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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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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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 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 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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Chris's name was the first name mentioned by everyone. That just speaks volumes for how he's respected in the game of hockey, and for what he's done not only in the National Hockey League, but for what he's done for USA Hockey over the years.
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It's very disappointing, because the people at USA Hockey do a tremendous job. There is a lot of pressure on people. The top people at USA Hockey are volunteers.
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Ultimately it won't be systems that win or lose the hockey games, it will be how hard those players play within the system.
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He has rehabbed very well so far and if it continues the way it's going we're anticipating maybe practicing in the next four to five weeks with the team. And then we're probably still two or three months away from him playing. But we're just moving along and we're handling the hockey side of it. So far to date, his rehab has gone very well.
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But I did think we would score more than we are now. We've gotten chances to score, and we haven't buried them. And you don't get as many scoring chances in this type of tournament as you get in the National Hockey League.
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If you're left off this team, it doesn't mean you're a bad hockey player. It just means we have other good choices.
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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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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.