Connor McDavid Quotes

Stanley Cup hockey comes around every year, when games start to count in multiples of best-of-seven series, and the players seem to put more attention into every pass, every check, every annoying little trick.

My goal was to play in the NHL, because that is the best hockey in the world.

Every spring, this happens: People discover hockey when daylight lasts longer and men grow beards and tie games do not end in shootouts but rather continue until a goal is scored. The seventh game only heightens the mood for players and fans alike.

There was a time there in the mid '80s to the '90s there that we played six finals, three Canada Cups, we were playing hockey almost 10 months a year for a long time there.

I haven't been back in Montreal, at all, since the playoffs ended two years ago. It's been a while.

As a hockey player, playing for an Original Six team at Madison Square Garden, where it's packed every night, there's nothing like it.

My dad started taking me to Winnipeg games when I was 3 or 4. As a kid, I loved Wayne Gretzky, and I remember the first game I got to see him play against the Jets. The Kings beat the Jets, and I was happy that they did. Gretzky left the game after the first period, and I was upset about that.

By 1946, I knew Detroit was the best hockey city in the Original Six.

But a funny thing happened four years later. I was invited to play for an alumni team against the Red Wings.

I am so fascinated and taken by the Golden Knights.

Anyone who plays in the NHL dreams to win the Stanley Cup and I dreamed as well to be one of them and raise the cup in Washington and bring it home to Moscow and celebrate with my friends and my parents.

I think the NHL has done a great job of building the sport as far as getting the people's attention and letting them know what's going on in hockey - especially when the powers meet each other.

Every game is its own thing in the playoffs. When you're in them long enough, you understand. If a playoff series goes six or seven games, it's like a rollercoaster. Your emotions are so up, then they're so down. 'You can't do anything right! Then everything's going your way!'

For me, my hockey career is all about the Devils.

You can't really explain competing in Olympic event to someone. You can say, "Oh, that was really tough." And that literally means nothing to someone. If you can give some sort of comparison, because that's really all track and field is about any way....Usain Bolt runs a time and you get to see what everybody else's time is. It would just be interesting to compare Olympians to somebody who doesn't train their whole life.

There was a race that I was running in Mexico City and I was the only high school athlete running against grown women. It was a professional race, but I ended up winning. That was kind of a turning point for me where I felt like, "Okay, I'm pretty good at this and there's a possibility for this to be a career for me." That was a defining moment for me.

I went to the International Ballet competition when I was 15 or 16 and that was the first time I competed. I didn't get very far but it was the first time that I realized what I needed to do to become a dancer. I realized how hard it was.

He [Gene Kelly] once told me dancing was a man's game, as much of a sport as baseball itself. And he made us believe that. He changed our minds and suddenly, all of America wanted to dance just like Gene Kelly.

When it comes to playoff time, I pull the energy and the motivation.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

I'm not a golf player. I think golf and fishing are the same, but at the end of the day, you can't fry up and golf ball and dip it in tartar sauce. So I'm a fisherman.

I never did like working out - it bears the same relationship to real sport as masturbation does to real sex

I have no regrets coming back for a second Olympic team [in 2016]. It's been an amazing experience. It's been teaching me a lot.

It’s not a playoff game, it’s like the Super Bowl. … This is going to be a blood bath out there. I know they’re going to be ready to play. This is going to be a physical game. I’m sure that I’m going to be ready and I know my boys are going to be ready to back it up.

I look at it as a challenge, ... I'm not going to put too much added pressure on myself. I want to play in the NHL, and after that [happens], I can worry about things beyond that.