After decades of the Cold War, the overall smugness of Putin, and most recently the invasion of Georgia, it was about time that somebody had the guts to stare into the great red eyes of Mother Russia and tell them that they don’t scare him! But who would have thought that man would be Wayne Gretzky?

 (”This is how little you scare me, Russia!”)

During a speech at the Economic Club in Canada yesterday, Gretzky addressed a number of issues, one of which was why he doesn’t believe the KHL, Russia’s new start-up hockey league, will threaten the existence of the NHL.

And evidently, Gretzky has some experience when it comes to second-tier hockey leagues.

From TSN:

The Great One told the crowd he was offered an opportunity to go to Europe after retiring from the New York Rangers in 1999 but didn’t see any point in playing in a second-tier league. He believes many of today’s stars will have the same reaction if they’re approached by a KHL team.

“The bottom line is there’s only one National Hockey League,” said Gretzky. “When I retired I got an offer to go play in Switzerland and it was a crazy amount of money. I remember thinking, `You know what, it’s all fun and that’s great but there’s only one National Hockey League.’

“And if you can’t play with the best and against the best it’s just not the same.”

Hear that, Russians? You think you can just buy your way into hockey prominence? Well, we have two words for you: Vince McMahon. If he couldn’t do it, NO ONE can. So why don’t you take your cute little hockey league, make like a tree, and get out of here!

You tell ‘em, Wayne!