Quotations

«We took a little bit of a risk, but we believe in the tremendous upside of this young man. Let's let him finish at least grade 12 and then we'll go from there.»

«To be honest with you we played a pretty solid game. We want to win every night but we've got 81 more games to go and if I get the effort like that tonight and we keep improving from where we were three weeks ago to now, we'll win our share of games. Believe me.»

«Early in the hockey game we had a couple of opportunities to go up 1-0 but Cloutier was really good in the first period.»

«I follow the Tour de France about as much as the average North American person. I only know of it because of the success that Lance Armstrong has had. Michael Jordan was the greatest athlete I ever saw. Tiger Woods is now at a point where he is going to go down in history as something special. There's not a question that Lance Armstrong belongs with those two guys. Not only because of what he has done as an athlete, but also what he has been able to come back from.»

«[Phoenix managing partner Wayne Gretzky is concerned that if the NHL and the players' association don't agree to a new collective bargaining agreement soon, the next season will be lost as well as this one.] 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.»

«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.»

«[Gretzky professed happiness with living in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and serving as the Coyotes' managing partner.] You know what? I love New York, ... But I love my family situation in the southwest for my kids.»

«Those 700 guys are in the NHL for a reason. To go get replacement players is not the right thing to do. But we're just one of 30 teams, and if the league says that's what it's going to do we can't not go along with it.»

«[From the ownership perspective, the Olympics has done little to spike interest in the NHL after the last two Games and, from a marketing perspective, has done little more than expose the NHL product as dull and inferior. With the Games in Europe, the impact will be even less than it was in Salt Lake in 2002 and the travel will be much harder.] The tough part now is that we're in a different situation than we were in 2002, ... We just missed one full season and I know there's probably some concerns from owners, probably more in the United States, in the sense of getting started again and trying to build that enthusiasm for the National Hockey League again and then having to shut it down for 17 days.»

«One, my love for hockey. I wanted to be in the game, simple as that. Two, I wanted to feel the energy and the excitement again of competing. Being in the locker room, being with the players, I'm excited about that part of it.»