Ukrainian journalist Oleksandr Paskhover rebuked hockey player Wayne Gretzky, who never condemned Russia's aggression against the country of his ancestors and supports the intention to turn Canada into the 51st state of the United States.
The journalist also mentioned Gretzky's ancestors.
Paschover notes that on the second day of the full-scale invasion, Wayne Gretzky, the star of Canadian hockey, sent a text message to his former teammate and current head coach of the Ukrainian national hockey team, Dmytro Khrystych. In the message, Gretzky wrote that he was praying for Khrystych and his family.
"He probably prays that Dmytro and his family, and with them all of Ukraine, will not perish under Russian missiles and shelling from other weapons of mass and individual impact. Dmytro, as a polite person, thanked Gretzky, writing that difficult times have come for Ukraine. Touching. And to a certain extent, not surprising. Everyone who was conscious at the time understood where black was and where white was. And Wayne Gretzky, who was born in Canada in a Ukrainian-speaking family, and his grandmother Maria comes from Pidhaitsy, which is in the Ternopil region, and grandfather Terenty Gretzky from the Ukrainian village of Ogdemir, which is now part of modern Belarus, is all the more so," the journalist writes.
Also, at the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, it was Gretzky who called for the removal of the aggressor country from world hockey. He said that the crime should be punished at all levels of public life.
"Three years have passed. The number of people killed, tortured, raped, and broken in the Russian-Ukrainian war is calculated in millions. At this time, Ovechkin was multiplying goals, and his countries were multiplying coffins. And now a Russian rocket hammered the 895th goal into the opponents' goal, just on the same days when Russian rockets in Kryvyi Rih killed 9 children. Two records almost in one day. In this way, the Russian hockey player surpassed our hero Gretzky in the number of goals scored in the NHL. And now the same Gretzky, celebrating this epic moment, says: "My grandfather was Russian, he would be very happy that it was a Russian who broke my record," Paskhover continues.
At the same time, the journalist shames the hockey player for his statements.
"Wayne, you are certainly a reputable hockey player. And your text messages are touching. But if your grandfather Terenty, who had enough of the seventh rivet in his head to escape from the Russian prison of peoples to Canada in time, heard this from his grandson, he would have given you a fight, no worse than the best tough guy in the NHL. Wayne. Too bad. A complete disappointment. Unlike the legendary Czech Dominik Hasek. This is where genius combined with conscience," Paskhover summed up.
"Apostrophe" also reported that former sports commentator and political figure Ihor Miroshnychenko criticized hockey player Wayne Gretzky .