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
This team seems to be more talented. Whether we win or not though remains to be seen.
What records show is consistency, and that's what he's been in his career. He's been a professional and been liked with every team he's been with.
There is so much parity in the game, there are so many teams that are stronger, and it is much tougher to get 400 wins now. There is such a fine line between winning and losing, so to accomplish something like that in this era is pretty special.
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.
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.
Our Achilles' heel has been killing penalties at home. They get a power play goal and it's a 2-1 hockey game. You get the number of points they have as a team by hard work, and we knew they weren't going to quit by any means.
I don't understand it. We played two tremendous games Thursday and Saturday. The success of this team is pretty simple. We're not a great goal-scoring machine, so if we think that we're going to play that way we're never going to be successful. The success this team has had is when it has played methodically well, sound defense and doesn't give any chances to the opposition.
The Rangers are the most loved/hated team in hockey. I know from playing there that anywhere they go, city to city, whether it's Miami or Dallas or Chicago or Phoenix, the Rangers have a tremendous following of New Yorkers.
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 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.
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.
The success of Team Canada got me interested in teaching again which is something I really enjoy doing,
But you know it's time to move forward. We will invite him to our training camp. He's an elite player and I expect him to have a great year and be part of Team Canada come February in Italy.
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.