I've seen 48 Stanley Cups in my life. I was about six or seven when I started going to games with my dad.
By 1946, I knew Detroit was the best hockey city in the Original Six.
There was a time there in the mid '80s to the '90s there that we played six finals, three Canada Cups, we were playing hockey almost 10 months a year for a long time there.
That's something USA Hockey has been trying to do for a long time is prove that we can play with the Canadians and the Russians and the Swedes and Finns consistently on a tournament basis.
I think the NHL has done a great job of building the sport as far as getting the people's attention and letting them know what's going on in hockey - especially when the powers meet each other.
I have a huge interest in hockey because I grew up in Canada, where it's kind of the law that you love hockey.
My goal was to play in the NHL, because that is the best hockey in the world.
I know hockey is growing in the U.S., and it's becoming more popular, but anything to get the game out there and see how we view it. We view it as the best game in the world.
Hockey is the dream of all Swedes. They get the girls.
I grew up in a city just outside of Edmonton, St. Albert. So I watched NHL games with my grandpa. I watched a lot of games, back then it was called the Smythe Division, and it was just Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg.
When I was a kid, I remember playing hockey outside and whenever you did, you thought about playing for Finland vs. Sweden. That's just the way it was.
It's only 60,000. It's not a big town. It's a big hockey town. Everybody plays hockey when you grow up.
As a hockey player, playing for an Original Six team at Madison Square Garden, where it's packed every night, there's nothing like it.
I watched Gretzky, I watched Lemieux. Maybe it's the time when you're playing, but for a kid coming into the league, you play the Boston Bruins and you just watched Bobby Orr.
L.A. will never be a hockey town. I'm a huge hockey fan, and people out here do not appreciate hockey as much as they should. I've always been into it. I'm Canadian; that's my sport for sure.
I've never seen anything like it since. Some of the Canada Cups came close, but by then a lot of European players came and played in our league so we were more familiar with them.
For me, my hockey career is all about the Devils.
The Montreal Canadiens have been a big part of my family.
I don't know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium. I know these people. I grew up there. You have no idea what they're capable of doing. If Sidney Crosby hadn't scored that goal to win the Olympic gold medal, there's no telling what might have ensued.
When you win in Montreal, it's the best place in the world to play hockey.
I haven't been back in Montreal, at all, since the playoffs ended two years ago. It's been a while.
Anybody who says they don't like fighting in the NHL have to be out of their minds.
Stanley Cup hockey comes around every year, when games start to count in multiples of best-of-seven series, and the players seem to put more attention into every pass, every check, every annoying little trick.
It's true that in Canada, we pride ourselves on the game, and we like to think we're the dominant hockey nation in the world.
I am so fascinated and taken by the Golden Knights.
