Am I the only one disturbed to see Janet Jones Gretzky playing in a made-for-TV golf tournament featuring high-stakes gamblers gambling their own money?

Jones Gretzky is the wife of Wayne Gretzky, the former LA Kings hockey great, now managing partner and coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.

The tournament aired Sunday, Oct. 28. Resorting to its usual sports schlock (cheerleading and strong man competitions) when programming against the NFL on other networks, ESPN presented the Doyle Brunson & Dewey Tomko Invitational golf tournament. It was clear from the start that this tournament was not about golf but about high-stakes gambling.

The hook: the players put up their own money.

Not surprisingly, many of the players were professional gamblers—Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, etc.—along with stock traders, self-made millionaires and just one woman: Janet Jones-Gretzky. They were assembled into nine teams of two; each team put up $250,000.

Jones-Gretzky was paired with actor Vince Van Patten.

Her appearance was odd because New Jersey officials in 2006 alleged that Jones-Gretzky was part of an illegal gambling ring run by former NHL player and—hello—former Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet. The pair vehemently denied the charge; she threatened the state with a $50 million defamation suit. In May, Tocchet pleaded guilty to charges of promoting gambling, conspiracy to promote gambling; he received two years’ probation.

Jones Gretzky was never charged, and she never filed for defamation.

There’s nothing illegal about Sunday’s tournament, and it was actually good television—people playing with their own cash. But anyone involved in professional sports, or married to someone involved in professional sports, is thought vulnerable in such matters.

Here’s a scenario: player, coach or spouse thereof gets involved with gamblers, becomes indebted to those gamblers and is pressured to manipulate the outcome of a game to the advantage of the gambler.

If you think this is something out of the past, you haven’t been paying attention. In just the past few months, we’ve learned of one NBA ref who was allegedly fixing games. We discovered that multiple professional tennis players say they were asked to throw games.

So it happens. And few people are able to manipulate a game more than a coach who decides who plays and who doesn’t. Remember, Pete Rose’s gambling woes occurred while he was a baseball manager.

All of which makes Jones Gretzky’s appearance on this gambling show all the more bizarre.

Apparently even her husband thought so. In a story on Pokernews.com, Jones Gretzky was asked what her husband thought when she told him she was going to play in a high stakes golf match. The story said that Jones Gretzky smiled and said, “You’re going to do what?”
The same release claimed Gretzky later told his wife, “Go for it.”
Really?

More to come …

Tags: , ESPN, gambling, hockey, Jones-Gretzky, LA Kings, NHL, Pete Rose, Phoenix Coyotes, Rick Tocchet, sports betting, Wayne Gretzky