by HockeyGuy » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:53 am
Great hockey stories...
Brian Burke on his firing as Vancouver Canucks GM:
“I called my wife and told her I was headed to work to get canned. She said, ‘What will you do after that?’ I said, ‘Head to the liquor store.’ Why? ‘For the wake.’ . . . A wonderful hockey tradition — when you get turfed, your staff shows up at your house and sends you off in style. Dave Nonis, Steve Tambellini, Marc Crawford and all the coaches, front-office people and scouts in town — they all showed up at my house, and stayed into the wee hours. It was a fun night to end a sad day.”
Pat Quinn on salary disclosure: “I can remember when Tim Horton and I were roommates. We were in Boston and (Mike) Pelyk and (Pierre) Pilote were in the room next to us. It was an old hotel. . . . We could hear them talking . . . and (Pelyk) was inquiring to Pilote about what kind of money he was making. I could hear, and Pilote said, ‘Fifty thousand dollars.’ As soon as that happened, Horton was up out of bed, put his pants on — didn’t even bother with a shirt — went out looking for (Leafs GM) Punch (Imlach), was pounding on Punch’s door, going to beat it down because Punch had told him he was the top-paid guy on the team, and he was the best defenceman in the game at the time. . . . I think they were paying him $29,500 or something like that, so Horton was just livid, and that was the end of Punch and Tim.”
Glen Sather on the elements of success: “Circumstances have a lot to do with dictating what happens (for a GM). If we hadn’t got Gretzky out of the WHA when we did, you wouldn’t be wasting your day sitting here bulls----ing with me. How do you really know . . . whether a guy is qualified to be a GM in this league for a number of years, or why did he lose his job after two years? It is a lot deeper question than people have answers for.”
Bryan Murray on culture change: “Back in (the 1980s), the GMs had more fun. . . . They went for beers more often. They sat around the night before a GM meeting and had dinner together. . . . It seems today — and I’m talking like an old guy now — that we have people coming in at the last minute. We go to the meeting, and before the meeting is over, (GMs) have got their luggage and they’re heading out the door because they have an early flight to get out of there.”
Burke, on a 1993 GM meeting: “(Bob) Gainey (then the Minnesota GM) started giving it to Serge (Savard, then the GM of the Canadiens). . . . I remember Gary Bettman saying, ‘It looks like they’re going to fight. What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘We’re going to watch.’ I was actually looking forward to it. . . . (Gainey) felt Savard had overpaid one of his own players and (screwed) up the salary structure. To this day, I’m amazed they didn’t fight.”
Former Red Wings GM Jim Devellano on Keenan: “He’s a bad man, he downgrades people, he treats people like sh--. And that’s why he’s coached eight f---ing teams and managed four. Plain and f---ing simple. . . . He’s a jerk, Mike Keenan.”
Burke, on being a GM: “Is there a more important job on the team than the guy who puts the team together?”