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
The success of Team Canada got me interested in teaching again which is something I really enjoy doing,
The tough part now is that we're in a different situation than we were in 2002. We just missed one full season and I know there's probably some concerns from owners, probably more in the United States, in the sense of getting started again and trying to build that enthusiasm for the National Hockey League again and then having to shut it down for 17 days.
Rick worked with him a little bit and showed him a couple of things. It was a nice deflection, nice goal, and that's the way you're going to beat a team like that. You're going to get kind of a weird goal, crash the net. Fancy plays aren't going to work against that team; they're too good.
It's not a question of shutting him (Thornton) down. It's a question of playing against him hard and our guys have played against him hard, and we played against him hard.
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.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.
The sad thing about this whole scenario is that Rick is a wonderful person and a great guy, so I hope everything works out in his favor. It's hard because I love the guy. He's a great guy, you know. I just hope it all works out for him.
Blake takes a nice shot, and I think that changed the momentum of the hockey game. We just couldn't find our way back into it.
Every game is a stepping stone to getting to the final game. We had a really good first period and all of a sudden the tide turned.
As I said seven days ago, it doesn't involve me. I'm not involved. I've said it for seven days, it's over and done with.
At the end of the day, everybody lost. We almost crippled our industry. It was very disappointing what happened.
This one kind of came out of nowhere. We've got a big battle on our hands coming up. I don't really have a lot of words on this one. He's got a great attitude right now.
There's going to be a lot of good unrestricted free-agent defensemen (available) this summer. We're in the game for those guys now. We have the opportunity to bring in some impact players.
There's no bubble for Stevie Y. If he's not playing great, and his knee is bothering him, he'd be the first guy to tell me.