers than it's hockey stars). So, she has to have a career so Wayne takes a back seat while she does Hollywood Squares or Orca 5,000 or some such crap. Well, I better stop because, as it turns out, we fans were wrong. It wasn't her fault and I apologize to Janet because she's a wonderful girl and I shouldn't knock her. I mean, I'm a fan, y'know? "Fanatic" which means we're all a little loopy and tend to shoot from the hip a lot...so let me just set the record straight and say, "Janet. I love you. Friends for life. And I mean that." There. Good. That's settled. Now, we got a problem here. If it ain't Janet's fault then who's fault is it? Did Wayne want to be traded? Here, take a look. Lights, please. Thank-you. Now, you may not be able to see this very well (you may not be able to see it at all) but here's a picture of Wayne at the dreaded news conference on August 9th. I get shivers just looking at it. Does that look like a man who wants to be traded?! Look at him! He's crying his eyes out! He'd just bought a house in the city of Edmonton only 2 weeks ago. Does somebody buy a house in a city he's planning to move out of? Now, I understand that it's possible to buy a house in Toronto with the intention of selling it in two weeks at twice the price but out West we don't do it that way. You buy a home out west to live in which may sound strange to you Easterners but it's true. The only thing we flip out there is pancakes. Okay, so it's not Janet's fault and it's not Wayne's fault. Who's left? Second slide. Here, my friends, is the culprit. He's known as "Peter Puck" to his few friends. To his enemies - who are legion - he's known as "Peter Porklington". The owner of the Edmonton Oilers, the Palm Dairy and a High Priest on the alter of Privatization. I loved this man. I felt proud to clean his windows. I mean...He was the one who brought Wayne here in the first place. He built the Oilers up from nothing. I thought he really cared. So, how do I know it was him? Take a look. No tears. At least, none that he couldn't wipe away with one of those 15 million hankies. Fifteen million bucks. No wonder he's not crying. I clued in very quickly. After the conference, when suspicions started to arise about this guy's dealings, he started to bad mouth Wayne hoping to take some of the heat off himself. "Wayne is to blame! Wayne cried Crocodile tears! Wayne is a great actor!" That's when he blew it. I've seen Wayne on the Young and the Restless and he couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. He even made the regulars on that show look good. So, it was Porkey Puck all the time. I'll never use Palm Dairy cheeses or curds in any of my performance art ever again. So, as you can see, life's been kind of bad for me lately. I didn't think it would affect me so much but since the trade, everything has changed. My work suffers, my art suffers. I've lost that little "spring in my step". It's not just me either. Everybody's affected. No more gods. We live in the city of the Dead now. I'm depressed. Courage, Andrew. Compose yourself. The show must go on. October 19th, 1988. Wayne Gretzky makes his first on-ice appearance in Edmonton as a member of the Los Angeles Kings. Lights up on the Northlands Coliseum - a jam packed, sold out, standing room only type of crowd. What's going to happen? Are they gonna Boo? Is it gonna get ugly? They announce the Kings' line up...a hush comes over the crowd..."Playing Centre for the Los Angeles Kings, number 99, Wayne Gretzky!" I duck and cover - waiting for the tomatoes to start flying...but they don't come. Clapping. I hear clapping. 30 seconds. They're standing. One minute. It's an ovation. A minute-thirty. They break out the banners. One reads, "Wayne: Thanks for the great years. The team, has died, but your magic and Peter Pocklington's betrayal shall never be forgotten!" Two minutes. Everyone's on their feet! Another banner: "The Grinch who sold 99." Another: "Peter Pocklington. Thank's to you Edmonton will be minus 99 all winter!" Three minutes. Everyone's on they're feet. Exultation. Fists raised! Three minutes, thirty! No end in sight!! Even some of the Oilers are clapping...Yari Curri with a toothless grin. Mark Messier nods and gives Wayne a wink! Yeah!...Then the hammer comes down. The American anthem starts. Everyone remembers who owns him now - The clapping is quelled. But we have to stay standing for the anthem. The game starts. It's a beauty. Edmonton wins 8 to 6. Wayne gets two assists. He works hard all night but I get the crazy feeling he's holding back. Or maybe he tried hard to score. I don't know. He doesn't though. The Kings lose. Wayne looks beaten. The fans file out with smiles on their faces but it's a bitter victory. Something's missing in their lives. It's...It's Him. Pocklington is no where to be seen. He's in his bunker gleefully counting the receipts. He laughs and fires off another check to the National Citizen's Coalition. It seems he was right after all. He's won. Vorkapitch! A calender - it's pages flying off in a brisk wind - November - December - a newspaper spins into view - headline - "Don Cherry says Jesus Christ himself couldn't make a winner of the L.A.Kings! They are the doormats of the division." - January - the Oilers start to slump - the Kings acquire a new goalie by the name of Hrudey - February - Howie Meeker sleeps fitfully in some old folks home. Tossing and turning and mumbling to himself, "Take the puck, not the man! Take the man, not the puck!" March - Wayne criticizes Slats and Pocklinton in a local T.V. interview. Pocklington's spin doctors leap on it like rabid pit bulls on a three week old kitten. April - April! - the Final Conflict - in the form of a no-holds barred, gut wrenching, winner take all, division play-off semi-final. Whipped into a frenzy by Pocklington's media, the fans turn on Wayne. They boo the King. They cut the cord. He is now officially "The Enemy". They boo him every time he touches the puck. They boo him when he gets hit. They boo him on the bench. They can boo him if they want. Wayne Gretzky has a supernatural habit of coming out smelling like a rose when the buffalo chips are down. Game six. The Oilers lead the series 3 games to 2 but King Karma rears its'ugly head and L.A. steals the game to tie the series. Don Cherry's slack jawed response is, "It's like he's on a mission!" A mission. Yes he is. And so am I. I couldn't let it end like this. I couldn't bear to watch the last game on the videoscope at Bleachers. I must see the final game live. I must go to L.A. I cash in my life savings (not much since the Principal crash) and head south! At the Edmonton airport I notice something is missing. That sign. The one that read, "Welcome to Edmonton. City of Champions." It's gone. Bad omen. I land in L.A. with two hours to spare till game time. I take a cab to the Inglewood Forum - spend my last five hundred American dollars on a scalped ticket. Game seven. Lights up in Lotus land. All the beautiful people converge. There's Jack Nicholson. Sylvester Stallone. Michael J.Fox. Meryl Streep(?!) Everybody's so tanned 'cept for me. It's hot. Sooo hot. (he takes off his Oiler jersey - he has a Kings T-shirt underneath) It was all they had at the airport and I figured when in Rome... It begins. Wayne scores 52 seconds into the game. He is ecstatic. The crowd is ecstatic too in it's own mellow, laid-back, fashion. Wayne is on a high. You can tell. He's riding that powerful drug called Revenge. The Oilers try to fight back but it's 4-3 for L.A. at the end of the second period. The Kings increase their lead to 5-3 and then Wayne beats out Yari Kuri to score into an empty net. BANG goes the coffin lid on Pocklinton's head. It's over. (For those of you who worry whether Wayne has gone Hollywood - his exact words after the goal were,"Fucking Eh!!" Fucking eh. What a true Canadian.) So that's it. The final chapter. (a silence) Y'know...California is performance art paradise. You throw liver at people in California and they appreciate it. It's perfect. Sunny climate. Beautiful women but...well...there's something wrong with playing hockey in 80 degree temperatures. I mean, it's not hockey unless your boogers freeze, y'know! Also I...I don't know how to tell you this...I have a dark secret. I...I'm not originally from Edmonton. I came out here during the boom to make a lot of money. Actually...I'm from...Toronto. Don't leave! Don't leave! Yes. I admit it! I was a Leaf's fan!! Please have mercy. I was a child. You've got to understand. The last time the Leafs won the cup I was a zygote. But then I moved to a city where God skated at the West Edmonton Mall. You'd meet people anywhere and they've got a smile on their faces and they're ready to sit down and buy you a drink and talk your ear off 'cause we are Edmontonians and we got the greatest and are the greatest people and sports fans in the world. Nowhere else have I had such a feeling of family. I came close to throwing out the old Oilers jersey and heading off again. I heard the call of the Ol' Orange, Blue and White in the end. (puts his jersey back on) I heard Edmonton calling - "Andrew! Come back! All is forgiven!" And so, it's goodbye to L.A. Goodbye Wayne! For the last time. Skate, man. Skate! We love you! I...I love you. I still do. But I got my own team to root for. The gods will skate in Edmonton. We will be number one again. Just you wait. (black out)