One of the key qualities that you need to be a great hockey player is fantastic anticipation and feel for the game – if you know where the puck is going before it is hit, that is half the battle.
WAYNE GRETZKYI 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.
More Wayne Gretzky Quotes
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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.
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Eight days ago, we were the toast of the town. Eight days later we’re Thanksgiving turkeys.
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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.
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Lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time. There’s nothing like it. It’s the greatest story. In my era, they used to say you couldn’t be a superstar without winning one. I remember thinking when I lifted it: “Now they can’t say that about me.”
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When I played in a 21-team league, there were six or seven goalies who were just average, and the equipment and pads were smaller. I came in the right era. I played for the right team. It was all speed, and creativity and imagination.
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Not doing it is certainly the best way to not getting it.
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No matter who you are, we’re creatures of habit. The better your habits are, the better they will be in pressure situations.
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The biggest difference between L.A. and Edmonton was that instead of people looking at me I was looking at them.
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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.
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When people come up to me and say, “I was at your Game 7 in the playoffs in Toronto,” or, “I saw your first goal in the NHL,” that triggers memories. But I don’t sit around my kitchen table and tell my kids, “You know, one year I got 92 goals.”
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Skating alone is an art. Doing it on a substance? I don’t know. That’s got to be tough.
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It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what other people think. You have to get on the ice and participate and play and the best team wins.
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Kids don’t fight in minor hockey anymore. There’s very few fights in junior and college hockey. So growing up, all these guys are not fighting.
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Nothing can replace the Olympics. I love the Olympics. I was so proud when I played in ’98 and I was so proud when we won in 2002.
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I really wanted to write a book [99: Stories of the Game] on the tradition and history of the league, where kids can pick it up and read it and learn things and say, “Geez, I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool.”
WAYNE GRETZKY