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'm really excited about the team we've put together in the last 12 months, ... We've added speed, skill and character, and I really believe we're going to be a good team.
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 felt like the last three days I've defended myself over something that absolutely and unequivocally never happened, that I was not involved with. The three days have been horrible and I'm too tired, mentally and physically to talk any more about it. There's nothing for me to talk about.
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.
Over the last couple of months, I've really been leaning toward stepping in and taking on this responsibility, ... I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited to be back in the locker room and back on the ice. I'm sort of back on the hot seat. And I'm looking forward to it. I don't have to sit up top anymore. I can be on the ice. That's the part I'm looking forward to.
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.
The last uniform was unique. And it was so different from any other team in the National Hockey League. But this one is very much of a classic look. We wanted to make it something kids would want to wear and minor hockey league teams across North America would want to wear.
I'm thrilled to be sort of back in the hot seat.
I'm thrilled to be back in the hot seat, ... This is what I love, what I know, and I felt I was the best person to coach this team. We finally feel like we've got a pretty good hockey club, and I wanted to be part of it, simple as that.
In a lot of ways he reminds me of ( Mark ) Messier . He's solid. He's hard. He just wants to win.
I like how hard this team played (on the trip) and how unselfish it was. . . . We're playing as a group and that's most important. The outcomes have been better because we're playing better as a group.
I'm just too tired mentally and physically to talk any more about it. There's nothing more for me to talk about. And if you have questions for people involved, contact them.
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.
It's not going to be easy every day, but I'm going to work hard, and our players are going to work hard, ... I look forward to this as a new chapter in my life, and I can't wait to get started.