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
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 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.
The only way a kid is going to practice is if it's total fun for him... and it was for me.
I get a feeling about where a teammate is going to be. A lot of times, I can turn and pass without even looking.
Ninety percent of hockey is mental and the other half is physical.
You look at what he did at the World Cup and what he did in the Stanley Cup final and all the way through the playoffs for Tampa Bay. He goes to another level. We love guys like that on our team.
We are disappointed that Eddie can't participate for Team Canada at the World Cup. But we are thrilled that Jose is a part of our team.
We don't have the depth or the skill level of Detroit so our work ethic has to be as high as theirs. Obviously, the first part of the game it wasn't . . . .Quite frankly it looked like we were enjoying the fruits of Thursday night's victory (over Dallas) too much.
When you're playing, there's nothing like it, ... You know you can go out there and affect the outcome of the game each and every night. Now the effect I can have on the game is very different, but the passion I have to help this team win is still the same I had as a player.
We definitely need to win some people back. We hope we can reach out to people as best we can.
We worked hard and took a lot of pride in that for the first 35 games, and we were killing big penalties at crucial times. It's been non-existent these last three losses.
We didn't have a very good first period to say the least. Then Johnson's goal was a big goal. That was a big sort of turning point for us in the hockey game to be able to come in after the first period only down 2-1.
We've been working with our defensemen that when they get the puck, don't look to pass, but take it to the net and try to score.