Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Douglas Gretzky CCis a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey Leaguefor four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed "The Great One", he has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters, players, and the NHL itself. He is the leading scorer in NHL history, with more goals and more assists than any other player. He scored more assists than any other player scored total points,...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth26 January 1961
CityBrantford, Canada
CountryCanada
It's been a hard week for my family and the only focus I have right now is this hockey team.
They played like a team that was desperate to win and we played like a team that was standing around. Not battling and taking penalties. You win and lose as a group. No question tonight it's a total team effort as far as the loss went. We had no battle and had no fight.
It's not my call. You have to ask those guys. I'm retired. You're asking the wrong guy. I would tell you honestly I couldn't play with a visor. But that doesn't mean I have all the answers.
It's not the ideal situation, but when you have a daughter who is 17 and doesn't want to move away from high school, that's life, ... The way we're looking at this is, this is a great opportunity and we're having fun.
It's the easiest thing in the game of hockey, and I was a player, that you always turn back and try to blame the goaltender. There's no excuse there. Curtis will be fine. It's not Curtis' fault that we got beat 8-4.
It's always a tough situation when a great player has to retire. He's meant so much to not only the National Hockey League, but the city of Pittsburgh and that franchise. You don't replace players like Mario Lemieux. He's a great hockey player and a good person. The game will miss him.
It's nice to see that line going. It takes a lot of pressure off the whole team when you have a line that can be that strong.
We know what we have with Boucher, and we know Curtis is a tremendous goalie and got a year off to get healthy, ... We expect it to be a competitive battle between both of them. . . . I'd like to see one of them jump up and grab that starting position.
We've got an uphill battle, but nobody's going to quit.
When your leading goal scorer and your best player has 15 goals, you've got to play airtight. When we play airtight, we're a tough team to play against. When we believe that we can throw pucks in the middle, backhand passes, plays like that - and it's not one guy, it's a group effort - then we're in trouble.
We're going to get a lot of calls over the next four weeks. Obviously, we'll listen.
In our game, every now and then we get very lucky that we get a true superstar, great team leader and great person -- and he's that guy,
By no means am I Scotty Bowman, but I know the game, I love the game, I have a really good staff and we have a really good team. It's exciting. I haven't felt this way since I was 17.
But you know it's time to move forward. We will invite him to our training camp. He's an elite player and I expect him to have a great year and be part of Team Canada come February in Italy.