Woe, Canada

Pocklington later called Gretzky to apologize, claiming the remarks were taken out of context. "I understood where he was coming from when he talked about the size of my ego," Gretzky says. "He didn't mean that as an insult. But the part about the theatrics made me sick. I wouldn't accept an apology on that."

So who got the best of the trade? The big winner is the league, which suddenly finds its most glamorous player in its most glamour-starved market. If anyone can sell NHL hockey to the West Coast, it is Gretzky. Unfortunately, his presence in L.A. will do little to promote the sport nationally; the NHL, displaying an uncanny knack for shooting itself in the foot, recently rejected ESPN's bid to carry its games on cable in favor of SportsChannel, a regional cable company that will not penetrate markets where the league is traditionally weak.

As for the Oilers, their future is now secure. Those stockpiled draft choices ensure that they will be competitive into the next century. But being competitive is not the same as winning a Stanley Cup.

Conventional wisdom holds that the team that gets the best player gets the best of the trade. In this case that would be the Kings. A player like Gretzky brings the best out of everyone around him, so that the Kings may end up with 18 new players instead of three. Los Angeles still desperately needs help with goaltending and defense—Gretzky won't help them there—but McNall may not be through dealing. "We're still one or two players away," says Gretzky, a bit optimistically, "But if they hadn't made this deal I can guarantee you one thing: The Kings would have finished third or fourth and then been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs."

Very few in L.A. would have noticed. Now the entire country is watching, and a lot of folks are wishing them luck.