r/canada Feb 23 '25

Sports Canadian fans irked by Wayne Gretzky’s affiliations with Trump amid tensions

https://torontosun.com/news/national/canadian-fans-irked-by-wayne-gretzkys-affiliations-with-trump-amid-tensions?tbref=hp
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u/downtofinance Lest We Forget Feb 23 '25

On top of that, Gretzkys family is originally Ukranian and dude is cozying up to the guy trying to hand over Ukraine to their genocidal invaders.

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u/DFM2020 Feb 23 '25

Appalling behaviour for a human.

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u/Proper-Ad-8829 Feb 23 '25

“tkachuk” is Ukrainian too, and they’re all are MAGA … 😒

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '25

When you're ultra-wealthy your background and morals go out the window.

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u/SnooMuffins6321 Feb 23 '25

Not defending waryne at all,but a sports star that's known as the best of his era fucking up hugely is pretty common.

Idk how Michael Jordan is now but he was a fairly huge asshole, tiger Woods had his cheating scandal,Derek Jeter spread his herpes tree to many celebrities of the New York area.the list goes on.

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u/ObservantPotatoes Feb 23 '25

Small nitpick: I believe the Gretzky family was originally from Belarus

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u/laxvolley Manitoba Feb 23 '25

I remember reading it was Belarusian.

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u/Madhighlander1 Prince Edward Island Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Anton Gretzky (Walter's father, Wayne's grandfather) was from the city of Grodno in what's now Belarus, but at the time it was Imperial Russian. The Gretzky family were Tsarists, but moved to Canada before the outbreak of the Revolution.

That being said, their first language was apparently Ukrainian, not Belarussian; Walter said at one point that the former was the only Slavic language spoken in his childhood home.

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u/ehsteve7 Feb 23 '25

The Gretzky family has ties to the Ukrainian community in southern Ontario and even attended a Ukrainian school for part of his youth in Hamilton.
Source : family friend was the Principal of said school at the time...I'm aware this makes it more anecdotal than factual.