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
He just has to get off to the kind of start that he's capable of and it's as simple as that.
We have a lot of hurdles to overcome, but there's a definite light in the tunnel here. Are we satisfied with what's happened (this season)? Absolutely not. But more and more pieces of the puzzle are in place.
You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
We need toughness. We're not tough enough. It is a simple fact.
We know that this country wants gold and nothing else is good enough. That's the expectation for Canada when it comes to hockey and we know that. We aren't kidding ourselves. We know we have to win the gold. We don't have anything else on our minds.
We've talked about this for it seems like months. When the team plays disciplined, plays smart and plays the way that they need to play to be successful, we have some success.
I will say it one more time, I said it the other night, I didn't bet, it didn't happen, it's not going to happen, it hasn't happened, it's not something that I've done.
We played hard tonight. Curtis made some big saves. We played well and deserved to win. But, the Kings did play last night. That's just scheduling. We were more rested than the home team.
We finally feel like we have a pretty good hockey club here and I wanted to be a part of that, simple as that,
I don't want to get in a situation where he is 90 percent and gets re-injured and is out for another week. . . . We won't take that risk.
He's meant so much not only to the National Hockey League but to that franchise and the city of Pittsburgh.
You can't give the puck away in your own zone against a team that's that good. They just have so much explosive power it makes it difficult to come back.
If I bet on sports ? I would never embarrass Team Canada or the country or hockey ? I would phone (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman and Bob Nicholson right now and say you know what, I resign, it's over, even if I made a $1 bet.
I don't think that we as a group worked as strong early in the game as they did, and that was the difference. If you look at a team like Los Angeles, they are successful because they are pulling together in the same boat. Everybody is going in the same direction, everybody knows their responsibility and does their job.