Wayne Gretzky was unceremoniously dumped as head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes after nearly a decade of trying to make the desert as hockey crazy as he made Los Angeles in the 1990s. He officially stepped down in September and has spent the last couple of months as nothing more than a spectator.

“An NHL without Wayne Gretzky in it is like Christmas without Santa or The Doors without Jim Morrison,” writes George Johnson of CanWest News Service in an insightful piece about how wrong it is that the the game that owes “The Great One” so much can be just another fan.

Johnson talked with Gretzky at a hockey camp for teenagers in Calgary and the best player to ever lace up skates said he’s in no hurry to return to hockey, despite the fact that he misses some aspects of it.

The full story is well worth a read, and you can find it here.