Wayne Gretzky

TURIN, Italy If Wayne Gretzky travels to the Winter Olympic Games this weekend as he has stated he will, then once again hockeys greatest player will be a star. And it wont be because of what he did on the ice.

Gretzky, the executive director of Hockey Canada, is being investigated by New Jersey law enforcement officials after his voice was heard on wiretaps talking about a sports gambling operation allegedly run by his assistant, former Flyer Rick Tocchet.

Gretzky has already stated hes innocent and that he had no knowledge of Tocchets involvement until this week.

And he said that hes going to Turin.

Im still going to coach the Phoenix Coyotes, Gretzky said in a statement late Thursday. Ive done nothing wrong. Im going to Italy on Sunday. Im going to be with Team Canada.

Bob Nicholson, the president of Hockey Canada, met with reporters Friday in Turin and said he was not concerned the media attention might turn on Gretzky and stay with him for a while. Team Canada is the defending Olympic champion in hockey.

U.S. skaters go forth,

er, fourth

U.S. pair champions Rena Inoue and John Baldwin Jr. of Santa Monica, Calif., will skate fourth, and compatriots Marcy Hinzmann and Aaron Parchem of Detroit will skate 10th when the pairs perform their short programs today. The starting order is determined by a blind draw.

Turin a target for protesters

TURIN, Italy Though mostly genial and nonviolent, activists have dismayed the Olympic establishment by turning the Turin Winter Games more so than any of its predecessors into an all-purpose target for protests.

Fast food, smog, U.S. foreign policy, the Olympics sponsorship by multinational corporations all have been denounced by protesters using the games as a stage to vent their gripes.