Wayne Gretzky Quotes (87 Quotes)


    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.

    It looked like he cheated a little to his glove side, which left his stick side a little bit open. We talked about it a little bit on the bench. Usually we don't talk about it but this time we did.


    It's not the ideal situation, but when you have a daughter who is 17 and doesn't want to move away from high school, that's life, ... The way we're looking at this is, this is a great opportunity and we're having fun.

    Gretzky, the league's all-time leading scorer, downplayed the role he can play in getting hockey back on its feet. We all have a responsibility to the game, ... Everything I have in my life is because of the NHL. Yet I'm a small part of going forward with this game. No one individual is bigger or better than our sport.


    You look at what he did at the World Cup and what he did in the Stanley Cup final and all the way through the playoffs for Tampa Bay. He goes to another level. We love guys like that on our team.

    I wasn't naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that's the way I'll be as a coach.

    I remember walking by the dressing room before the gold medal game and the trainer said to me If it was a Game 7 in the playoffs, I probably wouldn't let him play he has such a bad knee,'

    You can't give the puck away in your own zone against a team that's that good. They just have so much explosive power it makes it difficult to come back.

    There's going to be a lot of good unrestricted free-agent defensemen (available) this summer. We're in the game for those guys now. We have the opportunity to bring in some impact players.

    Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.

    Ballard's hit tonight was a tremendous hit. I haven't seen that in hockey in 30 years, a hip check like that. We've got to keep believing what we're trying to accomplish here and stay within ourselves, not get too emotionally excited and not get too down, simple as that.

    We've got a long way to go, let's be honest. We know we've got an uphill battle, but nobody's going to quit.

    It's kind of ironic when I broke in at 17, I was told I was too small, too slow and I wouldn't make the NHL,

    You'll always miss 100 of the shots you don't take.

    The 2002 (Olympic) team was a great team, we won the gold medal, they deserved all the accolades that they got. But this team seems to have a little more depth and maybe a little more talent to pick from. So it makes the job of picking the right 23 guys even more difficult.

    At the end of the day, everybody lost. We almost crippled our industry. It was very disappointing what happened.

    There's no perfect coach in the world. Coaches are human, too. Mistakes are made. But, fundamentally, if you're sound, you eliminate as many mistakes as possible.

    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.

    Todd feels worse about what happened than anybody, ... He has been punished and served his time.

    I'm happy for Todd, ... He worked his rear-end off he was at every meeting and invested his own money and his own time. I hope this does great, because he's put a lot of time and energy into it. My son has seen this movie 21 times.

    I'm not going anywhere. I'm still going to coach the Phoenix Coyotes. I've done nothing wrong.

    If I bet on sports I would never embarrass Team Canada or the country or hockey I would phone (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman and Bob Nicholson right now and say you know what, I resign, it's over, even if I made a 1 bet.

    The commissioner, Gary Bettman , promises a season starting in October. If that means replacement players, I don't like it. The real players, I think, won't cross the line. You know hockey guys, how proud they are, how united. But in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, they'll fill the buildings, even for replacements. Fans are mad. They want hockey. Other cities, I'm not sure.

    She was a person who stayed back and didn't really enjoy the limelight. But in our house, she was the limelight.

    It's always a tough situation when a great player has to retire. He's meant so much to not only the National Hockey League, but the city of Pittsburgh and that franchise. You don't replace players like Mario Lemieux. He's a great hockey player and a good person. The game will miss him.

    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 don't have the depth or the skill level of Detroit so our work ethic has to be as high as theirs. Obviously, the first part of the game it wasn't . . . .Quite frankly it looked like we were enjoying the fruits of Thursday night's victory (over Dallas) too much.

    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'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.

    The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.

    It's a big game, it's on Hockey Night in Canada and he's been outstanding all year.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

    It's not my call. You have to ask those guys. I'm retired. You're asking the wrong guy. I would tell you honestly I couldn't play with a visor. But that doesn't mean I have all the answers.

    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.

    If this is not decided in the next few days, I'm scared we could be looking at a year, a year and a half, two years, not just three months like a lot of people thought in September. From April to October, the players don't get paid, so I can't see us coming to an agreement in August or September. If we don't find a way to make everyone who is part of this sort of happy and get a deal done, we could be looking at a long, long time before hockey is played in the NHL and that's very alarming too. I hope in the next couple of weeks we can come to an agreement.

    We didn't get into it, other than she was concerned about Rick and she felt that it was a tough situation for him and that she would sit down at some point and answer questions that everybody has for her and be her own person.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    The success of Team Canada got me interested in teaching again which is something I really enjoy doing,

    We're in a tough situation because of teenage children, and then we have a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, so my family and my responsibilities is sort of a juggle.

    Listen, first of all, my wife is my best friend. My love for her is deeper than anything. The reality is, I'm not involved, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to be involved. Am I concerned for both of them Sure there's concern from me. I'm more worried about them than me. I'm like you guys, I'm trying to figure it all out.

    The ball is a little bit in his court. We want to keep him. Hes a consummate pro and a wonderful man.

    He works harder than any athlete I've ever been around as far as off-season conditioning goes. He's a maniac . . . I see him playing another three years no question. He could be our ( Julio ) Franco .

    You miss 100 percent of the shots you dont take.

    Hopefully, they can come up with a compromise that everyone's happy with because it would be great to see us keep playing hockey.

    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 sam

    I watched how fast he skated and how hard he shot that puck. I wish I had an extra No. 7 in a red jersey. I could have found a spot for him on my power play.

    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.


    More Wayne Gretzky Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Hockey - Time - Night - Cities - Home - Life - Goals - Love - World - People - Gold - Duty - Success - Games - Education - Man - Listening - Work & Career - Passion - View All Wayne Gretzky Quotations

    Related Authors


    Babe Ruth - Pele - Michael Jordan - Venus Williams - Teddy Sheringham - Michael Chang - John McEnroe - Greg Louganis - Eric Cantona - Boris Becker


Page 1 of 2 1 2

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections