Certain Stanley Cup traditions remain intact, including the handshake line between players who had been belting one another for a couple of weeks.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Every spring, this happens: People discover hockey when daylight lasts longer and men grow beards and tie games do not end in shootouts but rather continue until a goal is scored. The seventh game only heightens the mood for players and fans alike.
A lot of the players are not involved with any NHL team, so to play and travel around with the Oldtimers' it's a kind of gift that the players really appreciate.
Every day is a great day for hockey.
Hockey is a unique sport in the sense that you need each and every guy helping each other and pulling in the same direction to be successful.
We are all part of a tradition, at least we depend on the past.
In a hockey fight, barring the occasional brawl, there's actually some etiquette that goes into it. Honor, too, absolutely. Most of those guys that do it, that's their job, and they follow a certain code of conduct in doing it.
We had built up a team in Edmonton that really knew who each other was from a personal standpoint and from a professional standpoint. Our nucleus had stayed together for a long time.
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.
I've seen 48 Stanley Cups in my life. I was about six or seven when I started going to games with my dad.
For good reasons, there are no ties during the Stanley Cup season. Somebody needs to win so the lads can get out to their cottages on the lakes, where all hockey players spend their summers, or so I have been told.