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
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.
What records show are consistency, and that's what he's shown in his career. When a guy gets that many wins it's from a lot of effort and a lot of hard work and a lot of hours. I know the players tonight wanted him to get this at home.
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.
This team seems to be more talented. Whether we win or not though remains to be seen.
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.
We definitely need to win some people back. We hope we can reach out to people as best we can.
They played like a team that was desperate to win and we played like a team that was standing around. Not battling and taking penalties. You win and lose as a group. No question tonight it's a total team effort as far as the loss went. We had no battle and had no fight.
Let me tell you, if Luongo doesn't play the way he did in the Czech game, we don't win the World Cup. It's as simple as that. And we now know what a guy like him can do.
Lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time. There's nothing like it. It's the greatest story. In my era, they used to say you couldn't be a superstar without winning one. I remember thinking when I lifted it: "Now they can't say that about me."
The greatest thing about playing obviously is winning, and you can't replace that experience with anything.
I'm probably the only guy in hockey who can win a scoring title and everybody is saying I had a bad year. I don't worry about it.
It's easier to lose than to win.
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.