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
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're going to get a lot of calls over the next four weeks. Obviously, we'll listen.
We know what we have with Boucher, and we know Curtis is a tremendous goalie and got a year off to get healthy, ... We expect it to be a competitive battle between both of them. . . . I'd like to see one of them jump up and grab that starting position.
Yes, Sidney Crosby. He's the best player I've seen since Mario (Lemieux).
We've got an uphill battle, but nobody's going to quit.
I watched him and how much he enjoyed it. His success was probably a factor on my wanting to be a coach.
Hopefully, they can come up with a compromise that everyone's happy with because it would be great to see us keep playing hockey.
The game is played out of instinct, but everyone on the ice has habits - good and bad. So the key to the game is to exploit the bad habits of your opponent.
He just has to get off to the kind of start that he's capable of and it's as simple as that.
I don't know what the record is for scoring the fastest goal on your first shift, but that's got to be up there. That's a great way to start your NHL career.
If we're going to change the game it has to start at eight, nine and 10 years old. When we were that age we'd go to the pond or backyard rink and throw a puck on the ice and play five on five, or seven on seven. You get this creativity and this imagination that comes from within, just having fun on the pond. Now kids are so focused on team play, and the coaches are so focused on positioning. You can't change it at the NHL level.
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.
We've been working with our defensemen that when they get the puck, don't look to pass, but take it to the net and try to score.
We're here for a little bit of a tour for four or five days, just to get together and kind of talk about the season. The players everybody is talking about are all playing well, and decisions are very difficult. No matter what we do, there is going to be a controversy.