HE wHO
WALKS BEHIND THE BENCHES

hy are we so obsessed with
We figures that when
they retire we must watch

ever moment of their lives ever
caught on film?

Wayne Gretzky is gone and John
Elway followed him into the land of
retirement one week later, but
instead of letting these heroes of the
ice and gridiron fade into the annals
of sports history we, the fans, were
bombarded-with their lives until we
were numb. Really, do we need to see
Gretzky falling on his ass as a seven-
year-old in pee wee hockey, or Elway
in grade eight, struggling to hold
onto a ball that’s as long as his fore-

go gracefully

arm? Those moments are for the fam-
ilies of the athletes to enjoy, they
shouldn't be paraded out for millions
of viewers to see because, honestly,
most people probably don’t care.

Do we also need to see the retiring
player's press conference nine thou-
sand times? Gretzky's “Kanata
Conference” after the Ottawa game
was shown at least three times by
SportsNet and that wasn’t including
the hundreds of sound bites from
that conference that were shown on
highlight programs like Sports Desk.
If someone had actually sat down
and watched that press conference
every time SportsNet put it on the
air, they could probably recite it back
to you verbatim.

 

Port M

 

 

 

John’s
2404 St oody,B.C.

Street

 

 

page 24 the Other Press

May 1999

 

What we really need to do, as
sports fans, is to switch off. Show the
networks and the newspapers that we
want to remember these people in
our own way, instead of the way that
some producer of one of the infinite
number of highlight shows wants us
to remember them. We all have our
own memories, like Elway’s “The
Drive” to beat the Browns or Gretzky
scoring 200 points not once, but four
times; and if some of us are to young
to remember certain great feats that
these masters performed, so be it.
That’s what the history books are for.

Being force-fed another person's
achievements doesn’t make them thai
much better, it makes the accom-
plishments that much cheaper.