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 all talk about how we've been in a transition period. ... We have a lot of good young players and a lot of guys coming in, and we can take the positives out of that.
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We did talk about Ryan Miller quite a bit. The other three guys are all starting goalies in the NHL right now.
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We probably didn't talk about Chris for the first two months and then on one of our (team evaluation) calls in early December, the name was brought up and everyone jumped on board with it. He played himself on this team.
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The oldest guy in the tournament was one of our better players. Unfortunately not everybody had the jump that he had. If we did, we'd probably be talking about something differently.
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I think sometimes experience can play in your favor also. Unfortunately, not everybody had the jump that he had. If they did, we'd probably be talking about something different now.
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Anytime you're talking about the knee and you have surgery, it's not good.
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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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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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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.