Exploring ESPN's 30 for 30: Part 1. King's Ransom

Director: Peter Berg
 The Rundown
Very Bad Things
Friday Night Lights (directed the movie, producer of the television series)
The Kingdom
Hancock

Synopsis
The film follows the trade of "the Great One", hockey's Wayne Gretzky, from the small market Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings.  Gretzky is easily the most recognizable figure in all of professional hockey with mind boggling statistics and perhaps one of the most impressive list of records of any athlete in any sport.  The film really tries to focus on the intricacies of the deal which was orchestrated by Oilers owner Peter Pocklington and Kings owner Bruce McNall.  The film also delves into some side plots including the pleas of Oilers coach Glen Sather and Gretzky's wife Janet. Gretzky, along with teammates Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski, was traded on August 9th, 1988 for $15 million dollars,Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, and Los Angeles' first round draft picks in 1989, 1991, and 1993. The move sparked a massive uproar in Edmonton where fans burned and hung Pocklington in effigy.  In Los Angeles, the move brought interest in NHL up to an unprecedented level and the film notes that California added two more franchises (Anaheim and San Jose) when the league expanded during the 1990s.





Thoughts
If you are still on the fence about Peter Pocklington after watching the film I suggest taking a look at his Wikipedia page.  There isn't a better example of the out of touch owner I can think of (Dan Guerrero at UCLA comes close).  Pocklington is dyslexic and quit high school to go into business.  This appears to have left a chip on his should because he makes several attempts to make himself seem more educated and intelligent than the fans he obviously does not seem to care for.  Perhaps my favorite moment in the film is Pocklington trying to use the phrase "a fate accompli" in one of his responses.  You can almost feel his tongue twisting in his mouth and his brain trying to squeeze out the phrase. The film is quiet on the financial pressures that made Pocklington keen to trade his most important player but a little digging shows a history of poor financial decisions and Pocklington notes in the film that a few of his business ventures were not doing so well.  If there is a better quote from Pocklington it has to be this bit taken from a 2011 Fox Sports article describing how the former Oilers owner pled guilty to hiding assets during a bankruptcy proceeding, "`Unfortunately the jury pool is not a jury of your peers; it's a jury of some of them unemployed, some of them that aren't particularly bright,' he said. `And of course with press and so on, and in this country and Canada they seem to hate anyone that has been successful..'"

Bruce McNall also deserves some credit for his part as the sleazy business owner for Los Angeles Kings. His interviews almost have a con man vibe to them, and it made me want to hear more from him.  His piece about letting Gretzky listen in on a phone call between him and Pocklington where the Oilers owner went off on his star player was probably one of the biggest points in the film.  McNall was found guilty of bilking several banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars years later, a move that left the Kings in serious financial straights for years.  Still, he has some great moments in the film and I wanted more play in the personality clash between him and Pocklington.

That gets us to Gretzky.  It seems strange to hold off talking about the subject of this film until the third paragraph but I think it is because he is the least defined of the three major players.  A large part of this is that Gretzky's personality, which seems a little more mellow and quiet, is dwarfed by the far more outgoing and bombastic stylings of the two team owners.  Growing up in a small town in Canada has perhaps influenced Gretzky's demeanor since he seems more like the boy next door than a superstar athlete, something which no doubt influenced his connection to his legion of Canadian fans.  In the context of this film however it creates a problem since his interviews seem to fade to the background and we get less perspective on his thought process throughout the trade. 

In one sense we get the Gretzky who loved playing for the local team, the hometown hero who had a real relationship with the fans.  I don't doubt he wanted to stay on with the Oilers, and it seems pretty evident that he would have chosen to stay in Edmonton had he not felt betrayed by Pocklington.   Still, Gretzky had multiple opportunities to put aside his differences with Pocklington and make things work.  He admits he was told by the management in Edmonton that he had the opportunity to call the trade off at the eleventh hour and that he now knows as an owner how his plan to hold out for the highest possible salary had put his owner in a bind.  The issue here is how much did wanting to be paid more factor in making these decisions?  Knowing that would be important since it would tell the audience a great deal about who Gretzky is.

No doubt Gretzky deserved to be paid what he was worth but there have been too many examples of players taking a smaller salary to stay with their franchises to believe Gretzky couldn't have struck a deal to stay in Edmonton.  The film seems to imply that money and feeling disrespected were the biggest factors in Gretzky's decision to go forward with the trade and the footage of the press conference where Gretzky is sobbing and unable to even say he is leaving for L.A. really seems to onvey his feelings about the city of Edmonton.  However there is still a question as to how Gretzky ould feel that way but still turn down what he admits were several opportunities offered to him by the management to stop the deal.  Was the relationship between him and the Oilers so strained at that point that he couldn't have found common ground or did not believe Edmonton would be able to pay him the salary he believed he deserved, or both?  We t don't get a very clear picture of what was going through his mind during this process. 

Could he have gotten over his disputes with management?  Could he have accepted less to stay in the city he loved?  Hard to say, but it would perhaps have been easier to analyze the thought process of Gretzky's side of the decision had he not been moving between two very dynamic who drew much of the attention of the film away from the much quieter Gretzky. 

Statue of Wayne Gretzky hoisting the
Stanley Cup outside Rexall Place

Review
"King's Ransom" isn't the bang a series like 30 for 30 should start out on, but it does raise some interesting questions about one of the biggest trades in sports history.  The film focuses on the trade and misses some of the larger themes, in particular the shift from small market Edmonton to large market Los Angeles.  The director, a native of Chicago and resident of Los Angeles during the trade, seems ignorant of the sentiments of the small town fans and the level of anger big market teams poaching home town players can cause.  If it seems insignificant, ask anyone in Cleveland about LeBron James.  Also, while the piece mentions the expansion of the NHL into California after the trade, it is still pretty bare on the effect the trade had on the NHL.  When the league expanded in the 1990s it only added one franchise in Canada and several in the southern United States.  It is worth considering whether the trade had anything to do with the expansion of hockey into markets in the southeast like Nashville and Atlanta.

 The director also spends more time on Gretzky's wife than necessary.  While the intrigue into her possible involvement in the trade is a nice touch, it gets debunked pretty easily and it could have been time spent fleshing out the relationship between Gretzky and Pockington.  Our opinion of Gretzky ultimately seems to hinge on how much of his choice was based on money and how much of it was based on Pockington's oafishness, and the lack of time spent fleshing out their relationship leaves us in the dark as to what the choice ultimately came down to.  Does Gretzky openly admit he was naive about the financial side of his choice?  Yes, but that admission would mean more if we had a better understanding in the role money played compared to other factors.  If it really was all about the money then our picture of the fans who went after Pockington changes dramatically, but the director seems more interested in laying out events and fleshing out rumors than providing perspective.

Overall it is an interesting story.  Unfortunately it is the only film covering hockey in the 30 for 30 arsenal, which is a bit surprising since hockey has a fairly devout following and is closer to the NBA than MLS in terms of popularity amongst Americans.  Despite leaving some questions unanswered and needing more perspective on the reasoning behind the trade, the film is entertaining and has enough interesting tidbits and footage to make it worth while.