A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
— Wayne Gretzky
Reckoning Great Hockey quotations
Great moments are born from great opportunities.
Every day is a great day for hockey.
This is your time. Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it!
High sticking, tripping, slashing, spearing, charging, hooking, fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct, interference, roughing......everything else is just figure skating.
When I look at the net I don't see a goalie.
We get nose jobs all the time in the NHL, and we don't even have to go to the hospital.
Half the game is mental, the other half is being mental.
It takes brains. It's not like a forward, where you can get away with scoring and not play defense. On defense you have to be thinking.
Hockey is the only job I know where you get paid to have a nap on the day of the game.
Hockey players wear numbers because you can't always identify the body with dental records.
You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone.
My recruiting key - I looked for PEOPLE first, athletes second.
I wanted people with a sound value system as you cannot buy values. You're only as good as your values. I learned early on that you do not put greatness into people...but somehow try to pull it out.
Hockey s a funny game. You have to prove yourself every shift, every game. It's not up to anybody else. You have to take pride in yourself.
My teeth weren't that good to begin with, so hopefully I can get some better ones.
Hockey is the only place where a guy can go nowadays and watch two white guys fight.
After the hockey stick, Sardara Singh scores with the broom! A great effort by him towards a Swachh Bharat.
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.
The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem.
One of the great rules of hockey is: On the Stanley Cup, all germs are healthy.
Hockey is a fast, body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet.
Cycling isn’t a game, it's a sport.
Tough, hard and unpitying, and it requires great sacrifices. One plays football, or tennis, or hockey. One doesn’t play at cycling.
We all know that the great memories of our childhood are the little triumphs - it doesn't really matter whether that was in writing, art, on the hockey field or on the football field. It's something that makes you feel - 'I can do this stuff'.
Yeah, I'm cocky and I am arrogant. But that doesn't mean I'm not a nice person.
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.
Playing goal is like being shot at.
Hockey would be a great game... if played in the mud.
Whether the guys are nervous or just had mental breakdowns, it happens.
The game is a game of mistakes. And how you deal with them and correct them and all the things like that is what makes this game great and makes hockey the sport it is.
Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept.
Street hockey is great for kids. It's energetic, competitive, and skilful. And best of all, it keeps them off the street.
If you've only got one day to live, come see the Toronto Maple Leafs. It'll seem like forever.
Its a great day for hockey
Canadians send us great hockey players.
You also send us wonderful performers, from the beginning, with Mary Pickford.
I think we've been through a lot this season and it will be nice to move on.
It's one step at a time though. The focus of our hockey club was great. We really stuck to our game plan and didn't get too high or too low and we definitely didn't get over excited.
When you take off that sweater, your jersey, after today's game, you will be the last player in the NHL to ever wear 99. You have always been and you will always be 'The Great One,' and there will never be another.