End The Curse wrote:
What's interesting to me is that Gretzky to this day has no regrets about leaving Edmonton for LA and would do it all over again. Something about him seemed less likable to me in after watching the show, like he was more LA Wayne and less Edmonton Gretzky. I didn't realize that he already had made LA his permanent home prior to the trade, and I found him a bit callous towards the people and city of Edmonton.
Maybe it's just me. I would have liked for him to have said in a perfect world he would have been a career Oiler, and instead he said the opposite.
It wasn't a knock on the fans of Edmonton.
I read his autobiography, and a lot of screwed up things went on in that franchise that made him uncomfortable.
He wasn't a very big fan of Glen Sather or Peter Pocklington for a few reasons.
For one, he saw Sather as a manipulative person, who ripped off a lot of his team mates by convincing them to negotiate without managers, acting all buddy buddy, then bending them over during the meetings.
Pocklington, at one point, bought diamonds for everybody on the team, including the equipment managers and stick boys.
The only thing was, the size of each diamond represented each persons' importance to the organization in his eyes.
So while Gretzky got this huge freaking thing, some of his team mates got table scraps.
I'd feel a little awkward about that, too.
Gretzky had made his permanent home in L.A. while he was in Edmonton because his wife was an actress, and needed to stay there to continue her career.