The Peter Attia Drive - #82 - Mark Messier： Leadership, personal growth, and performing under pressure

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. The drive

00:00:10.880 is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along

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00:03:57.720 subscription. My guest this week is Mark Messier. Mark is considered one of the greatest hockey

00:04:02.080 players of all time. He had a career that spanned 25 years in the NHL, and he's played the second

00:04:08.580 most games of any player, second only to Gordie Howe. And there's an interesting story that we'll get

00:04:13.100 to in the podcast about how close he came to that record. He's also the second leading all-time

00:04:19.020 scorer of all time, or as he likes to put it, the first leading all-time scorer amongst mere mortals

00:04:24.320 with Wayne Gretzky being the only one who scored more than he did. It would take me too long to kind of

00:04:29.980 go through all of Mark's professional accolades, six-time Stanley Cup champion, the only person to

00:04:35.680 captain two different teams to win a Stanley Cup, the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Rangers, in

00:04:40.560 addition to all the number of all-star games he's played in and the number of MVPs that he's won,

00:04:46.540 etc. I wanted to talk with Mark about a number of things today. I wanted to obviously talk about

00:04:51.040 his career, and this is kind of a boyhood dream of mine to speak with one of my heroes who I've had the

00:04:56.840 privilege of getting to know over the past couple of years. But also I wanted to just talk about

00:05:00.740 Mark's philosophy in life and leadership and the amazing transition he has made and the ease with

00:05:06.720 which it seems he's been able to transition out of the limelight into his family life and his work

00:05:14.000 outside of hockey. We touch on many things here, but we do sort of go through it chronologically.

00:05:19.120 And I think if you're a hockey fan, this is a no-brainer for you. But I would encourage you,

00:05:23.120 even if you're not a hockey fan, to listen to this one. I think you're going to get a lot out of it.

00:05:26.720 I think I was really on the edge of my seat, honestly, during so many parts of this. And

00:05:30.700 even though a lot of the stories I knew, but I don't think I really appreciated growing up

00:05:36.180 watching Mark was the subtlety and the maturation process that came along with his leadership and

00:05:42.920 his growth as an individual. I almost forgot that he entered the NHL at the age of 17 or 18 years old,

00:05:49.140 which seems almost unimaginable today. I'll leave it at that. And without further delay,

00:05:53.940 please enjoy my conversation with Mark Messier.

00:05:59.760 Mark, thanks so much for coming into the city today.

00:06:02.100 Good to be here with you.

00:06:03.340 How often do you come into New York City these days?

00:06:05.860 Actually quite often, especially with the emerging Kingsbridge project up in the Bronx,

00:06:11.860 which set up an office down on 21st Street and was coming in for at least a couple of years,

00:06:16.840 at least four times a week. And then Ranger Games and other charitable initiatives and dinners and

00:06:24.100 meetings. New York is still friendly. I'm a regular on the on the subways and trains now.

00:06:30.040 Yeah, I was about to say, I mean, you know, you took the subway in today.

00:06:32.740 Do most days, does someone recognize you on the train?

00:06:34.740 Every day on the train coming in from Greenwich, then on the subways, obviously takes a lot of

00:06:40.120 selfies on the subway, but it doesn't get old. It's just an amazing, you know, almost 20 years

00:06:45.440 later, the passion that's still in the city and the people that were involved with the Rangers that

00:06:50.440 year, if not actually there during the regular season in the playoffs. And of course, the Stanley

00:06:55.720 Cup in 1994. So yeah, this is 25 years, which 20, 25 year. Yeah, it is hard to believe.

00:07:03.320 Actually, we're we had a reunion last year. We couldn't believe it's been actually 25 years.

00:07:09.320 Yeah, we were talking before we started this podcast about even just it seems like you didn't

00:07:14.060 retire 14 years ago or whatever it was 15 years ago. Like it seems I guess that's what happens when

00:07:19.600 we get older. Time goes seems to be going by quicker. Life does not stand still. That's for sure.

00:07:26.100 Especially when you have kids, you can see the growth, obviously, every year. And it's fun,

00:07:30.940 you know, every stage of the development of the kids has been amazing being a part of their lives

00:07:35.160 and being retired so I can be home for that has been incredible. So yeah, I've enjoyed the

00:07:40.940 retirement. But still, when you start actually reminiscing and talking about my career, it's

00:07:46.180 hard to believe I've been retired now almost 14 years. We'll talk a lot about your career. But I

00:07:51.180 mean, I think one little factoid that's always worth mentioning is the length of it, right? It's

00:07:55.460 that, I mean, you played in the NHL for 25 years, correct?

00:07:59.380 25 years in the NHL, 26 years as a professional started when I was 17. And the that's back when

00:08:05.960 they had the WHA, which was a secondary league. A lot of the NHLers, Wayne Gretzky, Craig

00:08:12.040 Hartsburg, they used to call that was, it was a big race to sign the underage players back

00:08:18.540 then, especially for the WHA who was competing with the NHL. So I was able to play as a 17 year

00:08:24.260 old for two teams. And I have the distinction of being the youngest player ever to fold a

00:08:28.180 professional franchise in hockey, Cincinnati or the Indianapolis Racers. I played five games and

00:08:33.540 they folded, went home back to Edmonton for a couple of weeks and then Cincinnati signed me

00:08:38.840 about two weeks later.

00:08:40.640 It's interesting to look back at, because that's, as you know, because we've talked about

00:08:44.240 this before, but I mean, the Oilers were my team growing up, even though I grew up in Toronto.

00:08:48.240 I mean, one, the Leafs were just such a bad team in the 80s that, you know, hard to be a Leafs fan,

00:08:52.980 but also Edmonton was just the most exciting team in hockey. So I remember those early 80s

00:08:59.300 years and those were, I think it's, unless you're in a real hockey diehard, I don't think most people

00:09:07.280 remember what the Oilers were like in the 80s. Like what it was like to have Gretzky, Messier,

00:09:13.380 Curry, Coffey, Lowe, Fuhrer, Anderson, like that all of those guys were on one team.

00:09:20.180 Yeah. Like free agency wouldn't permit that today, right?

00:09:24.160 It would be hard to keep the players for as long as we did. But just to put it in perspective,

00:09:29.280 I used to travel a lot in the summertime. I had the travel bug and went all over the world and

00:09:34.860 the Oilers literally and Wayne Gretzky put Edmonton on the map. There wasn't anywhere we

00:09:40.060 didn't travel that someone didn't know where Edmonton was because of the hockey team,

00:09:44.380 which was always kind of gave you a sense of pride just because of what we're able to accomplish,

00:09:49.380 but also what we're able to do in the, in the sporting world that was being recognized with

00:09:53.700 people all over the world. That was eyeopening for me coming from Edmonton and traveled a bit

00:09:59.600 with our family. But once I started really going abroad and that really hit at home that we were

00:10:04.520 doing something special and actually we had a really special team with some amazing players that

00:10:10.480 was being recognized around the world. So you grew up how close to Edmonton? I know you're

00:10:14.960 from Alberta, right? Yeah. So Edmonton, Alberta was, grew up right there. Were you in a suburb of

00:10:19.760 Edmonton or? Eventually, but when I first came back, my father was playing hockey in Portland, Oregon

00:10:25.020 for the Portland Buckaroos. I think we moved back in 1968. He came back and taught school.

00:10:31.560 I think I came back and was going to grade one or two or right around there. And then right about

00:10:39.100 when I was turning or getting into, ready to go to grade four, we moved out of Edmonton to St.

00:10:45.780 Albert, which was a small community at the time, just north of the city. Finished my schooling there

00:10:51.400 and played junior hockey till I actually signed as a 17 year old to go to the WHA.

00:10:56.780 So when did you start playing hockey?

00:10:59.080 Well, I think like everybody else, I started skating fairly early, but I think my first organized

00:11:04.560 hockey team was pretty much like everybody, like right at six years old. Actually started in

00:11:10.000 Portland. My father started the whole minor hockey league programs in Portland. They didn't have

00:11:16.520 kids hockey back then. He was responsible for really getting the whole minor hockey league system

00:11:22.600 up and running in Portland, Oregon. How did it fit into other sports and other activities you were

00:11:26.640 doing? Was it one of those things where, you know, everybody talks about Wayne's story where he's two

00:11:30.800 years old. Like basically you can't stop him from playing, right? It's like, he won't come in from

00:11:35.040 the rink. He's taking shots on his grandmother in the kitchen. Was it like that for you? Or were you,

00:11:39.880 was it just another sport that you played in addition to baseball?

00:11:42.860 No, I loved it. I loved hockey. You know, back when I played, it was, it was completely different.

00:11:47.080 You know, we played hockey in the wintertime. We had 120 hour program. We had two practices,

00:11:52.480 two games a week. We didn't travel to tournaments. Everything was right in Edmonton.

00:11:56.320 And when this winter or the spring came, we played, you know, baseball or soccer. So we played

00:12:04.040 multiple sports. And if you talk to Wayne and you, and you listen to what he talks about is,

00:12:09.080 is he was a great athlete in the other sports as well.

00:12:11.300 He played all sports. He played baseball. He's a great baseball player. He's a great lacrosse player.

00:12:15.520 And he played hockey in the wintertime. And that's the way it was. Now it's kind of

00:12:19.340 been more professionalized at an early age, which some would dispute is not the most healthy thing for

00:12:24.400 kids, but that's the way it is now. And yeah, what do you think of that? I mean,

00:12:27.940 my reading of the literature, so this is a very academic view of this, not as my kids aren't

00:12:33.360 in Southern California, hockey is not even on their radar, even though obviously lots of kids

00:12:37.260 in SoCal do play hockey, but it would seem that the approach that you took was a better approach

00:12:42.480 actually, which is a broader sampling of sports and developing a broader set of athletic abilities

00:12:48.520 before ultimately sort of narrowing your focus. I mean, that looks to be the better formula,

00:12:53.600 but it's not what's typically happening today, is it?

00:12:55.820 It's not. And I think because of it, it puts a lot of pressure on the parents, both on the time

00:13:02.380 issue for parents and the pressure puts on the rest of the family, but also on the financial by

00:13:09.620 having to travel consistently to different places to play tournament hockey and whatnot.

00:13:16.260 But until you get to the age of 14 is really the kind of the age where kids start separating

00:13:23.180 themselves into what they really want to do and they're more focused on what they want to do.

00:13:27.140 But up until then, I've always believed that it's great to try a lot of different sports and become

00:13:31.960 a better athlete total, a total better athlete in all regards. And I think the science would probably

00:13:37.820 prove that. And there's all kinds of examples of some hockey players that actually made it to the NHL

00:13:42.760 that didn't really start playing hockey till they were 14 or 15 years old, which debunks the myth of

00:13:48.180 that you have to be playing hockey 365 days from the time you're two years old to the time you get

00:13:53.000 drafted. It's just not the case. You've got to be blessed with a God-given talent in order to make

00:13:58.360 it. And then at the right time, you have to hone those skills and you have to have the desire and

00:14:02.360 the passion to put the work in. But there's a lot of kids that go through that whole process that

00:14:07.240 never do make it. So where's that fine line and that balance that's really healthy for the family

00:14:12.080 structure, healthy for the kid, and give him the best opportunity to fulfill his own dreams.

00:14:19.180 So what's the earliest memory you have of your dad playing? Because I got to believe that that

00:14:24.140 sort of at least planted a seed in your mind or...

00:14:27.440 No question. I remember I wasn't even in school yet and we were living in Portland, Oregon,

00:14:32.200 and my father would take me with him to his practices sometimes. I probably was maybe four,

00:14:39.180 three, four years old. And then we'd be able to go skate on the ice in Portland before his practice

00:14:46.100 started. So, you know, I have very early memories of him playing. I can honestly say I don't really

00:14:51.860 actually remember him being on the ice in a game vaguely. We got some old pictures and some old

00:14:57.260 videos that we watch once in a while. But no question him being a hockey player really cemented

00:15:03.060 the passion. And it's amazing how much you learn sitting around the kitchen table talking about

00:15:08.460 hockey when you have a parent that was so entrenched in the game itself, not only as a player, but as

00:15:14.120 a coach and as a mentor to a lot of young kids after his retirement.

00:15:18.640 When did it start to make sense to you that like this thing that you love doing or one of several

00:15:24.980 sports you like doing, you actually could do this as your job? I mean, how old were you when that

00:15:29.560 became... Yeah, you know, I always played up. My brother was four years older than me or three

00:15:34.340 years older than me, I guess. So when we moved back from Portland to Edmonton, Paul was basically a

00:15:40.780 peewee. I think he was 10 years old or somewhere in there. I was seven. So my dad was coaching and he

00:15:47.140 didn't want to go to two different practice times and two different rinks. So he just put me on the

00:15:51.980 team. And so I was always playing against older kids. The joke was I had a career as a peewee.

00:15:56.320 I think I played four years as a peewee. But I was never really that great growing up. I liked the

00:16:02.420 game. I always watched Hockey Night in Canada, did all the things that most kids do when they

00:16:07.400 love a sport. I guess, you know, I didn't have very much success as a Bantam. I think one of my

00:16:14.060 Bantam years or one of my midget years, we won one game the whole time, the whole year. So individually,

00:16:20.180 I wasn't really kind of standing out, maybe because I was playing against older kids.

00:16:24.520 But do you remember if you were still having fun? Oh yeah.

00:16:27.100 Do you remember how you felt about it? Oh, loved it. Oh yeah. Loved it. Loved it. Oh yeah.

00:16:31.500 Never a question about, my dad was really cool about practices and all that. He always knew if I

00:16:36.960 was just being lazy or if I really just needed not to go because of tired school or whatever.

00:16:43.400 So there's never any pressure in that regard to go to the rinks. But we would, besides our practices,

00:16:48.300 we'd go with our friends and play outside. And that's what we'd do on the weekends when we

00:16:52.720 weren't playing. I mean, that's how we spent our time at the outside rinks with our buddies and

00:16:56.540 sipping hot chocolate and playing shinny. I had a real passion for the game, but I had a passion

00:17:01.780 for all sports. I loved being outside, playing, throwing soccer, football, lacrosse. I tried them

00:17:08.060 all. Wasn't that great in any of them there, but certainly had the passion for hockey. And it was

00:17:12.700 probably looking back on it was my, probably my main sport.

00:17:16.620 So when you're what, 12, 13, 14, did anything start to change at that point in terms of your

00:17:21.140 competitive? Not too late. I was a late developer. I didn't really start growing at 15. I think I had

00:17:26.660 a little growth spurt. I shot up to like five, nine and 150 pounds. I actually made that next fall

00:17:34.020 after turning in 15 in January. The next fall I made the junior team, which at a 15 was pretty good.

00:17:41.420 By that time I was maybe growing a little bit more, but I was a late developer physically.

00:17:47.160 You know, I played four years of junior. When I finished junior, I was 6'1", a couple hundred

00:17:50.880 pounds. And that's when I left to go play pro. So when I was right around 14, I really started to

00:17:57.960 kind of, I used to practice with my dad's junior team. They're all 20 to, you know, 15 to 20 years

00:18:05.740 old when I was younger and trying to do all the drills and catching up. But I was, you know, I was

00:18:10.420 working hard, but I couldn't really generate any speed. And my dad was, come on, you got to skate,

00:18:15.380 skate, skate. And I was, in my own mind, I felt that I was skating, but all of a sudden I started

00:18:19.580 getting, growing and getting stronger. All of a sudden my stride getting, started getting longer,

00:18:24.060 started getting more speed and everything just started to fall into place once I turned 15 and

00:18:30.240 became a junior hockey player.

00:18:31.420 Now, were you weight training at the time? What kind of off-eye training were you guys doing?

00:18:34.720 Didn't start weight training until I was 15. You know, at that time, you know, the conventional

00:18:40.660 wisdom, you had to wait a certain time to your growth plates and all that. And I think it's

00:18:43.940 still true to today. We had an assistant coach after my first year of junior who befriended

00:18:51.080 one of the world's strongest men in the contest, huge guy. And he had brought home a program that

00:18:57.400 he did. And it was Monday, Wednesday, Friday, three hour sessions. And, uh, you know, we just

00:19:03.260 used to lift it. It's all changed now, but back then it was heavyweights and, uh, you know, we

00:19:08.340 couldn't even lift our arms up to wash our hair after in the shower. It was one of those real beefy,

00:19:13.240 big weight, heavyweight, uh, weightlifting programs. But it, that really, really, really cemented it for

00:19:19.420 me. I love to work out. I can see the changes happening there. So between getting the power on the

00:19:26.080 ice, so I could skate faster and handle myself. And it really all started to kind of come together

00:19:31.860 for me at that rate around that 15 years old age. So you're 17, you're in the WHA, which as you

00:19:37.980 pointed out a moment ago, I mean, the WHA was absorbed, at least four of the teams I think were

00:19:42.780 absorbed by the NHL when the WHA folded, but there were a lot of great players in the WHA. I mean,

00:19:48.380 many stars in the NHL came out of that league. What was it like back in the late seventies was the idea

00:19:53.860 that you play in the WHA and then eventually go to the NHL or was it a totally parallel path that

00:20:00.020 you pick one or the other? No, not really. It was just, there was a lot of underages being signed

00:20:04.640 by. Did the NHL have a cap on what you could sign at the time? No, there was no cap, nothing like

00:20:09.000 that at the NHL and the NHL wasn't too happy about losing these young, great players to the, like

00:20:14.980 Gretzky, to the WHA. So it was a little bit of tenuous relationship, obviously, between the two

00:20:20.480 leagues. The WHA folded, four of those teams went, I think it was Winnipeg, Quebec, Edmonton

00:20:26.560 and Hartford joined the NHL from, so went from a 16 team to a 21 team. And I think the city,

00:20:33.820 the team in Kansas or somebody became, I can't remember, I can't remember now. My trajectory

00:20:40.180 was, I was going to go follow my brother's footsteps to a college scholarship to Denver

00:20:46.640 University. So I had kind of a verbal commitment from Marshall Johnson at the time who was scouting

00:20:52.880 the Western teams in junior and that felt like a great, great idea. And so I stayed in junior

00:20:59.560 B, which gives you the ability to go play college hockey instead of the major junior

00:21:05.380 where you can't, it takes your eligibility away. So that was what I was planning on doing

00:21:10.620 and all of a sudden the opportunity came to go play in the WHA and I was kind of getting

00:21:14.720 bigger and stronger. And obviously looking back, I was, was never ready to go play pro

00:21:20.120 hockey as a 17 year old, but I can honestly say it was a great experience.

00:21:23.720 What did your folks say? What did your mom say about that specifically?

00:21:26.300 I don't think my mom was too happy about it. My dad was a little more, he kind of realized

00:21:32.280 that I was at the point of, it was my fourth year of junior hockey. I was kind of playing

00:21:38.260 pretty well at that particular time for that league. I couldn't go to college yet. I had

00:21:43.560 to finish the year. And so I was kind of stuck in this kind of place.

00:21:47.540 But was playing going to take that college eligibility away? I'm assuming a year in the

00:21:51.460 WHA.

00:21:51.960 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I became a pro. Yeah. No, I became, I was signed a contract. I became

00:21:55.560 a pro. That, that, that wiped out the college.

00:21:57.660 Yeah. Was that a hard decision to make for you personally?

00:22:01.200 I would have liked to have gone to college, but for me, it just seemed to be the right thing

00:22:05.280 for me at the time, uh, emotionally. And for what I was really trying to accomplish,

00:22:09.480 I wanted to be a pro hockey player at that time. I'd kind of thrown everything into the

00:22:13.140 ring. So, you know, and someone's going to sign you and give you some money to go play

00:22:16.820 hockey. It didn't seem like, it didn't seem like a bad idea.

00:22:21.160 I'm kind of amazed how small many of those contracts were at the time. I mean, Gretzky

00:22:24.640 had, I think a huge contract with the Indianapolis Racers that ultimately got bought by the

00:22:29.060 Oilers while there was the WHA.

00:22:30.260 Even his wasn't big, uh,

00:22:31.620 But relative to WHA, it was big.

00:22:33.480 Relative to the, well, you know, Bobby Hill signed for a million dollars back in the early

00:22:36.460 seventies, which was huge money for anybody back then. So they were given some money out

00:22:41.060 to try to get some recognition.

00:22:42.280 And wasn't Gordie Howe in the WHA at this point as well?

00:22:44.640 Well, Gordie Howe, I played against Gordie Howe in the WHA.

00:22:47.100 Because he was playing for the Wailers at the time, wasn't he?

00:22:49.060 He was playing for the Wailers, yeah. And they had a bunch of old Boston Bruins,

00:22:51.480 Davey Keon, Johnny McKenzie. I mean, I watched these, these guys play on Hockey Night in Canada

00:22:57.680 my whole life. And here I am as a 17 year old in the WHA playing against Gordie Howe

00:23:01.660 and Johnny McKenzie and Dave Keon and all these amazing players that had watched for years in

00:23:07.300 the NHL that had finished their careers in the WHA. So it was amazing, actually.

00:23:11.260 Do you remember the first time you met Gretzky?

00:23:13.340 I do. I always tell the story when I was flying from Edmonton to go play for Indianapolis

00:23:19.020 was shortly after he was, got traded with Peter Driscoll and Eddie Meal. And he was on a plane

00:23:25.120 flying from Indianapolis to Edmonton. And so our paths crossed in the air. And so I didn't meet

00:23:31.520 Wayne other than playing against him. I didn't meet him until training camp when the leagues

00:23:35.520 folded. I was drafted by Edmonton and then we met at training camp in 1979.

00:23:40.860 And that would be in the NHL now?

00:23:42.380 That was in the NHL.

00:23:43.900 So you guys didn't meet, I didn't realize that. I thought you guys crossed paths in WHA,

00:23:47.460 but you actually didn't really meet until you were both now.

00:23:49.500 No, I was playing in an Indianapolis. They folded. Then I went to Cincinnati to finish the

00:23:53.400 year for 52 games and Wayne was, got traded to Edmonton. So we played against each other,

00:23:59.120 but didn't know each other. And how many of the other sort of foundational players of the

00:24:03.920 Oilers came in that merger? Who else was there? Was Führer there?

00:24:07.440 No, Führer didn't get drafted until 82 years into our NHL.

00:24:12.160 Into your run. Yeah.

00:24:13.100 And Curry came later.

00:24:14.320 Curry came maybe the second, after the second draft.

00:24:18.200 What about Lowe?

00:24:19.020 Lowe was the first draft of the Edmonton Oilers. Yeah. Kevin was the first draft ever of the Edmonton

00:24:23.740 Oilers back in 1979, 80 draft. I think Curry came the next year. Grant and Paul Coffey came

00:24:29.680 the second year with Curry. Curry was like a fourth, fifth rounder. Then Grant was drafted

00:24:35.680 early in the third year. And so we basically, that whole team from the draft came together in those.

00:24:43.160 So Andy Moog was the goalie coming out of WHA?

00:24:46.380 Andy Moog, no. He didn't come until later either. He was playing,

00:24:49.420 you know, he came from Penticton. He was playing major junior. He got there before Grant.

00:24:55.080 He came the second year when we upset the Montreal Canadiens.

00:24:58.760 Yes. Which was 1981, right?

00:25:00.780 It was 1981. I think our goalie got hurt or Glenn Sather put him in on a whim and

00:25:04.860 they stole the show as a rookie goalie.

00:25:07.500 That was back when, I mean, a lot of people don't remember what the NHL looked like back then,

00:25:11.420 but my recollection, I was only eight years old, but I was still obsessed. One played 16,

00:25:16.380 two played 15. Like it was done like a sweet 16 independent of conference, wasn't it?

00:25:22.440 Absolutely. Yeah. 21 team league, 16 made the playoffs, eight from each conference,

00:25:26.360 and you seated yourself depending on where you stood during the regular season.

00:25:30.340 And so Edmonton gets in there 16th. The top seat is the Montreal Canadiens.

00:25:35.180 The second year, first year we played Philadelphia. We made the playoffs the first year. We had to win

00:25:39.140 nine of the last 10 games of the regular season our first year just to make the playoffs. And of

00:25:44.120 course, Philadelphia was a team who we played. They beat us in, I think they beat us three straight

00:25:49.320 back then with the first series. Yeah. The first series was the best of five.

00:25:52.340 Best of five. So they beat us pretty handily. They had a really good team.

00:25:55.680 And then it's that second season, which is 81-82, if I'm not mistaken.

00:26:00.160 It was 80-81.

00:26:00.760 80-81. Yeah.

00:26:02.580 Where we played the Montreal Canadiens.

00:26:03.900 And you upset the Canadians. 0.55

00:26:05.000 We upset the Canadians, which was one of the most, to this day, one of my best experiences playing hockey. 1.00

00:26:12.800 That whole series against Montreal. And I can't remember everything that happened, but I just

00:26:19.940 remember coming home and people can Google it. And it's the impossible dream. We were

00:26:24.840 under the, in the dressing room, obviously waiting to be, come out onto the ice. And they

00:26:28.280 played a video with the song Impossible Dream within, with all the highlights, because we

00:26:32.400 won the first two games in Montreal and coming home to close it out. To this day, it makes

00:26:37.460 a hair in the back of my neck stand up of how energized that city was.

00:26:42.520 Was that the moment you realized that you were going to win a Stanley Cup? Whether or not

00:26:47.720 that year, but when was the moment when you thought, this is a really special group of

00:26:53.720 people?

00:26:54.740 Well, it wasn't quite that soon, but I think what we all recognized was that Wayne was on

00:27:00.360 a different trajectory than most any other hockey player that ever played the game. And

00:27:04.440 the chances of Wayne to win a Stanley Cup were going to be pretty good. And if we all played

00:27:08.220 our cards right and we were able to grab an oar and start rowing and fill a need on the

00:27:13.660 team, our chances increased significantly if we could follow Wayne. And that's true. That's

00:27:20.120 the way we felt. Wayne was completely different than any hockey player. He was chasing record

00:27:26.080 books. He wanted to smash every record that was ever made.

00:27:29.120 Well, 81-82 is sort of a crazy year because those are some of my really first memories of

00:27:35.200 hockey. So I grew up in Toronto. So you guys always were two hours behind us. So to watch

00:27:41.740 an Oilers game, it was really a big ask of my mom. I mean, I had to get my mom's permission

00:27:47.300 to stay up late because you guys weren't starting your games until 9 p.m. Toronto time.

00:27:52.380 On a school night.

00:27:53.060 On a school night. But I would beg and plead. And I think my mom just gave up. I mean, it

00:27:58.100 was just like, oh, for heaven's sakes, fine.

00:27:59.720 Yeah, it was must-watch TV. You know, I think he won the – he tied Marcel Dion his first

00:28:04.180 year with 165 points. And then the second year, I think he smashed it with 190-some points

00:28:11.040 and won it going away and then on to 215 points.

00:28:14.620 2-12 and then –

00:28:15.640 2-12, 2-15.

00:28:17.160 He was scoring 50 goals in 39 games.

00:28:19.440 Well, it's that night I remember. So do you remember that night in Edmonton against

00:28:23.500 Philadelphia when he's got 45 goals going into the 39th game? And at that point, everybody

00:28:28.840 knows 50 and 50 is going to go down. But nobody knows it's going to be five goals in one night.

00:28:34.940 Everybody's just trying to anticipate where to be and where to get tickets and when it's

00:28:39.660 going to happen. But nobody going to that rink that night thought he was going to score

00:28:42.660 five goals against the Philadelphia Flyers. The big, bad, tough Philadelphia Flyers. There

00:28:47.460 were no way they were going to let that happen. And sure enough, he did. He scored five goals

00:28:51.520 on Pete Peters. And what an amazing time to sit there and watch that genius on a day-to-day

00:28:58.140 basis. And very – how often in anybody's life can they look at one of their peers, a guy

00:29:04.360 that's your same age, and look up to him as a role model? But that's what Wayne was for

00:29:08.560 us. He was so far ahead of us in his own mental preparation and the way he prepared for games

00:29:16.220 and both physically and mentally and his ambition of what he wanted to do in the game of hockey.

00:29:22.060 All those things were just so far superior. And then to be able to sit there and watch

00:29:26.900 how he practiced and his practice habits and how he prepared for games. And it was just

00:29:32.440 remarkable to have someone like that to learn from.

00:29:35.060 I wanted to understand that a little bit more because I think most people are familiar with

00:29:38.660 you as one of the greatest leaders in hockey. I mean, you are the only person to captain

00:29:43.600 two Stanley Cup teams. You've captained Edmonton to a Stanley Cup in the absence of Gretzky,

00:29:48.400 and then you captained the Rangers to a Stanley Cup. And no one's done that before or since.

00:29:53.000 And yet what I'm hearing you say is some of your early sort of lessons in leadership came

00:29:59.260 from watching Gretzky.

00:30:01.100 Well, not only Wayne, but a lot of people. Obviously, my father, who was a great mentor

00:30:05.160 and role model for not only myself and my brother and my sisters, but also a lot of hockey

00:30:09.880 players that he coached. He was a great coach, a great mentor. And then all the people that helped

00:30:16.520 you along the way. And then you get to turn pro and then you start watching other players

00:30:21.000 and you start watching and listening to coaches and you start filling up your bag with all this

00:30:25.920 experience. And so you kind of learn through successes and failures of what actually works

00:30:31.220 for you as a player and as a person. So you're kind of collecting all this data, you know,

00:30:35.940 all the way along. Wayne just happened to be a teammate that was obvious to everybody that he

00:30:42.240 was going to become the best hockey player to ever play the game. He proved it as a kid from the time

00:30:48.340 he was four years old to the time he was in junior hockey to the time he turned pro. And here he is,

00:30:54.520 you know, scoring 215 points. Unheard of numbers in any sport, no matter how you compare it to.

00:31:00.880 It's worth pausing on that for a moment because I don't think a non-hockey fan can put in perspective

00:31:07.920 what Wayne Gretzky did during about a seven-year run from 81 to 88, right? What you just described,

00:31:15.960 to my knowledge, no player has ever scored more than 200 points in a season. Gretzky averaged that

00:31:21.160 for seven consecutive seasons. Yeah, I know you're probably true. I know that he had, you know,

00:31:26.860 215, 212, 205, 202 a few times, 198. I mean, there was years when he was winning the scoring

00:31:34.120 title on assists alone. Yeah, the only guy that I can actually say that was, you could even talk

00:31:40.080 about Wayne in the same breath in that regard as far as that offensive genius would be Mario Lemieux.

00:31:45.900 Mario had some injuries early on and so he never had that consistency that Wayne did. But he would be

00:31:52.420 the only guy that I could even think about comparing to to have that, you know, offensive genius that

00:31:57.400 you, that exists and a guy that was able to do that. It was amazing having that kind of role model

00:32:03.300 there, right? For a guy that was my own age. That's right, because you guys are both born in

00:32:06.820 61, right? I'm eight days older, eight days older, yeah. I remember reading a funny story once, and again,

00:32:11.480 it could be totally BS because it was just blown out of proportion, but early in your days in Edmonton,

00:32:16.240 you sort of got in trouble for something. I don't know, did you fail to show up to a practice or you just,

00:32:20.640 were you disciplined for something very early in your time at Edmonton?

00:32:24.420 Yeah, I was living at home. My first year pro and punctuality at that time in my life was probably

00:32:29.460 wasn't my best asset, but this one was actually harmless.

00:32:33.900 You were super punctual today, so whatever lessons learned, right?

00:32:37.200 Yeah, lessons learned, it's taken a while. But I was living at home and my mom was driving,

00:32:41.500 we were leaving on an extended road trip, and so I packed my bag and my mom was driving me to the

00:32:47.060 airport and she asked, you know, because back then there was two airports in Edmonton,

00:32:50.320 there was a downtown airport and there was one out in the suburbs, the international airport,

00:32:55.700 and I told her that we were coming back into the municipal airport. For whatever reason,

00:33:01.540 we just didn't think about it, we drove to the municipal airport. So when I got out of the car

00:33:05.280 and she dropped me off, this is back in the day with no cell phones or anything, I looked around

00:33:09.460 and normally you see all the guys in trench coats and their bags and everybody huddled together

00:33:13.940 weighing on their tickets and I didn't see any kind of sign that you'd normally see.

00:33:17.920 So my heart started beating a little quicker and sure enough, I looked at the itinerary and we were

00:33:25.100 leaving to Detroit from Edmonton International. So my heart sank, I quickly jumped in a, actually I

00:33:33.040 went and phoned on the pay phone and phoned the Oiler office and the secretary said, no problem,

00:33:38.180 Mark, there'll be a ticket waiting for you at the counter, at the Air Canada counter.

00:33:41.160 So when I got to, in a taxi and got out to international, went up to the desk and got my

00:33:47.180 ticket, except for it wasn't going to Detroit, it was going to Houston. I was being sent down to the,

00:33:52.440 to the farm team to teach me a lesson. So that was a tough moment for me at that time, knowing that

00:33:58.820 I was, I missed a flight and was being sent to our farm team. I spent two weeks down there,

00:34:04.240 played five games and they called me back up, thankfully, but that was not a fun experience.

00:34:09.260 But that must've had, that must've left an impression. I mean, that's a pretty harsh lesson.

00:34:12.840 Well, you think it would have, but there was a couple other ones along the way that

00:34:16.380 had to cement the lesson. But what you realize is that when you're playing on a team and you're

00:34:24.100 in a team format, nothing is about you as an individual. It's all about what's best for the

00:34:31.940 team and your time is not your own. It's a team's time and you have to be respectful of that. So

00:34:37.420 there was a lot of lessons for me growing up as a young adult in a professional environment that

00:34:43.480 doesn't always happen. But when you turn professional 18 years old, you grow up quickly.

00:34:49.140 In those days, I mean, even by today's standards, I mean, Gretzky was tiny. How explicit was it that

00:34:55.280 someone on that team or some group of guys on that team needed to make sure that he didn't get hurt?

00:35:00.900 Well, back then that's where the game was played anyways. I mean,

00:35:03.300 it was a completely different set of rules of what was acceptable behavior in the National Hockey

00:35:09.840 League. It was tough hockey. You know, just not long before that, there were still bench

00:35:14.840 clearing brawls during the game. You know, I remember in the WHA my last year as a 17 year

00:35:19.500 old having three bench clearing brawls in one game. Insane and big, big, tough guys I'm looking

00:35:27.120 up to. So yeah, I think every team had a lot of muscle in their teams and everybody had to stick

00:35:33.380 up for each other. You had to be able to count on your teammates for protection. Everybody had to be

00:35:37.780 a cohesive unit and everybody had the answer to Bell for the protection of the entirety of the team,

00:35:45.100 not to mention something of Wayne's caliber because he was obviously targeted in many different ways

00:35:51.840 and we had to be there to help him get through an 82 game schedule.

00:35:57.120 So let's fast forward to your first Stanley Cup final, 83 against the Islanders. The Islanders have

00:36:02.180 won three consecutive Stanley Cups right now. Mike Bossie, Brian Trottier, Billy Smith, who I hated.

00:36:11.180 If you're an Oilers fan, you hated Billy Smith, right? And it's now basically you guys are going to try

00:36:17.900 to stop their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup. How well do you remember that series?

00:36:23.120 I remember every series I ever played, but that one in particular because how much respect we had

00:36:28.640 for the Islanders. And don't forget two years before that, we had taken them to six games

00:36:32.100 and we didn't even know what we were doing back then. And we were just doing it on sheer

00:36:36.080 talent and adrenaline and youthful exuberance.

00:36:40.060 And at that point, I mean, the average age of the Edmonton Oilers is probably 22, 23, right?

00:36:44.800 Well, we had some veterans that mixed in with some of our young guys. So then there was a good mix

00:36:49.640 of vets and some young guys, but we didn't have as much talent then as we ended up having the first

00:36:57.520 year we won, but we still had a good team. And of course, any team with Wayne on it was X factor.

00:37:02.880 So you make it to the finals and I don't remember what the odds makers said going into that final,

00:37:08.600 but I certainly remember as a kid, it was like the Oilers are definitely going to win this.

00:37:14.800 Well, we felt good about it, but we had suffered some painful losses on our way to that first

00:37:21.020 Stanley Cup final, losing to LA, being up five, nothing in the deciding game. There was a lot

00:37:27.500 of painful lessons along the way of what it took to win. And we were on the trajectory and we were

00:37:33.080 taking those defeats and those failures and really implementing into our game. And so by the time we

00:37:39.000 got to the Stanley Cup final, we felt pretty good about our game. We didn't realize how much of a

00:37:46.680 cohesive unit the Islanders had become by winning three straight Stanley Cubs. There was a huge disparity

00:37:54.820 about where they were as a team and how they played as a team compared to where we were. It was not even

00:38:01.780 in the same league and they pretty much dismantled us. Even with the great Gretzky, they dismantled us

00:38:07.780 in four games. And that was a real eye opener for us that if we're going to take this to the next

00:38:12.660 level there, we have to figure out, first of all, how to play much better defensive hockey and then be

00:38:19.140 able to recognize what teams are trying to do to us and then be able to counterbalance that very quickly

00:38:27.060 in-game and make in-game changes and alterations to the style of play we're playing. So it became a

00:38:33.940 real chess game after that for us. We realized we were playing checkers and they were playing chess and

00:38:39.060 we had a lot of catching up to do in that regard. Do you remember leaving the arena on the night that

00:38:44.920 they won the Cup? Yeah, that's a much often told story. I mean, you can only imagine nowadays a team

00:38:50.780 winning four straight Stanley Cups and the toll that would take on a team, not only as a team,

00:38:56.280 but on every individual. And we did. We walked by their dressing room and expecting a big

00:39:02.440 celebratory champagne fest. And most of them were just sitting around quietly around their stalls

00:39:09.040 by this time with ice packs on their bodies. And that told us that we weren't paying the price

00:39:15.480 that we needed to in order to win a Stanley Cup. So a lot of lessons, a lot of lessons leaving that

00:39:21.980 rink that night in that playoff series there that we came back next year and started implementing

00:39:27.500 very early on in training camp. You talk about like any professional sport, but like take hockey,

00:39:31.740 for example, there's 21 teams. Well, 20 of them end the season as losers, right? I mean, it's just,

00:39:37.580 you know, there's only one team that's going to win the Stanley Cup. So there's 20 teams that either

00:39:41.040 don't make the playoffs, get booted out earlier, or like the Oilers did in that case, get booted out at

00:39:45.940 the very last moment. But it would seem to me that losing in the way that you guys did in four

00:39:53.020 straight, as you said, just getting, just getting your asses handed to you makes that a very long

00:39:59.160 summer. I'm sure there's a part of you that just cannot wait to come back in the fall of-

00:40:03.840 Well, we didn't see it coming because we had actually taken them to six games two years prior.

00:40:08.540 And so we felt good about the matchups and we felt, and we knew what we're getting into. We knew the

00:40:13.140 players. It wasn't like they surprised us from a player standpoint, but what they really surprised

00:40:18.840 us with was how they were able to take our strengths away and expose our weaknesses and

00:40:25.200 pretty much completely take us off our game and the game that we like to play. They never allowed

00:40:29.720 us to get into our rhythm and that high pace, high tempo game that we were so used to and accustomed

00:40:36.740 to playing. And we realized that if we're going to beat the Islanders there, we had to beat them in

00:40:41.060 the streets, in the alleys. And eventually we were able to do that the next time around.

00:40:46.080 What did Glenn Sather say after that fourth game? Do you remember what was said in the locker room

00:40:50.640 when you guys lost?

00:40:51.540 At that time, not much is said. It's a long year. Everybody's nerves are pretty fragile.

00:40:56.700 Everybody's emotions are high. It's not really the time to start kind of dissecting what had

00:41:03.200 happened. I think we all kind of had to live with it ourselves throughout the summer and then come

00:41:07.760 back and start to address it. And that's what we did. And to everybody's credit, they came back

00:41:13.960 with even more vigor and determination to get it to the next level. And sure enough, we were able to.

00:41:20.460 And it's kind of amazing. So the next season, 83-84, you guys face the Islanders again in the final.

00:41:27.700 And now it's there. They're going for five consecutive Stanley Cups.

00:41:31.940 And it was easy for them. They had to win an amazing series against Pittsburgh and scored in

00:41:37.300 game seven overtime to get there. So you can imagine it's amazing, actually. To this day,

00:41:42.520 it's incredible that they made it. We won five Cups in seven years. But to win five straight is

00:41:49.440 incredible. So I think I have a good understanding of what it took on you physically as a person,

00:41:55.660 but also as a team. And sure enough, there they were again.

00:41:59.900 Now, if I recall, you guys won game one. Close. They won game two. Not close. It was kind of a

00:42:07.420 blowout game two, wasn't it? They took it to us pretty good, yeah.

00:42:09.660 Yeah. And then you won the next three. And it was, I always thought, like, I just,

00:42:15.260 what do you remember about the psychology of those last three games? Because that was the passing of

00:42:19.860 the baton. That was one dynasty to the next.

00:42:22.700 It was, to this day, it was so amazing to see that team hang on to that championship banner

00:42:28.980 and how hard they fought to relinquish it. You would think at some point, you know, we could

00:42:34.440 have just willed it away from them that we couldn't. They would not relent their grasp on it. And it was

00:42:40.200 all we could do in that third game to win that third game. Once we won that third game, I think it

00:42:48.020 kind of was the start of kind of the wear and tear of them starting to kind of show. And then

00:42:54.680 our confidence went this way and they were beaten up and tired. And then we were able to win the next

00:43:00.180 games. Not easily, but pretty handily. But to this day, I give those guys so much credit because

00:43:06.480 they would not let go of that mantle of being Stanley Cup champions. And it was so much pride and hard work

00:43:13.340 had gone into it there. And it was just, even as no, I think they knew in their hearts that their

00:43:17.900 time had come, it was just devastating. I think they just were so devastated that they finally

00:43:22.260 lost there. But it was a great lesson in humility and sportsmanship and what a real pride a champion

00:43:29.460 has to watch those guys go through that whole fifth year of trying to win the Stanley Cup for five times

00:43:33.980 now going into game five, when you guys are at home, if you win the game, you win the cup,

00:43:39.260 which you go on to do. Was there even a tiny bit of a thought in the back of your mind that not only

00:43:46.800 could you guys win this thing tonight, which I guess there was that thought, but that you could be the

00:43:51.040 MVP of the playoffs. Was that even something you imagined? Never even thought of that. Every time we

00:43:56.580 allowed ourselves the night before to think about maybe we might win the Stanley Cup, it just was

00:44:01.680 overwrought with fear of losing that game and giving them a chance to get back in the series.

00:44:08.220 We were terrified of the Islanders. We knew how good a team they were. And even though they were

00:44:13.420 banged up, we knew how dangerous they were. And if you lose game five, you're back to New York

00:44:19.340 to play game six before you know it. Game six and game seven. Yeah. You could be hosed if you lose that

00:44:24.700 game. It was not a good thought going all the way back there for a number of reasons, but none more than

00:44:30.020 than that we were terrified of getting this close and not finishing it off. Where does that first

00:44:35.700 Stanley Cup, first of your six, rank in terms of the emotion you felt when that final buzzer went?

00:44:43.640 Well, I get asked that question often about, you know, what was the best Stanley Cup? And I can only

00:44:47.940 say that every Stanley Cup had so many of their own unique storylines because there's always different

00:44:55.000 players. And he's obviously the first Stanley Cup. Growing up, watching it being delivered to a team

00:45:02.360 every year from the time I can remember watching TV to the time that I actually had a chance to do it

00:45:06.720 ourselves was a huge moment, both from every individual on the team and then collectively what

00:45:15.580 we had gone through to get there. So that was incredible. But then the next year, it was the same

00:45:21.460 kind of feelings again because of how hard we had to work and different set of circumstances,

00:45:26.140 different set of motivating factors that led into the team. And then the same thing happened all

00:45:32.140 the rest of the time. And the next year was Pelly Lindbergh, right? That was the year you played,

00:45:37.160 you faced Pelly Lindbergh, was in the 84-85 Stanley Cup, right? It was the 84, it was the 85 Stanley Cup

00:45:44.800 against Philadelphia. You go from facing Billy Smith to Pelly Lindbergh. I mean, I guess that's why

00:45:49.360 these teams make it to the Stanley Cup. I mean, the Flyers had an amazing team. When you get to

00:45:54.240 that point, I mean, obviously playing a team deservedly of being there and nothing's going

00:46:00.160 to be easy. And at this particular point, we were pretty confident and we knew how to win and we knew

00:46:06.660 what it was going to take in order to win. We just needed to go out and execute. And we felt that if we

00:46:11.600 executed our best, we were a better team, but it didn't make it any easier.

00:46:15.540 So now you've won two Stanley Cups. By the 85-86 season, Edmonton looks unstoppable. The team is

00:46:27.760 now fully connected. I mean, you basically could have four or five 50 goal scores on the ice at one

00:46:35.760 time. In Grant Fuhrer, you have, my personal view, the greatest goalie that ever played the game.

00:46:41.700 Maybe not by the statistics, but in terms of like just pure big game acrobatics.

00:46:46.680 It seems like there's no way you guys can't win a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh Stanley Cup

00:46:52.840 consecutively. And then you come up against your nemesis from the town next door, the Calgary Flames.

00:47:00.380 And by this point, I'm in seventh grade. So now I'm watching every minute of every game and studying

00:47:07.140 every statistic, reading my Toronto Star newspaper. It's just like, I'm dissecting every detail of

00:47:11.980 this. And I can't believe what's happening, but all of a sudden it's game seven against the Calgary

00:47:18.280 Flames. Somehow you guys have each won three games going into the final game, the Northlands Coliseum.

00:47:24.460 And I remember that night having dinner, getting ready to watch the game and thinking,

00:47:29.360 trying to paint a glass half full view, which is, well, maybe Edmonton just needs,

00:47:34.460 this was a good little wake up call. And maybe they're getting a little too complacent going into

00:47:38.900 this game. And I've never gone back and watched that game again. So like I remember, you know,

00:47:43.420 I watched it in 1986. I've never seen it since. I don't know. Have you ever seen that game since?

00:47:47.120 I've never watched it from start to finish. No.

00:47:49.620 So if my memory serves me correctly, it's 2-2 in the third period. Is that?

00:47:56.720 I couldn't even tell you exactly what the score is. I know it was tied late in the game.

00:48:00.240 I think it's tied 1-1 or 2-2 or 3-3, but I think it was 2-2 in the third period. Steve Smith behind

00:48:08.120 the goal has the puck. He's going cross ice pass a million times a game pass. And it just didn't

00:48:17.080 go in the right place. And it hit the back of Grant Fuhrer's leg and in the net it goes. And you

00:48:22.600 guys are down three to two with less than a period to go. What do you remember about that moment?

00:48:27.980 Oh, I just remember Calgary building a team that could compete with us. The Smite division

00:48:33.660 back then was whoever seemed to be able to get out of the Smite division had a good chance

00:48:37.320 of winning the Stanley Cup. Winnipeg was a great team. Calgary was really amassing a great bunch

00:48:43.580 of talent and putting a team together that believed they could beat us. And they were tough

00:48:49.500 all year long. So we knew once we got into that series with them, it was going to be a tough

00:48:52.860 series. And it didn't surprise us at all that they were playing us every bit as hard

00:48:58.640 and were matching us in every bit of the game, both physically and from a talent perspective.

00:49:04.240 And it got into that series where we knew it was going to be tough. To your point, we're

00:49:08.780 here we are in game seven and that sport stuff happens. You know, when you're in the middle

00:49:14.340 of it, when something like that happens, you got to shrug it off pretty quickly. We weren't

00:49:19.080 able to rebound from it and score a tying goal and end up winning the game. They beat

00:49:24.140 us in that seventh game. But that's sports. Things happen.

00:49:28.580 There's so much about that.

00:49:29.720 Funny things happen along the way.

00:49:30.620 Yeah. And there's so much about it to me, right? Like, do you remember in 91 when the

00:49:35.300 Bills went to their first Super Bowl and at the very end of the game, Scott Norwood has

00:49:40.140 to kick this field goal for them to beat the Giants and it misses. It goes wide. And he's,

00:49:45.620 you know, on some level, this big scapegoat and you sort of imagine, well, is that how Steve Smith

00:49:50.220 felt? But a really critical analysis of that game of the Giants versus the Bills says it's

00:49:57.060 really not about Scott Norwood at all. If the Bills had played half as well in that game as they'd

00:50:02.040 been playing all the way to the Super Bowl, they never would have been in a position where a last

00:50:06.100 second field goal was necessary. And I think that was sort of my feeling of the whole thing with

00:50:10.820 Steve Smith, which was sure, it would be easy to sit here and beat this guy up. Not you guys as

00:50:15.780 his teammates. I never got the sense, you know, reading the newspapers that that was happening,

00:50:19.640 but that the public could sort of beat this guy up for the own goal as they would call it in soccer.

00:50:24.700 But it was like, look, that was just a symptom of there were seven games in this series, right?

00:50:30.560 Normally good bounces, bad bounces over seven game series. They all equal out. So I would never

00:50:36.420 blame any one incident on winning or losing a seven game series. You know, that whole game

00:50:43.880 and the whole way it unfolded with Steve is we could do a whole podcast on the psychology of that

00:50:49.840 alone. It was an amazing time for all of us to, you know, just look at ourselves and the vulnerability

00:50:57.840 that we all face in a team game and how much you require everybody to be in the moment and put the

00:51:06.000 work in and trust and all the things that you talk about in order for a team to win a championship.

00:51:12.140 And it could have been any one of us. And I think the compassion that everybody felt for Steve even

00:51:19.920 drove our team closer together in some crazy ways. Again, you know, another tough lesson along the

00:51:27.920 way, but things happen. And that's what we took out of it is you can take nothing for granted in this

00:51:33.540 game. As good as we were, as much as we expected to win ourselves, as much as everybody else expected

00:51:39.540 us to win, you can never take it for granted of exactly what's happening here. And so we just

00:51:44.380 collected ourselves again and dusted ourselves off and came back the next year.

00:51:49.920 And the next year you play the Flyers again, if I recall, right?

00:51:54.080 Next year, exactly. We played with Ron Hextall.

00:51:56.620 Now it's Ron Hextall.

00:51:57.280 Now it's Ron Hextall. So we'd play them the next year and we're able to,

00:52:01.260 Wayne was able to accept the Stanley Cup and the first guy he hands it to is Steve Smith. I mean,

00:52:06.840 that's why sports is so important in everybody's lives because it transcends sports. It goes much

00:52:16.080 deeper than sports, especially when you're playing on a team and doing the things that we were doing

00:52:21.780 there. It wasn't just about hockey. It wasn't just about shooting goals and scoring pucks and all the

00:52:28.340 things you would think about. It became much more about life and life lessons in order to sustain that

00:52:33.420 kind of remarkable level of play for the...

00:52:36.320 Did you know Gretzky was going to do that?

00:52:39.740 It didn't surprise me when he did do it. Wayne was always looking out for people around him,

00:52:45.460 always had the ability to get outside himself and make sure everybody felt good about being on the

00:52:52.080 team and part of the team and all the things you would expect from a leader. So it didn't really

00:52:57.740 shock anybody that he was the first one that he handed the cup to with Steve.

00:53:01.800 I remember that very clearly and I'm glad you brought it up because I don't even think I

00:53:06.200 would have remembered to have brought it up, but I don't know. It just sort of warms your heart. I

00:53:09.700 mean, you compare it to the most extreme grotesque example of the opposite, which is 1994, the World

00:53:15.060 Cup. Andres Escobar scores on his own goal and he ends up getting killed. I mean, he literally is

00:53:22.400 murdered in a parking lot of a bar. And here, Steve Smith, at least a year later, gets to hold the

00:53:27.820 Stanley Cup as part of any human development for him as a person and as a player and what it did

00:53:33.380 for him and his own confidence and his own self-esteem and his own career. I think, you know,

00:53:41.740 those are the things that define you ultimately and stuff happens to everybody. But, you know,

00:53:46.380 he was able to be strong enough to absorb the criticism that came along his way, strong enough

00:53:53.020 to come back the next year and go through the process of getting back in that exact same position

00:53:58.840 and then succeeding ultimately all the way through until we're able to win the Stanley Cup.

00:54:04.220 I mean, that's what defines you, not him shooting the puck in our own goal. What defined him was

00:54:09.200 absorbing that and having the strength to absorb it and the infrastructure around him to help him

00:54:14.740 absorb it. And I think that's what good organizations, good teams do. They help people grow not only as

00:54:21.100 athletes and hockey players, but as people, because you need people and you need good character people

00:54:25.980 in order to win. So if you're just talking about developing athletes and hockey players and trying

00:54:31.940 to win a Stanley Cup, it's just not going to happen.

00:54:33.880 And do you see examples of that either in hockey today or in other sports then or now where you have

00:54:39.660 all the talent in the world, but there's something lacking in the character of the team?

00:54:43.240 All the time. All the time. You see it all the time.

00:54:45.200 When we were kids, we saw good teams that had infighting amongst each other and jealousy about

00:54:53.280 who was playing and it just never dawned on us to ever think that way.

00:54:58.520 Let's reflect on that for a second, Mark, because the talent on that team was staggering. As we've

00:55:05.140 discussed earlier, it would be very difficult to imagine in a free agency era like we have today,

00:55:10.640 where you could amass that much talent under one jersey.

00:55:14.340 Well, you could amass it, but then you couldn't afford to pay it.

00:55:15.720 You couldn't keep it. Yeah, you couldn't afford to pay it. So again, maybe there were stories that

00:55:20.040 you're not telling, but you don't get the sense that this is a team of pre-Madonnas where everybody's

00:55:24.160 sort of pissed that the other guy's getting more airtime and more attention.

00:55:27.480 Well, it helps when you have the leadership that we had and it helps when you had the character that

00:55:33.860 we had.

00:55:34.780 I mean, is part of it that Gretzky was so good that everybody was happy to acknowledge that this is

00:55:40.240 our leader and this is the best player on our team and we're watching history right now? I mean,

00:55:44.380 as you said.

00:55:44.980 It was part of it, but it was also the way he included everybody. And as crazy as in the stats

00:55:52.040 that he was having, he had a way of making Dave Semenko feel like he was the most important guy

00:55:57.840 on the team. And the list goes on. And I think that in the end is really, we always talked about

00:56:06.000 the stage is going to be big enough for us all to stand on. There's not one or two of us going to

00:56:10.460 be standing on the stage when we win the Stanley Cup. The stage is big enough for everybody. So

00:56:14.160 let's make everybody feel accountable. Let's make everybody feel important. And let's hold

00:56:19.280 everybody accountable for the job that they have. And let's help them understand that even though

00:56:24.140 on another team, they may be able to play a different role. But on this team, this is a role

00:56:27.820 we need you to play and we need you to do the best of your ability. And anything less than 100%

00:56:31.460 isn't going to cut it. And together, we were able to help convince everybody that that was the

00:56:37.520 path to success. And we never felt jealous of Wayne. We never felt that he shouldn't be on the ice

00:56:46.480 at the end of the game when he already had four goals and four assists. We wanted him on the ice. We

00:56:52.320 felt a part of his success. We felt that we enabled him and put him in position to have the success

00:56:57.720 that he did. So in a crazy way, we felt part of the reason why he was able to

00:57:03.300 smash all those records. So it was really a team philosophy that we had that we're all in it

00:57:08.280 together. And you're right. I mean, one year in the All-Star game, we had 11 players off the Edmonton

00:57:13.440 Oilers dressed in the All-Star game. And you would think everybody would have been vying for, you know,

00:57:18.820 Glenn Anderson never once complained about not being on the first. And he was a 50 goal scorer and he

00:57:24.160 couldn't get on the first power play unit. Never once did he even think it was a problem.

00:57:28.300 Didn't Paul Coffey almost score 50 goals one year?

00:57:30.920 Yeah, he scored 48 goals.

00:57:32.300 I mean, a defenseman. Unbelievable.

00:57:34.460 He had a hundred and some points. I mean, it was, yeah. So everybody had a role. Kevin Lowe was an

00:57:39.320 offensive defenseman. He realized right away, we didn't need another Paul Coffey. So he worked on

00:57:44.540 becoming the league's best defensive defenseman. And that was where he got his pride of being able to

00:57:50.320 shut the other team down. He knew that that was our best chance to win is if he and Lee Foglin could

00:57:55.200 be the go-to guys to shut it down late in the games. And so he took the pride to do that. And

00:58:00.660 everybody on the team did the same thing. When you look at the way the NHL is today, and again,

00:58:05.120 we'll talk about the arc of your career, but the league you finished in is very different,

00:58:09.600 very different style of play from the league you started in. Could a team that played the way

00:58:14.340 Edmonton played in the 80s, could that type of a team be successful today in the league?

00:58:19.400 Oh yeah. We, you know, Edmonton was the first, I mean, Glenn Sather took the European flavor

00:58:25.380 that had infiltrated into the WHA with all the European players and all the Swedish players

00:58:30.280 and Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nielsen and Bobby Hull and all these great European players that

00:58:35.100 came over. And then the Russians in 72 and the flavor that we got from that kind of, that 0.64

00:58:40.660 infiltrated into the WHA. And Glenn really realized that that was the wave, the next wave of the

00:58:48.780 way hockey would be played. And so when we came into the league in 1979, 80, we were all

00:58:53.760 really good skaters and Glenn allowed us not to play. We called it, we used to call it tabletop

00:58:58.500 hockey, you know, those games that you'd play with your hands and the winger would go up

00:59:01.300 and down, but that's all you could go. That was traditional NHL hockey. And next thing you

00:59:05.220 know, you know, the Oilers come in with all the talent and we're all weaving and going all

00:59:09.720 over the ice and creating havoc for most teams. So that style of play is basically a refined

00:59:18.000 version of what's happening now. So to answer your question, our style with Edmonton would

00:59:23.400 have fit perfectly with the way that game is being played now.

00:59:26.800 Yeah. It's amazing. So you've now won, it's sort of July of 1988. You've just won your

00:59:35.240 fourth Stanley cup in five years. When do you first hear any sort of inkling or rumor about

00:59:43.320 the trade?

00:59:44.440 There was some kind of rumblings towards the end of the season through the playoffs and,

00:59:49.520 you know, we didn't think much of it. You know, how could they ever trade Wayne Gretzky?

00:59:53.300 You know, just nobody would even think about it. So we didn't really pay too much attention

00:59:56.700 to it. We got wind of it. You know, normally with the smoke, there's fire, as they say,

01:00:01.220 there was becoming more talk about it. And I was actually in the summertime playing golf

01:00:05.060 and got the word that the trade had happened.

01:00:07.860 This was like August, early August, was my recollection.

01:00:11.940 Who called you?

01:00:13.600 I remember being playing golf and stopping at the halfway house and hearing about it on

01:00:19.040 the radio that the trade had gone through. Nobody could still believe it.

01:00:23.300 Until I actually got the phone call from, I think, Wayne or somebody that then I realized

01:00:28.540 that it actually had come true. Yeah.

01:00:31.200 What did you think at that moment? I mean, you're obviously thinking by this point, you've

01:00:35.640 had now eight years to hone your own leadership skill. I mean, just listening to the way you

01:00:40.380 talk about those eight years, you can see, like, I can just hear you describing lesson after

01:00:45.900 lesson after lesson, up and down, up and down, hard, you know, hard lessons.

01:00:51.280 So on the one hand, you still have a job to do. You became the captain of the Oilers that

01:00:56.780 day, right? Basically, de facto, even if they didn't put the C on your jersey until a few

01:01:01.380 months later. But it's got to be kind of heartbreaking too. I mean, Gretzky was probably

01:01:05.320 your closest friend on that team as well.

01:01:07.620 Well, it was devastating for everybody. It was certainly devastating for the players.

01:01:11.140 We felt that we were only just beginning of what we could accomplish. We're all in the

01:01:17.220 prime of our careers.

01:01:18.180 That's the part that's so hard to believe is you guys literally were right at your prime.

01:01:23.500 You were not near the crest yet.

01:01:25.720 No, we were right there in the sweet spot. So for the players, it was devastating. For the fans

01:01:30.580 and the people in Edmonton, it was devastating. It was just a really tough day for everybody.

01:01:35.160 Did you talk to Peter Pocklington?

01:01:36.700 No. No, I'd never talked to Peter about that. There was no need to. I mean, what was there to say?

01:01:42.340 Obviously, the feelings everybody had were obvious. But to your point, when all the dust

01:01:48.720 settled and the training camp came around, what were we going to do about it? We realized

01:01:53.940 that we had first a responsibility to each other in the room and we had a responsibility

01:01:58.560 to the team as much as we're disappointed with the decision to do something like that.

01:02:03.240 And then we had a responsibility to the fans and to the city. And so we just, like again,

01:02:10.720 collected ourselves again and came to training camp and tried to do the best we could throughout

01:02:15.500 a tough year.

01:02:17.020 Now in 88, 89, I'm blanking, who won the cup that year? Was that Montreal?

01:02:22.860 No, Calgary.

01:02:23.900 Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. Calgary won. So another-

01:02:27.020 Montreal won in 86.

01:02:27.760 That's right. And of course, Montreal would go on to win in 93 after that amazing series

01:02:32.160 with LA. But then in 90, you guys make it back to the final. I get that you're playing

01:02:37.900 the Bruins in the finals in 90 again, right?

01:02:39.520 Yeah, we played the Bruins, yeah.

01:02:40.760 What does it feel like to go back to the Stanley Cup without Gretzky and now you're the captain?

01:02:47.480 I mean, you've always carried the expectations in many ways, but now this is-

01:02:51.540 The captain didn't change much for me. I mean, I was

01:02:53.820 already entrenched and most of the players on the team knew me, so I didn't really have

01:02:57.580 to change anything.

01:02:58.620 Did you create a narrative? Like I can imagine it could very easily spiral out of control

01:03:03.780 psychologically where you think, well, if we don't win now, it somehow means that all

01:03:09.140 those years we won, it was only because of Wayne. I mean, did you, did anyone even allow

01:03:13.460 that talk to him?

01:03:14.480 It was true. It was true. One of the reasons why we won all those cups was because of Wayne,

01:03:20.500 but it was because of a lot of other guys too.

01:03:22.280 Well, to me, that's the point of 1990, right? It's that you want to know how great the Oilers

01:03:27.980 were. Yeah, they were the best team that probably ever laced up skates. And with Wayne Gretzky,

01:03:33.380 if you never interrupted that team, they probably would have won nine Stanley Cups.

01:03:36.760 But we didn't look at it as validation of how good we were or weren't as hockey players

01:03:41.400 because we won in 1990 without Wayne. It never even crossed our minds. In fact, the opposite.

01:03:46.320 In fact, we were disappointed Wayne wasn't there to share it with us because of all the

01:03:50.640 great times we had had with him. So I don't think anybody on the team was looking for validation

01:03:55.600 that we could or couldn't win without Wayne. I just think when the, when the training camp

01:04:00.140 came along, like every other year, you set your sights on winning a Stanley Cup and you

01:04:04.200 go through the whole journey all year long to win a Stanley Cup. And you go through the process

01:04:08.400 of winning a Stanley Cup because now there's new players on the team and players that hadn't

01:04:13.140 been before in that culture. And so you're trying to establish this culture with new players and

01:04:17.720 you go through the whole process. When ultimately we, we did win in, in 90, I don't think anybody

01:04:24.780 felt like, all right, we'll show everybody that. It was, it was more that we were proud of the

01:04:29.920 process that we had to go through with younger players and different players with a lot of the

01:04:35.660 players that had been through the grind years prior. And we were able to elevate ourselves and

01:04:42.740 everybody else in order to make it happen. So there was never any validation from us that

01:04:47.920 we're able to do without Wayne. It was, we were way past that, in my opinion, as far as our own

01:04:55.280 careers and our own thoughts of where we were and where we stood in, in the game and, and, and how we

01:05:01.420 looked at ourselves as winners and all that kind of things. It was a great victory. Don't get me

01:05:06.240 wrong. It was an amazing victory to bounce back and win. You can't put it ahead of any of the other,

01:05:12.000 other ones, but it was, it was just as a satisfying to win that, that one as well.

01:05:17.160 When did it start to look like, cause you, you, your contract with Edmonton was through what, 92

01:05:23.020 or later, maybe even longer, right?

01:05:26.520 Yeah, I can't remember. I remember signing a contract at some point. I can't even remember if I had

01:05:33.180 contract left or I had a couple of years left or no, it, I don't even know. I just knew it was over.

01:05:38.520 When did you know it was over? When did you know you were leaving Edmonton?

01:05:41.420 I knew it was over the last year I was there.

01:05:43.980 Which was 91, 92?

01:05:45.420 90, 90, 91.

01:05:47.200 90, 91.

01:05:47.860 Yeah. A lot of changes. The team would, was breaking up a lot of injuries. It just felt different.

01:05:54.680 Whatever reason we ended up losing to Minnesota, I think.

01:05:57.460 You could just tell that.

01:06:00.080 This is back when they were the North Stars, right?

01:06:01.880 Yeah.

01:06:02.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could just tell that, that chapter and all our lives was over and it was

01:06:07.700 time to go do something different in a different place, different town. And you just know, you can

01:06:12.620 just feel it. You can't explain it. Never even tried to figure out why or, you know, why I felt

01:06:18.740 that way. It was just so evident to me that it was just time to go.

01:06:21.900 Were you keeping this to yourself? Were you talking about this with your parents, other

01:06:25.240 teammates? I mean, how were you processing this?

01:06:27.720 No, I didn't. It wasn't really that I was talking about it during the regular season

01:06:31.040 because you're so focusing on trying to win. And I had to hurt my leg that year and I missed

01:06:35.240 some time. And I think I'd missed like six weeks with a knee injury and came back early

01:06:39.600 and my knee was never really that great the rest of the year into the playoffs. When it

01:06:44.560 was over at the end of the year and we had finally lost, we got to the semifinals again,

01:06:48.480 which was amazing. And it was over. When the final game ended against Minnesota, it was,

01:06:53.620 it was like the book that someone just took the two chapters and close a book and it was

01:06:59.400 over as quickly as that.

01:07:01.200 Did you know where you'd end up?

01:07:02.980 No idea. Hadn't even had the conversation with Glenn or anybody. Hadn't even talked about

01:07:07.860 it with anybody, but had to have that conversation. I don't even know when it was with Glenn at

01:07:12.300 some point. And, and he was great about it.

01:07:14.920 What's it like to come to New York?

01:07:17.760 Well, as you, as I mentioned earlier, I was into a lot of travel and, you know, I was 30

01:07:22.360 years old. I was looking for a new challenge, both professionally and personally. And when

01:07:28.020 he started looking at the choices from where I was in my own self-development, what an amazing.

01:07:35.460 What mattered to you the most in that next chapter? Because.

01:07:39.060 Lifestyle, opportunity.

01:07:40.660 Was it, I have to win another cup or I want to be part of building a team?

01:07:44.440 No, I was, I was 30 years old. I was still peak of my career. I was playing good hockey

01:07:49.060 still. I was, yeah, no, the hockey wasn't over, but I just wanted to do it in a different

01:07:52.940 venue, a different environment, something completely different. And then you just match

01:07:59.400 it all up and you, the pin, the pin goes right to New York.

01:08:03.820 New York's a pressure cooker, right? I mean, it's a, this is in a sense that, you know,

01:08:08.700 the Rangers haven't won a cup since what, 50, 1950?

01:08:13.340 Well, I thought, I thought I didn't care about that.

01:08:15.200 No, 1940. They hadn't won a cup since 1940.

01:08:17.160 1940, yeah. I thought that wasn't a problem because of the pressure that was in Edmonton

01:08:20.860 because it's such a small community and players can't really go anywhere. I mean, it's really

01:08:25.040 a small community, but I loved it. I'm from there. We embraced it. We didn't hide from

01:08:30.640 it. We immersed ourselves in, with the people and at restaurants and at bars and at parties

01:08:37.100 and at fundraisers and at charity events. And we're, we're part of everybody else. We were

01:08:42.740 just, we've meshed in just like everybody else those years in Edmonton. So the pressure

01:08:47.360 was always there with us. So when I come into New York, I didn't think it would be a big

01:08:50.160 problem. I quickly underestimated that impact because of the size and the pressure here in

01:08:56.320 New York city, but it, it didn't bother me. I mean, it was something that I just really

01:09:01.980 wanted to focus in on.

01:09:03.080 Yeah. Why do you think, cause there are some people, Mark, that just get crushed in that

01:09:07.200 environment. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a professional athlete in New

01:09:10.980 York where you've got the world watching you, right? And this is a city that can put more

01:09:16.220 pressure on you than maybe even the country could like Canada.

01:09:18.980 Well, one lesson I learned very early on was from Wayne when he mentioned something that

01:09:23.740 the, everything he has is because of hockey and he never jeopardized his performance with

01:09:29.980 something that had to do with off the ice. So everything off the ice took a backseat for

01:09:35.000 Wayne. Hockey was his primary focus. And so when I came to New York, I realized that I

01:09:40.080 had to take that same philosophy in order to be successful here. And because of the

01:09:44.660 distractions that are obviously abundant in a city like this. And so my focus was purely

01:09:51.680 on hockey and everything else that came along with it would take a secondary role if I was

01:09:57.540 able to do it. And that sustained me well. And don't get me wrong. We had as much fun as

01:10:03.060 anybody that's ever played in this city. But, and for myself personally, my main focus was

01:10:08.200 from seven to 10 at night playing that game and making sure I was at the best of my ability to do

01:10:13.380 it. And I think that's one of the reasons why I was able to perform here with arguably one of the

01:10:18.800 toughest cities to play in because of the distractions. That just made it more fun for

01:10:23.820 me, more challenging and all the things of being able to juggle that. And that's kind of the

01:10:28.660 juice that I was looking for as a 30-year-old coming off five Stanley Cups in seven years and

01:10:33.800 feeling pretty good about my own game and excited about to live in the city and try to be a part of

01:10:40.520 a team that conquered at that time a 50-year drought or a 51-year drought.

01:10:44.980 What was it like when you showed up for training camp in 92, 93? Was it 91, 92, I guess your first

01:10:50.820 year?

01:10:51.060 Well, I missed training camp because I didn't get signed until after the training camp had finished.

01:10:55.800 I actually met the team in Montreal when the season was just getting going.

01:11:01.940 And how were you received? Was it just incredible excitement on the part of the players or was

01:11:05.600 there a bit of trepidation?

01:11:07.160 I'm probably not the one to ask that, but I was excited. So I think the players were excited.

01:11:14.140 I hope they were. I think they were. I remember the Rangers hadn't won in Montreal in a lot of

01:11:19.300 years and we ended up winning that game and it just seemed to start unfolding. I think that year

01:11:26.460 we won the President's Trophy. We missed the playoffs the next year and won the Stanley Cup

01:11:30.140 the third year. So I rode this huge roller coaster of emotions through three years and saw the great

01:11:36.160 side of New York all the way down to the depths of missing the playoffs and the coaches getting fired

01:11:41.320 and taking the blame for the whole debacle and then all of a sudden rising up the third year to

01:11:47.200 winning a Stanley Cup. It was an amazing roller coaster and maybe one of the reasons why it made

01:11:50.760 the experience so much more powerful is that I was able to see both the good and the bad of an

01:11:56.260 athlete in New York and it wasn't easy when we didn't play well.

01:11:59.880 Well, let's start with the bad. So 92, 93, you guys don't make the playoffs. What is that like

01:12:06.740 compared to other pain you can experience as an athlete? For example, the year you guys get swept

01:12:13.620 by the Islanders or the year you guys lose to the Flames? How does it compare to say you don't make

01:12:18.440 the playoffs in this city? Well, I think the year that we won the President's Trophy, it gave me

01:12:22.700 enough time to realize the importance of the Rangers in this community and the generations of fans that

01:12:28.560 have supported this franchise for so long. And so by the second year, I was fully aware of the

01:12:34.280 impact that the Rangers have in this town, in this area. And then to go from the disappointing

01:12:42.120 playoffs, obviously, and failing again, which always seemed to happen to the Rangers, but having

01:12:48.380 a great regular season. So that was kind of like a little bit of a trade-off to the next year, just

01:12:53.300 not having a good year. And what do you think was wrong that year? We had injuries. There was a lot

01:12:57.980 of things that happened that didn't allow us to play as well as we should have. But anyways, I got to see

01:13:05.780 the other side of the city and the pressures that can go against an athlete that's expected to bring

01:13:13.720 a championship. Luckily, I guess I had enough experience to absorb it and articulate it in my

01:13:20.300 own mind and take the responsibility and then have enough support around me to help get through it and

01:13:27.080 then make the right decisions, obviously, the next year in order to allow us to get to the Stanley Cup.

01:13:33.160 Before you get to the Stanley Cup, you got to get through your arch nemesis, the New Jersey Devils.

01:13:37.880 Well, we beat the Islanders and the Devils that year. So it was a good hockey in this area,

01:13:42.220 in the metro area there. So we started off with the Islanders and played Washington in the,

01:13:47.880 obviously, the great series against the Devils.

01:13:50.140 Let's talk about that end of that series. So you're down three games to two, correct?

01:13:54.080 Correct. You now have to win the next two games. And you make this bold promise, right?

01:13:59.880 So you sort of follow in the lineage of Babe Ruth and Joe Namath.

01:14:05.580 Wasn't thinking about that long at the time.

01:14:07.940 I mean, did it occur to you what you were saying and how boldly you were declaring it?

01:14:11.520 It only occurred to me what I was saying because I was trying to, as a captain,

01:14:15.680 you're always monitoring your team's confidence level every day, not only during the playoffs,

01:14:20.600 but every day you walk into the room, your spider senses are up and you're just gauging

01:14:24.860 everybody's emotional state, good, bad, or indifferent. In that particular time,

01:14:30.040 I was just trying to instill a confidence in the players. And our routine on that day

01:14:36.020 was to kind of get on a bus and go gather on a bus and go to New Jersey, have a pregame skate

01:14:41.880 in the morning, have lunch, have a rest, and then go back to the, so I knew everybody would be

01:14:45.700 on the bus reading the morning papers because we had done it all year long. So I said, well,

01:14:50.660 what a great idea to let the guys know that I believe we can win this. I wasn't even thinking

01:14:55.740 about that it would be splashed across the papers. It was only supposed to be for our 20 guys on the

01:15:01.640 bus. It wasn't supposed to be for 12 million New Yorkers and certainly the New Jersey Devils.

01:15:08.700 But that particular point, it didn't really matter to me. I mean, you do anything you can to swing the

01:15:15.240 momentum back into your favor. And that's what I was trying to do is instill the confidence that

01:15:20.920 we had displayed all year is that we could go in there and win game six. We had done it numerous

01:15:25.400 times. It wasn't like we couldn't do it. We had to figure out a way to play better. We had to figure

01:15:29.980 out a way to stop the momentum of the Devils. And that's where the inspiration came from.

01:15:35.560 So going into game seven, how do you feel? Well, we feel good. We feel good about winning

01:15:41.060 game six. We feel good about going home for game seven. It's been a friendly place for us all year

01:15:45.920 long. We love playing in front of our home fans. There's nothing not to like about our position

01:15:50.960 going into game seven other than the Devils are a great hockey team and could play a spoiler very

01:15:56.520 easily, which was terrifying. We knew in order to win game seven, we were going to have to earn it.

01:16:02.400 They weren't going to roll over. They felt that they could win the game just as much as we did.

01:16:07.580 And ultimately is one of the best series I've probably ever played in.

01:16:11.780 Was it game seven that you got the hat trick?

01:16:13.640 Game six.

01:16:14.180 It was game six that you got the hat trick to win the game, to come back.

01:16:17.520 What was the score of game seven?

01:16:19.780 Two, three, two, two, one. One goal, the great Matil goal in overtime.

01:16:25.020 Yeah. So now you're back in the Stanley Cup finals. Before we get to that, I want to go back

01:16:31.620 to something you said a moment ago, because it honestly, like the way you articulated it,

01:16:36.100 I've heard great CEOs say the same thing, right? Which is the job of a great CEO is to monitor the

01:16:44.080 confidence of the team, is to boost morale, is to provide leadership in a meaningful way,

01:16:49.860 not just a sort of hollow way. I want to kind of understand how, how these things developed in

01:16:56.620 you. Like when did it become apparent to you that like what you did mattered more than just

01:17:04.260 how you played on the ice, what you said mattered, how you spoke in the locker room mattered. Like

01:17:09.220 what was the evolution of that from a 17 year old punk who can't even get to the right airport

01:17:14.720 to the guy who on the eve of game six is calling a shot heard around the world that guaranteeing

01:17:23.720 victory? Yeah, good question. I think it really stems back when I was all the lessons that I had

01:17:31.260 from a father who was a hockey player, who was a team player, who was a tough defenseman who protected

01:17:36.240 his teammates and knew the value of a team in every sense for protection, for success, for

01:17:44.960 individual accomplishments. He really understood what it meant to be a team player. Then I'm a stick

01:17:51.520 boy for my brother's junior team when I'm 14 years old, actually 12 to 14, and got to see my dad coach

01:17:58.600 and how he treated his players and how he talked to his players and how he motivated the team and how he

01:18:04.520 brought the team together and how he made everybody feel comfortable and accountable and important

01:18:09.040 and valued. You just see the power of what a team can do when they are completely synced and linked

01:18:17.520 together without ego and without all the things that can undermine any team in any sport. And then get to

01:18:26.720 a professional level as a young guy, just trying to get my own footing as a professional, but still

01:18:31.680 seeing and understanding all the things that I've learned all along the way and then seeing it play

01:18:36.620 out in different formats, sometimes positively and sometimes very negatively. And so you start to

01:18:43.560 realize that, geez, some of the things that you know are actually really good and smart and healthy

01:18:48.520 and productive and this thing and the way that this is happening is very toxic and detrimental and not

01:18:58.320 good for anybody. And so you just start kind of, like I said earlier, you just start building the confidence

01:19:03.460 of what you're doing, not only as an individual, but what you're trying to do as a team and how you're

01:19:09.860 carrying yourself on the team and the decisions that you're making for the team as an individual. And it just

01:19:16.540 starts to come together. And then you start to see other players and other great leaders and hear about other

01:19:21.560 great events and, and it just starts to accumulate over time until you're finally put in the position

01:19:28.500 to have to pull the lever on some of the things that you've learned at critical times and having the

01:19:36.000 confidence that it's the right thing to do. And, and I think, you know, with any great leader will tell

01:19:42.880 you there that they, no great leader is, is mistake free. Every leader makes mistakes, but it's the

01:19:48.720 equity that you've built up into the people that you are around that will forgive you for making an

01:19:55.720 honest mistake that just didn't work out well. It was a calculated decision. It didn't work out, but

01:20:01.020 the players or the people aren't going to abandon you because of that mistake. They trust you. It was a

01:20:08.640 bad decision, didn't work out, but they still trust your vision and, and how you can get there. And so

01:20:13.480 that's where kind of all evolved into some seminal moments in my own career as a captain in the 1990

01:20:21.280 Stanley cup run all the way into through New York until we're able to win the Stanley cup with a

01:20:27.260 bunch of great character, talented kids here in New York city. You've obviously talked about the role

01:20:32.700 that your dad had, that Wayne had, and probably some of the other guys you played with in Edmonton.

01:20:37.860 How much of this was modeled for you by people, not on your team. Were you able to look at opposing

01:20:44.720 players and see some of these characteristics that would ultimately come to define your leadership?

01:20:49.460 No question, both positively and negatively. We would watch other teams and good teams be fighting

01:20:54.620 with each other on the bench and yelling at each other on the ice. As a leader on the opposing team,

01:21:00.700 I'm using that as a galvanizing force for our players to say, look at these guys. They don't even

01:21:06.500 like each other. They don't even win. I'm using every, any tool I can to convince our guys that we

01:21:11.220 can win no matter what it is. And so if I see a weak link like that, that's going to, we're going

01:21:15.420 to expose that. Anything, because it gets down to such small detail when two teams are so evenly

01:21:21.120 matched, the smallest things matter. And you're always looking for that little bit of evidence,

01:21:26.480 that little bit of self doubt on the other team or any kind of pressure cracks that are starting to

01:21:33.140 happen and to use that for your own team to expose that. There's so many things that go along. And so

01:21:39.600 you're really start as you get older and you're in a different position of leadership, you're looking

01:21:44.240 for, to play the game within the game. And that's oftentimes where, you know, series and Stanley

01:21:50.380 Cups are won and lost. If you can win the, the war of not only attrition, but also the,

01:21:56.340 the mental war that goes on against another team of all the players you played against, but never

01:22:02.860 with. So I know you played against Gretzky, but let's discount Gretzky and Curry who you played

01:22:08.040 against eventually, but because you played with them, but of guys that you only played against,

01:22:12.000 who did you respect the most first as a player, but also as a leader? And you can think of those

01:22:18.100 separately. You know, I was looking at, looking at the other day with my son, my younger son

01:22:23.540 about, there was a wall somewhere of all the names. And I, and I looked at it and I was going,

01:22:29.720 I played against every one of these players and go, and it went back to some of these guys that

01:22:33.140 were playing in the sixties that were still playing. We're still playing at the end of,

01:22:36.520 at the end of their career, at the beginning of yours. Yeah. And then to evolve over four decades.

01:22:41.460 So you can imagine the amount of players that I played against and with over,

01:22:44.880 over 26, 26 years pro, you know, just off the top of my head, I just had so much respect before I

01:22:52.520 was just as a kid with Bobby Orr. He was my favorite player. I loved the way Bobby played. I

01:22:57.920 loved everything about him. I loved the way he dressed. I loved the way he's, he looked in his

01:23:02.560 equipment. So I had a lot of respect for him. I had a lot of respect for Gretzky. When did you first

01:23:06.700 meet Bobby Orr, by the way? Not till much later when I was already a pro. I didn't get a chance to meet

01:23:12.540 Bobby as a young guy at all. I got a funny story for you. So when I was a kid, I had a Bobby Orr

01:23:17.840 signed hockey stick on my wall and it was like, you know, one of my prized possessions. I had your

01:23:23.300 autograph. I had Gretzky's autograph, Curry, Fear. Like I had half the Oilers posters and stuff

01:23:29.940 autographed and I had this Bobby Orr hockey stick autographed. As you know, being a good Canadian kid,

01:23:37.120 all you're doing is playing ice hockey and street hockey every day. And so sure enough,

01:23:40.800 I'm out there one day and we're playing street hockey after school and I break my stick and I

01:23:46.760 don't have another stick to play. And you know what I did? It's like the worst thing I've ever done in

01:23:50.840 my life. I go into my bedroom. I take that Bobby Orr stick, which is way too big for me. I go and get

01:23:56.580 a saw. I cut the top of it off, which is the part he'd signed. And I go back out and I just start

01:24:01.820 playing with it. And all I've got left is the signed top end of a Bobby Orr stick. And my dad comes

01:24:08.520 home and somehow he had got me this stick, you know, somehow. I mean, he wasn't pissed at me,

01:24:13.080 but you could just tell he was sort of like, I don't think you're supposed to do that, son.

01:24:18.140 I mean, I was like, you know, I was probably like-

01:24:19.680 All for the love of the game.

01:24:20.600 10 years old. And I just can't, to this day, I still think, I cannot believe I saw that stick.

01:24:26.620 You just said Guilafleur as well. Now you did play against Guilafleur, of course.

01:24:30.100 I didn't play against Guilafleur, but I always remember the great series against Boston, that

01:24:35.800 rivalry. And when they had to go back to Boston and Mike Milbury said he wouldn't get out of

01:24:42.020 there alive. And the story goes that Guilafleur was at the Boston Gardens at two in the afternoon

01:24:48.920 in full equipment, smoking cigarettes and went out and scored a hat trick. When I heard that

01:24:55.440 story, I said, wow, because I know what it was like going into the Boston Garden. So I can really

01:25:00.540 appreciate performing under that kind of pressure back then, but loved the way he played. But there's

01:25:06.400 so many players that I played against that were, ended up being not only great leaders, but great

01:25:11.580 players, great people off the ice, great in their communities. And that's one of the, I think,

01:25:16.860 the assets of our game is really the people, not only as players, but what they've been able to do

01:25:21.660 off the ice as well. I always felt like Eric Lindros was a player that never fully reached

01:25:28.220 his potential. He was just always getting, you know, something about his style of play that lent

01:25:33.220 itself to just him getting hurt too many times. Yeah, it's health and it's not only injuries,

01:25:38.620 but just health in so many different ways that allow a player to do what you're talking about and

01:25:44.580 have an extended career. I think when Eric played 12 years or when he first came in the league,

01:25:49.560 looked like he could play until he was a hundred. Well, do you remember before, so the year he was

01:25:53.780 playing for the Oshawa Generals and he was going to get drafted and it was really clear Quebec was 0.71

01:25:58.720 going to draft him. I mean, this was non-negotiable and he kept signaling guys, I'm not playing for

01:26:03.760 Quebec. So don't bother drafting me, trade me, trade me, trade me, but they don't. But I think

01:26:08.000 Sports Illustrated came out with an article that said, this kid is Lemieux, Gretzky and Messier

01:26:15.840 melded into one. And I remember thinking, guys, are you freaking kidding me? Like how much pressure

01:26:21.900 could you put on a kid? Like taking the three greatest players in the NHL and telling me that

01:26:26.460 this kid in junior A is going to be the next him. And I grew up in Toronto. So a lot of the kids I

01:26:30.260 went to school with actually played with Eric during like the junior, junior, like MTHL, you know,

01:26:35.360 AAA, like through probably fourth grade before Eric really started to leapfrog ahead. So you knew he was

01:26:40.720 great. There was no question, but I thought that was like, that was a bit much pressure to put on

01:26:45.900 a kid. I thought. Yeah, I think so too. You know, he was, career got cut short. The fact about the

01:26:52.880 NHL, there's a lot of great players. There's a lot of great players and to elevate your self to

01:26:59.620 the likes of Lemieux and Gretzky, those are pretty lofty standards. Well, and as you said, there's the

01:27:05.120 longevity thing. I mean, I still can't believe you played 25 years. Like, in fact, I got to be honest

01:27:09.400 with you. I never had done the math until I was preparing for us to sit down and talk today. Like,

01:27:14.740 it was really on the last couple of weeks that I did that actual math because I just didn't realize

01:27:19.700 it was that long. In fact, I forgot that Gretzky had played a full 20 years. Like, that just doesn't

01:27:26.700 make sense in a sport like hockey. Like, that's the exception, not the rule. You really, and especially

01:27:32.540 the way you played because you played such a physical game. I mean, what's the worst injury you've

01:27:38.500 sustained? I got so lucky. I had both knees, ligaments, stretch, MCLs probably four times in

01:27:46.740 each knee. I had arthroscopic surgery on my shoulder towards my second last year. How many concussions

01:27:53.540 did you have? Hard to count. Yeah, they just don't really keep track of them the same way. They just

01:27:56.780 keep track of multiple concussions, but didn't really keep track. And back then you made sure

01:28:04.440 you woke your roommate up a couple of times. If you did get a bump in the head, make sure he woke up.

01:28:10.680 You know, we just didn't know. We just didn't have the knowledge of what concussions were and the

01:28:18.020 impact that they had. So it was completely different back then. What was the hardest part

01:28:22.200 about retiring? For me, I didn't really have a hard time retiring, if you can believe it.

01:28:28.620 Just so like I'd recognize it was kind of finished in Edmonton. I kind of recognized that,

01:28:35.920 well, it's funny. I asked my trainer, I said, okay, if I train every day, am I going to be able, at 44,

01:28:43.340 am I going to be able to compete with the younger guys on that kind of level? And he goes,

01:28:49.660 no, because you're going to need more work to rest.

01:28:52.600 Yep. Your recovery is just not going to be the same.

01:28:53.960 My recovery is just not there. So every time I work out, I need three days of rest or whatever

01:28:59.160 it is. And so it's diminishing returns over 82 games.

01:29:02.340 But do you ever think, like imagine there's a model, I've often thought about this and it's,

01:29:05.740 you know, you have to change the economics of the sport, but it's like you take a guy like you 0.60

01:29:12.000 who's now in his early forties and you say, look, we're going to reduce the amount you're getting paid,

01:29:16.060 but you're only going to pay it, play every third game. You know, could a roster support that?

01:29:20.520 Because in many ways, what you're bringing from a leadership and an experience and an intelligence

01:29:26.820 standpoint is not going down. It's only going up, but you just, as you said, you don't have the reps

01:29:33.040 in you. You can't practice and play with 22 year olds. Yeah. I personally probably wouldn't have

01:29:39.560 liked that. I mean, I love playing every day. I love being in the pit. I love being in the trenches.

01:29:44.100 That wouldn't have worked for me. You couldn't have sat on the bench for two out of every three

01:29:48.540 games. I just don't think you have the equity with the players. I think you, you, you can do

01:29:54.460 that and be a great resource and you can actually play and it would be for some people. But I think

01:30:01.220 to be in a big leadership role, I think one of the parts of being in a leadership role is being,

01:30:06.840 is actually, you got to hurt with everybody example and being in those tough skates and being those

01:30:12.240 tough, it's not the worst philosophy. And so I just knew that if I couldn't do that, then what

01:30:18.180 else do I have left to play for? I didn't want to play for money. I didn't want to play for

01:30:23.500 anything. I didn't care if I was eight games behind Gordie Howe. It didn't mean anything to me.

01:30:28.980 Yeah. That's, that was another stat that I had totally forgotten, which was, so you retire as

01:30:37.700 the second leading scorer of all time. So, you know, somehow these two little kids that showed

01:30:44.200 up from the WHA. No, I was, I retired as a leading scorer of mere mortals.

01:30:50.060 That's the way. That's right, right. Yeah. You had a leading scorer of all time.

01:30:55.320 He doesn't count. He doesn't count. He's way easier. So I was, when I retired now, I'm,

01:31:00.000 I'm third of the mere mortals that played the game.

01:31:03.060 But what's amazing is what you just alluded to a second ago. You were only what? Eight games

01:31:07.320 behind Gordie Howe for basic.

01:31:09.000 Yeah. And everybody said, play another year, play another year. You're only eight games behind

01:31:12.980 Gordie Howe. I said, I never played the game ever.

01:31:15.260 You never played for a record.

01:31:16.680 Never played for a stat. Never played for any kind of goal record, any kind of assist record,

01:31:21.600 any kind of a game record. I never played for any of that. It wasn't even on my radar. When

01:31:25.940 I first came in the league, I was just trying to make the NHL. I never thought I would even

01:31:29.580 be in a position to hold any record. And so I, it wasn't even in my DNA as a player to,

01:31:37.280 to even consider something like that. And all the things that came along were just by coincidence

01:31:42.140 of playing a certain amount of time, but feeling a part of the, of the whole journey with the team.

01:31:48.580 And so to, to come back and play on a promotional tour, to be Gordie Howe, I mean, what was that

01:31:53.680 going to define me with it? It didn't mean anything to me.

01:31:56.180 That's telling though, Mark. I mean, I think there are a lot of players who would have come

01:31:59.760 back for another year or half a year, or as you said, kind of just the record tour. I think a lot

01:32:05.440 of people would. And, but, but I think in some ways, I think the fact that you didn't, the fact

01:32:09.820 that you, you finish eight games behind one of the most storied records in sports says more than

01:32:16.180 if you had the record. Maybe, you know, I guess that's for other people to decide. For, for me, I,

01:32:21.800 you know, I was so focusing on being a team player and trying to win a Stanley cup every year. So that

01:32:28.440 was the only thing that kind of motivated me and finding that whole chemistry within a different

01:32:35.380 team every year. And, and it all came in different ways and different teams were motivated for

01:32:40.240 different reasons, but finding that motivating galvanizing factor every year that we could all

01:32:46.080 rally around was the juice that kept me playing for 25 years.

01:32:50.120 If a young player comes up to you today and says, I'm starting my career. I mean, was there a moment

01:32:55.720 when you were just so nervous that you, you know, going into a game or going into a series or going

01:33:01.300 into a tryout or something and you actually had to will yourself off the ledge? Cause obviously

01:33:08.120 stress and anxiety and nerves are very positive thing. I mean, you can totally harness those things,

01:33:13.660 but when they go too far, they can be crippling. Do you recall a time when you actually were on that

01:33:20.380 edge and you had to pull yourself back from the sort of destructive to the constructive utilization of

01:33:26.340 that force? Oh, that's, that's such a great point. And the fear factor of failure is always

01:33:31.560 evident. You know, we were terrified of losing in Edmonton all the time. As good as we looked

01:33:38.020 from the outside, I can only imagine inside that we were terrified of not losing and probably more

01:33:43.700 terrified of underachieving, which is worse than anything is being an underachiever. So how do you

01:33:50.660 get yourself that you're able to be ready enough and relax enough to be able to execute in the most

01:33:59.080 important situations? And I think it really gets back to what we talked about earlier is,

01:34:04.120 you know, your preparation, trusting in the preparation, trusting in the evolution of the

01:34:09.800 team over the course of the season and repetitive scenarios there that you know you can do and you

01:34:16.460 can trust yourself and you got trust in your teammates that they're going to be in the right position

01:34:19.660 because it's this whole choreographed ballet that's happening on the ice at 40 miles an hour with

01:34:25.620 24 switchblades traveling 60 miles an hour and dangerous and but everybody's got to be in the right

01:34:32.140 position at the right time in order to make that cohesive systems work. So I've felt it myself but when

01:34:39.240 you do fail there and because you're not always going to play your best when the chips are on the

01:34:43.080 line, you are going to fail, you're already going to make mistakes, you are going to be the guy that

01:34:47.380 gives the puck away to lose the game and just being able to be strong enough to have an unwavering

01:34:56.240 self-belief in who you are and what you're trying to achieve and a lot of that comes from the

01:35:00.940 preparation and the commitment that you put into the game. So there's been a lot of questionable

01:35:06.300 moments along the 26 years where you doubt yourself and I remember standing on my first Stanley Cup final

01:35:13.140 along the blue line in Edmonton and being so amped up that when the anthem finished my whole right

01:35:21.780 side of my eye got blurry and I played about 20 seconds of the first shift and then went off to

01:35:26.880 the dressing room I had to lay on the training room table for five minutes in order to just get vision

01:35:32.000 back. Whatever happened just way too amped up, way too ready to go, way too excited and that was a great

01:35:40.880 lesson as well because when I looked over at the Highlanders they were just kind of in a nice groove

01:35:45.300 and a nice relaxed state and so how do you marry that with too much and not enough and that perfect

01:35:52.500 sublime state and then of course a lot of philosophy and some other things that I worked on in my

01:36:00.020 career from a self-awareness standpoint and things like that. Say a bit more about that, you live a

01:36:06.940 different life than most people can relate to, right? I mean most people finish high school,

01:36:11.260 get a job or go to college or do whatever but you were sort of thrust into a limelight from a very

01:36:17.820 young age. You had to make a bunch of mistakes in front of a bunch of people and before you know it

01:36:23.320 you're sort of 44 years old or whatever you were at 43 when you retired. I want to talk a little bit

01:36:29.960 more about retirement and the next phase of your life but I want to know a little bit about how you

01:36:35.120 like what kind of introspection and self-reflection were you able to do as an athlete or was that

01:36:41.060 mostly something that came after? No, I think it was an evolution all the way through. I became

01:36:46.820 curious why to start with why Wayne was the best hockey player in the world and so I started watching

01:36:53.120 him. I started watching him in practice and his practice habits and what he did in practice to

01:36:57.900 become a better player and how he was able to saucer the puck on his forehand and backhand and where he

01:37:03.040 would go in certain situations and all that and then I so if you're curious enough there's a lot

01:37:07.980 of answers out there of how to become a better player both physically and emotionally and tactically

01:37:13.800 and all the things that you would think. Because you don't rep your the way you represent yourself

01:37:17.380 you're just an average guy right like you're not a guy that had this god-given gift. Now of course

01:37:22.560 you obviously have great natural athletic talent but you're this guy who as you tell the story

01:37:29.060 no one could have predicted on your first day in the NHL you are going to be the second leading

01:37:35.580 score of all time or the first amongst mortals. Whereas in the case of Gretzky if someone said

01:37:43.640 that on day one it was believable. It was more evidence and that's why it's so amazing that you

01:37:48.620 are patient with and there's certain things that you look for in athletes of any sport not necessarily

01:37:54.720 when they're younger but and how they can change and evolve. So there would have been no evidence up

01:38:00.440 until I even turned pro that that would have happened. So I think that yes you are given god-given

01:38:06.700 talent it has to be nurtured and and honed and then you have to be willing to absorb a lot of

01:38:15.200 information in order to become a good pro and a good teammate and then you know how to elevate your own

01:38:20.740 game from a fourth line fighter to a second line left winger to a second line centerman to a first

01:38:28.380 line centerman through the course of a career right like but yeah so I think curiosity won and I felt

01:38:34.780 that there was a way that I didn't believe in the zone. Say more about that. I didn't believe in that

01:38:41.160 it was just by chance that a guy would have a good game. You would hear these people talking about

01:38:46.120 wow it's really in the zone tonight. I don't know why. I don't know what happened. Couldn't feel my

01:38:52.240 legs. I could skate all day. Never got tired. The goal looked like a soccer net. You know didn't feel

01:38:59.020 like anybody else's on you know. And you never once felt that. I felt it but I didn't think it was just

01:39:04.340 because it just was a chance. You didn't think it was just a chance. You think that's the result.

01:39:07.320 Something happened along the way in order for that to manifest itself at that particular time.

01:39:13.340 So I started asking questions about you know okay well what is that? I mean what is there's a there's

01:39:19.080 a bigger. So what is your take? What is your take? Well I think it's a level of concentration that

01:39:25.060 doesn't get discovered. You know it's a whole nother it's another whole nother podcast but

01:39:29.480 I just think it's a it's a deep level of concentration that you're not even aware of

01:39:35.400 that's mixed with preparation that's with mixed with belief that's mixed with repetition

01:39:42.800 of the skill. All that comes together at a certain time and I think that in to just very quickly I

01:39:52.100 just think that in a in a professional world there's a lot of external things that go on outside the game

01:39:59.000 that can be conflicting and be distracting and take away energies from you not only physically but

01:40:06.800 also emotionally. And if in a perfect world you have everything in your personal life in complete

01:40:13.460 order you have one thing to think about on a big game like a game seven or whatever it is.

01:40:20.760 So when you guys were like literally these 23 year old kids in this town called Edmonton

01:40:27.260 do you think you were able to take it more seriously as a combination of things? One

01:40:33.020 it's not New York City right so you're not or Montreal or Toronto where the pressure is

01:40:38.380 unbelievable. Well it was unbelievable in Edmonton too but. Almost a result of how well you how much

01:40:43.900 potential you guys brought to it. And then secondly you have this thing around Gretzky which is you all

01:40:49.800 figure out very quickly you are in the presence of greatness and this is a once in a lifetime

01:40:56.160 opportunity. You're a piece of history in many ways. Do you think that somehow that all galvanized

01:41:01.640 to produce this environment you're describing which is you could focus so much on your on

01:41:07.180 honing your craft at an at a time when it could have been easy to have put 80 percent of that effort

01:41:12.960 in but 20 percent of that could have been put elsewhere? I think again it doesn't just happen

01:41:17.980 overnight. I think this is something that if you're interested in it takes a long time to get

01:41:23.820 there and I think that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered along the way of

01:41:28.460 anyone's career. You know why am I here? What am I here for? You know what are my intentions? What is

01:41:35.160 the end game? How am I being perceived by my teammates? How is the sporting hockey world perceive me? What am I

01:41:43.060 doing off the ice to be a good citizen? What am I doing to contribute to the community? That doesn't

01:41:49.440 happen when you're 18 years old. That doesn't happen when you're 20 years old. That happens over a

01:41:55.720 duration of period as you evolve as a person. So for me when I came to New York I was 30 years old

01:42:01.580 and I had a lot of time for introspection to think about you know what I was needed to do in order to

01:42:08.100 be successful as a player and all that. Maybe if I came here at 22 it wouldn't have been the same

01:42:14.020 result because I wasn't ready for it or mature enough to handle the external things around the city.

01:42:20.080 Who knows? I just look at it. It's an evolution of anyone's. I think that the sport has to mirror the

01:42:29.360 maturity of anyone's and if those two things kind of keep going on a parallel track then you get into

01:42:37.000 players like Tom Brady and players that are redefining their sport and doing things that are

01:42:43.880 considered unattainable whether you're playing into your 40s and still you know you're right you

01:42:51.280 know as quarterback or you know I'm just using him as an example but I think if you asked him

01:42:55.400 his own trajectory of when he first came out and got thrown in. Well I think there's something else

01:43:02.040 about I don't know Tom Brady but I would infer from the outside that there's something about Tom

01:43:07.200 that's very similar to what you said earlier which is I don't get the impression he's playing for

01:43:12.060 another Super Bowl ring. Of course he wants to win another Super Bowl ring but that's not the reason

01:43:17.200 he's playing. I get the sense he's playing because he believes he can continue to perfect his craft

01:43:22.160 and I suspect that that's what the greatest of them all. The winning is the end net result. It's the way

01:43:28.060 you can measure that. It's the way you can measure it and of course you know every time you come to

01:43:33.140 training camp you want to win but I don't think you can just say you want to win. I think there's

01:43:36.940 certain things especially at his age that he needs to do in order to be put himself in position to

01:43:41.900 be efficient enough at that position in order to take his team to another and so I think that's

01:43:48.040 where that whole thing I'm talking about where sport and life finally come together at a certain

01:43:54.300 age and they parallel the tracks where you become more evolved as a person which only helps you in

01:44:00.780 your sport because you have a better understanding of who you are as a person and all the things that

01:44:05.320 it takes to be successful from a physical standpoint and the training and then the involvement of the

01:44:11.220 knowledge of the game and the experiences that you had so it's it's it's quite remarkable and it's

01:44:16.680 one of the things that I'm sure he would tell you because I can say for myself is one of the things

01:44:21.000 that keeps you in the game at that later stage of the year is is honing that walking on that razor's

01:44:27.980 edge that very few people have done and to try to do something that has never been done before.

01:44:34.320 You look like you're still in great shape. What do you do today for exercise? How do you stay in shape?

01:44:39.240 A little bit of everything. Obviously weightlifting is a important cardio and I can get cardio from

01:44:45.580 many different uh I was never a runner but I ran the New York City Marathon back I guess 2011

01:44:51.720 10-year anniversary of 9-11. Are you deliberate about it or sometimes professional athletes when

01:44:58.480 they're done they're done with structure they've spent their whole lives being very structured in

01:45:03.820 doing this doing this being here at this time being in this training camp being you know eating

01:45:09.040 this way doing this doing that and then when they're done it's like look I'm gonna work out

01:45:13.720 but I don't want to program I just want to do what I feel like doing I mean where are you sort of on

01:45:18.660 that spectrum? Yeah I'd say that shortly after I retired I was doing some other stuff and I I kept

01:45:24.020 waiting for that because I used to give myself three hours to work out when I was training you know

01:45:29.240 it'd take me a minute to get in the gym and it'd take me you know 10-15 minutes to get myself with

01:45:33.900 a deep enough concentration to be able to actually put the work into that I wouldn't that would need

01:45:39.660 I didn't need three hours to actually physically work out but I to get myself mentally ready to work

01:45:43.720 out and then when I retired I kept waiting for that three hour window to come along and never came

01:45:48.140 along never came along because of the kids and all that kind of stuff so I'm kind of uh pretty

01:45:53.900 elusive but what I did find though is that I feel better when I work out I physically feel more

01:45:58.800 awake I feel more alive I feel more energized more energy fresher and I guess it's a probably a net

01:46:05.620 result of doing it for so many years that your body just becomes accustomed to it and you feel

01:46:09.500 sharper so you know when I did retire I wouldn't work out all the time and it became apparent to me

01:46:15.600 that I actually feel better when I when I get some kind of work in it doesn't have to be anything

01:46:19.460 like I did when I was in the three hours in the gym and all that but if it's a 20 minute cardio or

01:46:24.240 if it's a anything a yoga session or so I'm kind of resigned to the fact that if anybody's doing

01:46:30.640 anything I'll kind of jump in on it and try it and obviously got a little bit of a routine to

01:46:35.700 three four days a week but I'll try anything do anything and just to kind of keep the body moving

01:46:40.740 how often do you get back on skates playing some charity events every once in a while I'm on the ice

01:46:47.140 quite a bit because I coach my son's team so I'm on the ice I use actually a friend's rink up in

01:46:52.800 wire mill Paul Orlin the great guy he's got a little private rink there so I go there and just do

01:46:57.420 some cardio you'll just get out there and skate I'll just get up there and just do skating exercises

01:47:03.360 because it's just so good for your core and for your and you don't have the impact and you don't

01:47:08.440 have the impact of running and all that and so it's just and it just so much development of your

01:47:12.860 core and your legs and all that so keep that strong how fast can you skate relative to your

01:47:18.300 28 year old self what percent well what you realize is that you have such massive leg power when

01:47:24.840 you're playing and when you stop that atrophies pretty quickly so if I had to say put a percentage

01:47:31.920 on it yeah like I'm curious as to how far you would fall in 20 years I would say I have 10% of what

01:47:37.240 I had wait wait 10% less no overall you're that far from where you were 20 years ago I would I would

01:47:44.840 say so but my guess is if you guys I'm still in good shape I can still skate but if you get back on

01:47:50.780 the ice with a bunch of 40 year old dudes I bet you skate circles around them right depends how much

01:47:56.160 they're skating I mean if I if I took six months and skated and started to develop some of the muscles

01:48:02.580 that you really need to skate and for your edging and all that yeah maybe but you know I'm 58 so

01:48:09.180 you know it's just atrophy unless you skate every day those muscles atrophy you know your growings and

01:48:16.080 your hip flexors and your quads and ham I mean that whole muscle group of of your legs and so that's

01:48:22.240 just straight away speed skating around circles what about the ability to change direction is that even

01:48:26.800 more lost is that even the harder loss because you instantly become fatigued because you don't have

01:48:31.660 the muscle power there so it's it's just it's amazing actually in fact it wasn't but it was

01:48:36.940 about two years after I retired and I put my equipment on to do something and it felt like I

01:48:43.560 didn't have my I felt like I felt like you were wearing someone else's equipment because my legs were

01:48:48.640 about twice the size and my pants fit different and all of a sudden my legs were in the pants that I

01:48:54.340 had retired with and it felt like they were just swimming on me just because of the atrophy what do you

01:48:59.660 weigh now weigh about 215 which is not that far from what you played at I played right there at

01:49:04.940 215 or so just distributed you think it's just distributed differently yeah you just don't have

01:49:09.320 the muscle mass you lose muscle mass just because of age but you also you lose muscle if you're not

01:49:13.740 using it well I mean you can just I mean it's amazing how much power it takes to play hockey

01:49:18.880 from a leg standpoint and a cardiovascular standpoint it's incredible and you you know when

01:49:25.740 you do it from the time you're a young boy to the time you're 40 something and you retire you don't

01:49:30.200 even think about it because it's all you get on the ice and not even think about it what does your son

01:49:34.920 think about hockey the one that you coach he's how old well line's 30 the older boy is 32 and he

01:49:40.180 coaches hockey he loves hockey it's he's made a career of coaching kids and up in the Washington

01:49:45.040 the little caps uh Douglas loves hockey he's 16 playing midget hockey and that's the one you coach

01:49:51.760 yeah yeah does he want to play pro I think you would love to play pro is it hard how do you feel

01:49:57.860 about letting him be his own guy oh I think he needs completely needs to go on that journey of

01:50:04.840 self-exploration to see what he can extract from himself does he ask you about it oh we talk often

01:50:11.160 about hockey I think he knows what's required even before whether or not you have the talent

01:50:19.200 it's an interesting journey for him to see where he can take it ultimately that will be defined by him

01:50:25.800 and not by me it's got to be interesting it's got to be a mixed bag of emotions for you to watch your

01:50:30.980 watch your kids play this game and know that you know I know enough about you to know that all you

01:50:37.440 really care about is you just want your kids to be happy you want your kids to sort of find their

01:50:40.780 own way and you want to stay out of their way enough but also be there enough to answer a

01:50:46.880 question and support him and it's just I think it's just harder when your dad is Mark Messier to

01:50:51.220 find that balance I mean your dad was such an important part of your development is it sort of

01:50:56.160 like you want to be able to provide exactly what your dad did no more no less is that sort of how

01:51:00.120 you know there's no question being a son of any professional player in any sport is going to come with

01:51:05.400 some baggage for the kids whether they feel it as they're expected to be a great player because

01:51:11.140 their dad was and and all the things that go along with it ultimately the reason why sports in my

01:51:16.820 opinion is such a great thing for all kids is that it does take you on that self journey of self

01:51:23.140 awareness and what you want to do and are you able to do and are you able to put the discipline in

01:51:27.500 the time in that's required to be the best you can be it doesn't matter how good everybody else is

01:51:34.780 what do you have and are you willing to extract every ounce of talent and work out of your own

01:51:41.940 body that ultimately no matter how far you take it will serve you well in wherever you land whether

01:51:50.280 it's in a sport or in business or whatever that kind of journey can only be beneficial for for all kids

01:51:56.160 and certainly for for my kids as well and i think there's something else about team sports which is

01:52:01.840 all the stuff you've alluded to around this type of leadership and the difference between you know

01:52:07.100 i always love that movie miracle because i thought it did such a great job of showing how at an

01:52:11.960 individual level that team was not nearly as talented as the soviets right but on that one moment in that

01:52:19.120 tournament everything that they had done under her brooks sort of came together and they outplayed the

01:52:24.980 best team on you know in the world as a team not as a collection of individuals and so much of what

01:52:31.480 you talk about is really you've repeatedly emphasized this importance of both leadership and team play

01:52:37.940 and the dynamics of the team and again i i think you've you've paid a lot of that tribute both to

01:52:43.220 your dad and to gretzky as being two great role models of that and many more but yeah there's there's a lot

01:52:49.800 of information out there for for any young uh aspiring sportsman sportswoman girl or boy no

01:52:57.740 matter what their dance music acting hockey baseball football whatever it is if you're interested

01:53:04.360 there's a lot to learn if you're interested tell me about the mark messier foundation what do you guys

01:53:09.680 do well when i first came to new york it was really important for me to entrench myself into the

01:53:16.100 community the first charity i ever got involved with was the alberta lung association when i first

01:53:20.260 became a pro in uh in edmonton and glenn say there our coach there really kind of emphasized that we

01:53:26.040 get out into the community and pick a charity and attach your name to it and help the alberta lung

01:53:31.500 association was an incredible learning experience for me because it was all about the babies that were

01:53:36.980 born premature and had unhealthy lungs and whatnot fast forward to coming to new york the inundation of

01:53:44.120 requests to get involved with some kind of charity in the city was overwhelming so i had to figure out

01:53:50.980 a charity to involve myself with and then help out as much as i could everywhere else and that became

01:53:57.280 the tomorrow's children fund at the hackensack medical university and years after retirement it

01:54:04.500 became apparent that i could start my own foundation and really kind of focus in on the things that

01:54:11.680 inspired me the most and that was giving back to and providing access and opportunity to kids that

01:54:17.340 didn't have the means to do it like hockey in the city so the mark messier foundation is basically

01:54:24.280 that it's about creating access and opportunity in different areas of kids lives or that they would

01:54:31.740 never have had the opportunity otherwise and for different circumstances whether it was financial or

01:54:37.780 infrastructure not available or scholastics or whatever and so that's what it focused on and

01:54:44.280 it spun out of the kingsbridge national ice project that we're trying to build here in the city that

01:54:48.680 that would provide a lot more access and opportunity to kids to play hockey in the metropolitan area here

01:54:54.500 with three nhl teams you you would think we could do a better job of creating more access for kids to

01:55:01.980 play a sport that's so much entrenched into this metropolitan area it's hard to imagine you not

01:55:07.680 living here isn't it you have so many tentacles in this in this new york area business wise philanthropy

01:55:13.520 wise family wise which is again i think it's for me i always think of you as being from edmonton which

01:55:19.700 of course you are from but you've probably lived almost as much of your life here as you have there

01:55:24.960 right yeah well that's close i came here when i was just 30 and i'm 58 now so it's been a you know i

01:55:31.320 i remember my first press conference saying i hope my second career is as good as my first

01:55:36.780 we weren't able to quite win as many championships here in new york but we were able to win the one

01:55:41.440 but my experience here in new york has been incredible i think the thing that really drew me

01:55:46.400 to come to new york was not only the challenge of breaking the 54 year old drought

01:55:50.660 of the stanley cup but also immersing myself into a city of this magnitude and and the culture and all

01:55:57.220 the things that go along with it that was very appealing to me and it didn't disappoint me in any

01:56:01.800 way i've can't tell you how much i've enjoyed my time as a player and in retirement in this area

01:56:10.320 and the people and the amount of experience that i've had with so many different types of people in

01:56:15.660 the city it's interesting i mean last thing i really want to talk about mark is this idea where

01:56:20.180 there just seem to be two types of athletes there are those who retire who can never sort of get

01:56:28.120 over the fact that they're not still 28 years old and that their glory is no longer going to be wed

01:56:34.620 to that and then there are another group of athletes who retire and move on and continue to like live

01:56:44.060 life to the fullest with respect to whatever the next chapters of their lives fit and i you're

01:56:49.760 obviously in the latter category i mean you know we could have a whole other podcast talking about

01:56:54.440 what you're doing in business today and all the things you're doing outside of hockey do you have

01:57:00.060 a sense of why you're able to make that transition and when it was time to say goodbye you said goodbye

01:57:06.580 and you know your identity doesn't have to be wrapped up in that and why others have such a difficult time

01:57:13.760 doing that what do you think defines that difference i think you just nailed it i think to put it very

01:57:18.440 quickly i think the thing is i didn't identify myself only as a hockey player i think that in

01:57:25.340 order and and for me to be able to do that i needed a good family around me and good people around you

01:57:31.280 to remind you that there's a lot more to life than hockey although it's a huge part of my life from the

01:57:37.300 time i was you know very young to the time i turned pro and this is one of the things that i had to

01:57:41.960 really focus in on when i was 18 because it requires all your attention to perform at your

01:57:47.480 highest level but it wasn't who i was as a person big difference and i think with good people around

01:57:55.400 you to remind you of what's possible outside the game you eventually realize that you do something

01:58:02.420 that you love and it's the most amazing time of your life but it's not going to define you

01:58:08.440 in the end and i think those two things became very apparent to me you know sometime in the middle

01:58:16.200 of my career where there's just more to this then playing hockey and that's where it became so apparent

01:58:23.220 that you are an important part of any community that you play in and there's other things that are

01:58:28.680 going on and the way you conduct yourself and how you give back and all the things that are so

01:58:32.500 important to a to a professional athlete in order for him to do and i think those are things that

01:58:38.720 really kind of separate you from the player and so when it's time to retire yeah i sure i miss the

01:58:45.080 game i love playing hockey there's nothing better than playing hockey and being a part of a team but

01:58:49.800 i was able to walk away because i had a new family and there was more to do in life in a different way

01:58:55.100 that alleviates that need to go to the rink every day and have your ego boosted because of

01:59:01.860 you're playing on a professional hockey team so i think that kind of really made it easy for me to

01:59:08.420 retire and to kind of go on to the next phase of my life when at 40 some years old now look at if i was

01:59:13.420 25 years old and forced to retire because of injury or something like that it would have been tough to

01:59:18.880 retire i no question no question so i'm only speaking for myself that i was i fulfilled

01:59:24.900 everything you know for you know 26 years pro 44 a young family in my own mind was there anything

01:59:31.780 left to prove you know from a hockey standpoint no was there is there a lot more to prove from a

01:59:36.900 philanthropic standpoint there's a lot more it's amazing mark do you still keep in touch with any

01:59:41.800 of the guys from edmonton i uh everybody everybody yeah we just had another reunion in edmonton not

01:59:47.880 long ago we had one here in new york and what's amazing about uh the city is that everybody seems to

01:59:52.660 come through here at one point during the year so being able to stay connected to a large portion

01:59:59.080 of the guys on a fairly regular basis is is quite easy i would love to be a fly on the wall for one

02:00:06.060 of those reunions literally just sitting up there in a rafter watching like the greatest hockey team

02:00:11.720 that ever laced up reminiscing about gosh what it's been now 30 to 35 years ago the 85 team was voted the

02:00:19.820 top team in the last 100 years and so we had a reunion for that team in edmonton not long ago

02:00:27.520 and it was remarkable actually to get that team together and see everybody that some of the guys

02:00:34.240 i hadn't seen a lot of the guys i had but just to be able to get to your point to get to get to the

02:00:38.700 room and and everybody uh sat in exact same seats on the bus on the way to the rink and it was it was

02:00:44.920 just did you guys get on the ice and skate we never did that would have been we should have done that

02:00:49.800 actually we should have had some kind of it just some came a game a quick pickup or something like

02:00:54.880 we should have done it was both andy and grant there you had two goalies yeah oh yeah oh the whole

02:00:59.700 team was there unbelievable it was amazing actually we should have done that i'll remember that for

02:01:04.260 the next one you know i i got to meet ronnie lott recently who was one of my favorite football

02:01:09.320 players ever growing up and we were you know after we're shooting the breeze for a bit i said you know

02:01:14.100 do you guys ever get together and play a game of pickup football you and montana rice and everybody

02:01:17.880 goes yeah yeah we did it actually kind of recently and i said what was it like and he goes it was

02:01:22.520 awful i mean i hurt for like three days after he's like you know jerry was the only one who was really

02:01:29.200 really in still an amazing shape which of course if you look at ronnie lott by the way he looks just

02:01:33.740 like you he is exact same weight that he played at so it's not like this guy got out of shape but

02:01:38.460 he's like look jerry was still sort of you know really in shape but but it's the same idea like to get

02:01:43.000 that 49ers team of the 80s together and the oilers of the 80s i mean i don't know there's something

02:01:48.180 there's something very special about those uh well i think it is i think the the connection is so strong

02:01:53.340 because you have such a deep respect for what you did together and the commitment that each

02:02:00.360 individual put forwards towards the common goal i think that's where the gratitude comes in do you

02:02:07.500 think that it's just impossible to ever reproduce that again in the sense that like

02:02:11.320 has money changed that i mean back in the 80s you guys just didn't get paid a fraction of what

02:02:17.960 players get today do you think that has changed the game in order to win you got to get there

02:02:22.240 somehow or another the team has a shorter window to do it to bring it all together but they have to

02:02:27.440 get there on an emotional level in order to win st louis did this year you know you look at them

02:02:32.720 just before christmas they weren't even in the playoffs yeah kind of an amazing turnaround amazing

02:02:37.720 turner but somehow or another they were able to emotionally connect on a much deeper level than

02:02:44.140 they had ever in the past and it's without that so yeah i think the principles of winning are the

02:02:51.720 same you got a much shorter window to do it it comes and goes for some organizations where they

02:02:57.220 don't quite get there but any team that actually wins will tell you there that the team connected

02:03:02.580 in a way that they didn't probably feel possible at some point prior notwithstanding that your kids

02:03:08.940 are still at a point where you don't want to be away from home but fast forward a few years your

02:03:12.760 kids are all in college or doing their own thing would you want to coach in the nhl it's hard to say

02:03:18.480 i obviously feel like i have a lot to offer any organization any team because of my experiences

02:03:26.300 that would lend itself well to any part of the organization coaching is something that i enjoy

02:03:33.660 and i don't think there's a big difference philosophy speaking coaching a 16 year old team than coaching

02:03:41.500 an nhl team because you do have to communicate the bench awareness the things that come have to

02:03:46.980 come naturally to someone that coaches and it doesn't come naturally to everybody it just doesn't

02:03:52.500 i recognize that i do have a a unique ability to coach and i think i get it from my father

02:03:59.280 and to communicate so it'll be interesting and see if that ever happens one day and the last question

02:04:05.400 sort of out of your purview but will toronto ever win the stanley i'm asking seriously like i do i do

02:04:12.940 think so you know the toughest part about our game is it's such a tough league but the good news is that

02:04:20.740 you can see a team like st louis bring it together in a short period of time i mean they obviously had

02:04:28.080 the pieces they couldn't have won if they didn't have the pieces in order to do it but somehow or

02:04:33.100 another they are able to galvanize which in a way that they hadn't previously and so when you look at

02:04:38.980 the turnarounds of teams that have gone on to to win the stanley cup in the last 10 years you know you

02:04:47.200 look at la you know when it's finishing eighth and winning the stanley cup the league is structured

02:04:52.380 now that every team has weaknesses there's no perfect team out there right now every team has

02:04:58.040 to decide where they're going to put their strengths and and absorb the weaknesses because of the salary

02:05:02.160 cap area and what it does is it lends itself to a very competitive environment where it's a tough

02:05:08.260 league and but it also gives a lot of teams a lot of hope that it can win and i think it's good for

02:05:14.460 the fans it's good for the league it's good for the players it's good for the organizations

02:05:17.780 it's going to be hard for someone to dominate perhaps like we did in the 80s or something like

02:05:22.960 that but to answer your question i believe uh the toronto maple leaves are going to with the nucleus

02:05:30.100 they have there right now they should be able to get it done and it's now probably longer than the

02:05:35.300 rangers drought because wasn't the leafs last cup in 67 67 so uh what are we working on now

02:05:42.740 yeah so you're that's long that's that's actually that is now longer than the rangers

02:05:47.640 four years is a long time long long long time but i love the leafs no i guess it's not quite

02:05:55.540 there yet another couple years but i think it's funny growing up in toronto i never liked the

02:05:59.520 leafs because i just think the sort of that harold ballard era was so bad and i mean we would go to

02:06:04.820 the gardens but you were going to watch the other teams that were coming i mean every time the oilers

02:06:08.360 played including exhibition games i was sitting up in those crappy gray seats to watch a game but

02:06:14.440 now i'm always amazed when i'm back in toronto just what an ordeal it is to get to the air canada

02:06:19.960 center to see a game i mean it's got to be one of the toughest towns to get tickets well i just know

02:06:23.680 coming to new york an original six team and the passion behind the generations of fans that were here

02:06:28.440 it didn't take me long to understand the gravity of it and if you and when i say i love the leafs i

02:06:33.760 love the least because of that same yeah yeah original six teams are just original 16 the history

02:06:39.400 the the passion the heartbreak the all the things that go into an organization that make it so

02:06:47.420 compelling to go to the game and to cheer the leafs on if you're a leaf fan and even if you're not a

02:06:52.960 leaf fan you still got to respect where they've been and where they've come from and and the way

02:06:58.260 the organization has moved into the modern era and this juggernaut organization that is just

02:07:05.480 so compelling well if they win this year i've done the math now it'll be 53 years if they win this

02:07:12.400 year so they've got one and they've got two years left to sort of i say 54 is a long long time but

02:07:17.800 they're working on it so hopefully they can get it done sooner or later it'd be nice to see a

02:07:23.140 canadian team get in there but oh yeah for sure it's the it won't be i can guarantee it won't be

02:07:29.000 given to them all right this has been awesome thank you so much for all these insights you know

02:07:35.440 the first time we met i remember you never know when you're a kid you know you meet you meet your

02:07:39.300 boyhood heroes you sort of you just never know like can they live up to the poster on your wall can

02:07:45.100 they live up to that time you got that autograph then you got to stand in front of them for

02:07:50.400 3.7 seconds while they scribbled something on your hockey stick or whatever it's been a pleasure

02:07:55.560 getting to know you and i think that this podcast i think is just hopefully a great way for folks to

02:08:01.640 get to really understand your style of leadership which is certainly not about boasting but about

02:08:07.180 just sort of a quiet passionate yet highly intuitive and introspective form of leadership that i

02:08:13.560 i don't know i guess i'm biased but i don't think we see a lot of that in sports anymore

02:08:17.380 if nothing else i'm highly appreciative of it and i know that others will be also well thank you

02:08:22.560 great being on great talking hockey as always and uh we'll be watching those leafs all right let's go

02:08:29.360 get some dinner you can find all of this information and more at peter at tmd.com forward slash podcast

02:08:37.620 there you'll find the show notes readings and links related to this episode you can also find my blog

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02:09:05.660 share your questions and comments now for the obligatory disclaimer this podcast is for general

02:09:10.340 informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine nursing or other

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The Peter Attia Drive - December 02, 2019

#82 - Mark Messier： Leadership, personal growth, and performing under pressure

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