NHL Should Leave No Pucks Unturned In Tocchet Investigation

Rick Tocchet is not the NHL, first off. He is not wearing an Armani suit and sitting in the ivory towers of the league office in Manhattan. He is not the one who formulates league policy, who hands the Stanley Cup to the captain of the winning team, or who drops pucks at ceremonial face-offs.

Tocchet is the Phoenix Coyotes' assistant coach who this morning sits implicated in a widespread, multi-million dollar sports gambling ring -- accused of being its main financier -- but who is also only one potentially crooked man in a league full of law abiding ones. But if these charges are true, if Rick Tocchet is the main cog in a ring that has ties to organized crime in the southern New Jersey/Philadelphia area, then NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who is all of the things mentioned in the first paragraph, has a nasty little public relations nightmare brewing -- in a best case scenario. At its worst, Tocchet is not the only NHL player or coach involved, and if that's the skinny, Bettman's wobbly league just might be toppled to its stump.


Tocchet (left), Gretzky and Jones: a gambling ring threesome?

Already there are charges of other NHL-related people being involved -- and it's not a small potatoes person. Janet Jones, wife of Hall of Famer and Coyotes head coach Wayne Gretzky, is among those mentioned as having placed sports bets through Tocchet's alleged ring. So far, there are no indications that any of the bets were placed on hockey games. But that news should be of little if no consolation to the NHL. These are illegal activities, whether the sport is hockey or football or tiddlywinks. And the league should move swiftly to determine whether Rick Tocchet -- who played 18 seasons in the NHL -- is merely a sore thumb, or one of many dirty fingers within its sport.

It's a metaphorical paradox, but dirty fingers launder money. Tocchet, according to the legal complaint, "received illegal sports bets from wagers and funneled money back to New Jersey." These were the words of New Jersey State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes. The bets were allegedly mostly placed on basketball and football games. The official charges against the 41 year-old Tocchet are promoting gambling, money laundering and conspiracy. For these one must serve much more than two minutes in a penalty box.

What should concern Bettman and his lieutenants in the league office even more than Tocchet's alleged involvement, however, is the implication of Gretzky's wife Janet Jones. The potential involvement of Jones would be a fog of smoke that very possibly could lead investigators to a fire within the league and its affiliates. Gary Bettman couldn't, in his worst nightmares, have thought of anyone he'd least like to see even remotely a part of this muck than Wayne Gretzky. And Gretzky's initial volley of personal denial has an element of separation from his wife that is untowardly at best and desperately self-serving at its worst.

"First of all, my wife is my best friend," Gretzky said. "My love for her is deeper than anything. The reality is, I'm not involved, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to be involved. Am I concerned for both of them? Sure there's concern from me. I'm more worried about them than me. ... I'm trying to figure it all out."

Gary Bettman better hope that Gretzky's words -- "I'm not involved, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to be involved" -- are truer than true. Trouble is, The Great One is already involved, whether he chooses to admit it or not. You don't, as the wife of Wayne Gretzky, become implicated in this sort of thing without involving your husband. Even if Janet Jones is guilty of wrongdoing because she participated in Tocchet's alleged ring without her husband's knowledge -- which is conceivably possible -- it nonetheless has stained Gretzky's name. It stains it because already, I am certain, there are people who will forever wonder if Wayne Gretzky himself had any involvement in a gambling ring that allegedly features his friend Tocchet as the financier and his wife Janet Jones as a participant. Worse, Gretzky's involvement will not only be wondered about, it will be assumed as being true. And if that becomes the prevalent feeling, or if, heaven forbid, evidence materializes that supports that as fact, then the NHL will be almost mortally wounded.

It's highly unlikely that the league is taking this lightly. After all, Tocchet is scheduled to meet with Bettman forthwith to discuss the allegations. But the league has to do more than just confront Rick Tocchet. It needs to swing into action immediately, determined to find out how how deep into the NHL Tocchet's alleged activities penetrate, even if the league is afraid of what it will discover. Actually, especially if it is afraid.

And Gary Bettman and company should be very afraid.