Current (and hopefully VERY soon to be ex) Phoenix Coyotes owner Richard Burke has banned Wayne Gretzky, The Great One, from the team locker room until Gretzky and Steve Ellman complete their purchase of the team, which is now scheduled to take place on October 1, 2000, only four days before the opening of the 2000-2001 season.
Never mind that the sale is only one payment away from being resolved. Never mind that Wayne Gretzky is possibly the greatest hockey player to ever lace on skates. Never mind any of that. This last “hurrah” by Richard Burke only verifies to the entire hockey world what Phoenix fans have known from the beginning. Dick Burke is exactly what his name says. And while we the fans of the Phoenix Coyotes may be thankful to Mr. Burke for bringing NHL hockey to the valley of the sun, there are many things he cannot be forgiven for.
As some of you may have seen, much whining and complaining by this same Richard Burke accompanied an Associated Press article appearing in print and on line this week, as well as being reported by sports newscasters on network and local news, informing us that Mr. Burke had indeed banned the Great One from the Coyotes locker room and from team practices at the Alltell Ice Den.
If it wasn’t bad enough for us to be continually embarrassed locally with Mr. Burke and his “interesting” statements to the press, now the entire nation, and Canada, can share in our amazement over statements like “They are trying to pull stuff on me,” apparently referring to Gretzky and Company preparing to take over the team. Running commercials with the Great One to encourage season ticket sales, and preliminary talks with Nikolai Khabibulin (stalled for months under the Burke regime) and Claude Lemieux are obviously, in Richard Burke’s eyes, “showboating and being disruptive.”
Disruptive? DISRUPTIVE? That will be Mr. Burke’s legacy in Phoenix. Accusing Wayne Gretzky of showboating and being disruptive. Sorry, Mr. Burke, Wayne could attract attention walking into a morgue, he would hardly be disruptive and showboat just to upstage you.
And speaking of disruptive, Richard Burke has in the last six months tried to sell the team on the sly to a Microsoft fat cat in Portland, tried to trade Keith Tkachuk on eight different occasions » Read more: NHL: Now We Know Why the Nickname for Richard is Dick
