Photo by Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
Three Stars of Comedy
The second star: Matt Dumba. The Celtics and the Cavaliers made a massive trade this week, and hockey fans everywhere were like, "OK, we get it NBA, your off-season is a million times better than ours. Stop rubbing it in." Oh, and one fan in Boston burned a jersey, because Boston.
Advertisement
Yes, this would seem to give the Kings an unfair advantage in the Pacific, but don't worry—the boys are working with the Coyotes and the Flames, too.
Outrage of the Week
That quote is translated, so maybe some layer of nuance got lost. GM Ken Holland, meanwhile, says he hadn't spoken to his player about the story. Still, it's not hard to connect the dots here. Zetterberg basically did it for us.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Obscure Former Player of the Week
Advertisement
New Entries for the Hockey Dictionary
Advertisement
Classic YouTube clip breakdown
- Yes, it's our old friend Alan Thicke. You see, there doesn't seem to be a YouTube video of Gretzky's full appearance out there, but we do have this clip from the 1984 NHL Awards, so we'll work with what we have.
- Why yes, that would be the same 1984 awards show that gave us a segment featuring trumpet players and workout models. What can I tell you, it was an especially strong show that year.
- We join Thicke midway through a joke about Rod Langway being a tiger on the ice who has to have teeth removed from his fists. Rod Langway ranked 179th in the league that season with 61 penalty minutes, for the record. As Alan and I both know, you never let the facts get in the way of a good punchline.
- Thicke moves on to the Art Ross presentation, joking about how everyone knows that Gretzky wins it every year. He even throws in a Knowlton Nash callout just to confuse American viewers. He also drops in a weird aside about Gretzky winning the Pearson, which he'd already done twice before, before setting up a bit about how much "special attention" the star gets.
- That leads us to our second punchline, this one about the Oilers hiring a Zamboni to "wipe the perspiration off his upper lip." That doesn't actually make sense, but does rank as the second-best moment ever involving Alan Thicke, the NHL awards show, and a tiny Zamboni.
- That leads into a reel of Gretzky's off-ice endeavors, and that's where we find the infamous Y&R appearance. The backstory here is that Gretzky was apparently a huge soap opera fan, and that led to him getting an invite to appear on one. In what stands as a bit of, um, creative casting, he played the role of a mob enforcer.
- Specifically, he's playing the role of "Wayne, out of our Edmonton operation." Way to stretch those wings, buddy.
- Gretzky delivers his handful of lines, including "Sure could use some of your class around home." Wait, did he just insult Edmonton? I feel like maybe he did. Come on, man, Edmonton's a classy place. It's not perfect, but it's not like they go around peeing in the sinks. OK, wait, bad example.
- By the way, I've never watched a soap opera in my life and even I know Nikki Newman when I see her. But where's Victor at? They couldn't get him to do a scene with Wayne? You big-leaguing your Canadian audience here, Victor? You'll come crawling back when our discount retail chains come calling, mark my words.
- Gretzky gets another line—"Call me Wayne, everybody does"—and then we're on to other appearances. I really want to know what's up with that dance clip at 1:27, so if anyone has the backstory there please call the tip line. We also get a look at the Wayne Gretzky doll that didn't sell all that well, as Grab Bag readers learned three years ago.
- After some tennis talk and quick appearances by Sally Struthers (?) and Andy Warhol (???), we're done. By the time we cut back to the podium, Thicke is gone, presumably because Rod Langway dragged him off stage and beat him up for not introducing him to any of the workout girls.
- Gretzky, of course, would continue his acting career with an infamous hosting job on Saturday Night Live in 1989, in which he sang, water-skied, and had his wife stolen by Wayne Campbell. I guess she fell for his "Call me Wayne, everybody does" line.
- Speaking of Gretzky on SNL, the musical guest that night was the Fine Young Cannibals. Do you know what else the Fine Young Cannibals were doing in 1989? Appearing in the credits for that Team Sweden song we featured two weeks ago. I completely missed that somehow until it was pointed out by, well, pretty much everybody. What did they do? Did they help sing the song? Write it? Babysit young Henrik Lundqvist? I have so many questions.
- In that same post, I joked about how I was surprised there wasn't some connection to the late-80s Capitals, hockey's reigning kings of making terrible rock videos. But there was: Bengt-Ake Gustafsson shows up in the credits, too, fresh off a nine-year stint in Washington.
- Finally, who was the captain of those Capitals teams? Rod Langway. I'm telling you, this all ties together somehow. I don't know how deep it goes, but I'm working on it. I may need protection if I get too close to the truth, though. If anyone knows any mob enforcers from Edmonton looking for work these days, let me know.