What you want to do with your best players is, it doesn’t matter how many goals and assists they get, but when they get goals and assists. The best players get them at the most important times, and that’s when we need those guys to come through.
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.
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.
I don’t like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don’t like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it’s essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.
When I broke into professional hockey at 17 I was told that I was too small and too slow and I wouldn’t make the NHL. Now it’s kind of flip-flopped and the sense is I can’t be a good coach because I was a great athlete.
I think sports for kids is the greatest thing in the world because it teaches you how to share, about winning and losing and pressure. But I don’t think you should force your kid to become a professional athlete.
Thankfully, in my youth I had the best financial advisor a son could ask for: my dad Walter. When I got that first signing bonus in 1978, Dad took my cheque, announced, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and bought an annuity with it.
