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
I'll be honest with you, when I was 22, 23, 24, I never thought I'd be a coach in the NHL. But I'm excited about the challenge . . . . The last couple of weeks I've been following my son's baseball team around and I kind of got the itch to coach, as silly as that sounds.
I can't remember the last time I went to a game and there was a fight. I think they fight more in baseball now than they do in hockey.
I knew at a young age, whether I was playing baseball or hockey or lacrosse, that my teammates were counting on me, whether it be to strike the last batter out in a baseball game or score a big goal in a hockey game.
I played everything. I played lacrosse, baseball, hockey, soccer, track and field. I was a big believer that you played hockey in the winter and when the season was over you hung up your skates and you played something else.
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.
The success of Team Canada got me interested in teaching again which is something I really enjoy doing,
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.