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
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 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.
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 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.
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'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.
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.
We finally feel like we have a pretty good hockey club here and I wanted to be a part of that, simple as that,
We have a lot of hurdles to overcome, but there's a definite light in the tunnel here. Are we satisfied with what's happened (this season)? Absolutely not. But more and more pieces of the puzzle are in place.
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.
You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
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.
Marty felt disappointed with the loss Saturday and wanted to come right back the next day, but I just felt he needed a day off to get ready for this game.
I won't let my son go on the ice without a helmet and a visor on.