Don Waddell
Don Waddell
Donald Douglas Waddellis the former, and last President of the Atlanta Thrashers and a former professional ice hockey defenseman. He is currently President of Gale Force Sports & Entertainment, parent company of the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League...
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The selection process was an extremely difficult one and that's a terrific statement for hockey in the United States. It means our talent pool in this country continues to grow.
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We are extremely pleased with our team and feel very confident that we've put a solid group together that will best put us in a position to compete for the gold medal. The selection process was an extremely difficult one and that's a terrific statement for hockey in the United States. It means our talent pool in this country continues to grow.
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When we call up players, we don't call them up just to sit on the bench. We expect them to contribute to our team's success right away. This season has been no exception. I'm extremely proud of the overall success the Gladiators have enjoyed and the quality players that Jeff and Steve have produced.
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We feel bad for Aaron that he's unable to be part of the team. At the same time we're extremely fortunate to be able to replace Aaron with someone the caliber of Bret Hedican.
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We're extremely excited to add a player of Bobby's caliber to our lineup. He's a hard-nosed player who has enjoyed a distinguished career that includes valuable Stanley Cup championship experience. He is a veteran who will play an important role in our success.
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Keith's knowledge of the U.S. program will be a tremendous asset to us. We're extremely pleased to have him as part of the staff.
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We're going to try to take the positive that we were in every game. We're out of the tournament but certainly it's not like it's something we have to blow up and start over, because every game we were right in there.
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We're very excited, you know, and Ilya is the final piece we had to get done. I've said all along, 'We're going to score some goals.' Watching some of what's happened with the guys we've brought in here and not knowing exactly how they would do, I think we're going to win a lot of hockey games this season.
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It was the right thing to do at this time. I'm not nervous about it because I'm around our team so much and I know our team very well. I've seen every game this year and I haven't missed anything, so I feel like short-term I'm best prepared to run the bench.
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Emotionally, you have to believe that it's going to be a lift for everybody. Regardless of what the contribution ends up being from Dany, I think it's going to be a lift just to have him back on the bench and see him on the ice. So whether he has an impact on the game or not is yet to be seen, but I think emotionally it's been a big lift for the team, the coaching staff and me personally.
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Probably our oldest guy in the tournament was one of our best players.
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We feel that Chris is not only a tremendous player, but also a terrific leader. For us to have success, Chris is going to have to be a big part of it.
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We have a lot of good, young players at USA Hockey and a lot of guys coming. We can take the positives out of this game and out of the whole tournament.
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We had a lot of players playing very well. We said all along that we were going to base this team on not so much what was the history of players ... but how guys were actually playing.