Wayne Douglas Gretzky CC is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed “the Great One”, he has been called the greatest hockey player ever by many sportswriters, players, the NHL itself, and by The Hockey News, based on extensive surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers, and coaches. These Wayne Gretzky quotes will motivate you.
Best Wayne Gretzky Quotes
- “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The day I stop giving is the day I stop receiving. The day I stop learning is the day I stop growing. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Only one thing is ever guaranteed, that is that you will definitely not achieve the goal if you don’t take the shot.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Hockey is a unique sport in the sense that you need each and every guy helping each other and pulling in the same direction to be successful.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “You’ll never catch me bragging about goals, but I’ll talk all you want about my assists.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“I missed 100% of the shots I didn’t take” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “No matter who you are, we’re creatures of habit. The better your habits are, the better they will be in pressure situations.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Maybe it wasn’t the talent the Lord gave me-maybe it was the passion.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “One hundred percent of shots not taken don’t go in.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I couldn’t beat people with my strength; I don’t have a hard shot; I’m not the quickest skater in the league. My eyes and my mind have to do most of the work.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The Power of WHO provides great lessons about how to succeed in business and in life. If you surround yourself with quality people and great friends, the sky’s the limit.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“Not doing it is certainly the best way to not getting it” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “It’s easier to lose than to win.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “You know, I’ve held women and babies and jewels and money, but nothing will ever feel as good as holding that Cup.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what other people think. You have to get on the ice and participate and play and the best team wins.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “It’s kind of ironic when I broke in at 17, I was told I was too small, too slow and I wouldn’t make the NHL” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I think that from the time you start playing sports as a child you see that your responsibility to your team is to play the best that you can play as an individual… and yet, not take anything away from being part of a team.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“Sometimes people ask, ‘Are hockey fights real?’ I say, ‘If they weren’t, I’d get in more of them.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I’m probably the only guy in hockey who can win a scoring title and everybody is saying I had a bad year. I don’t worry about it.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “If we’re going to change the game it has to start at eight, nine and 10 years old. When we were that age we’d go to the pond or backyard rink and throw a puck on the ice and play five on five, or seven on seven. You get this creativity and this imagination that comes from within, just having fun on the pond. Now kids are so focused on team play, and the coaches are so focused on positioning. You can’t change it at the NHL level.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I played everything. I played lacrosse, baseball, hockey, soccer, track and field. I was a big believer that you played hockey in the winter and when the season was over you hung up your skates and you played something else.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “As a player, you have one responsibility, to focus yourself and be ready for the game. As a coach, your responsibility is to get 20 guys ready and have them all on the same page. If you can’t get every guy ready every night, you’re going to struggle.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“You miss every shot you don’t take.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The only shot I ALWAYS miss, is the one I don’t take!” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I think sports for kids is the greatest thing in the world because it teaches you how to share, about winning and losing and pressure. But I don’t think you should force your kid to become a professional athlete.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I don’t think any one person will ever be bigger than the game.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Thankfully, in my youth I had the best financial advisor a son could ask for: my dad Walter. When I got that first signing bonus in 1978, Dad took my cheque, announced, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and bought an annuity with it.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I don’t like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don’t like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it’s essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“Everything I did in hockey, I worked for.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “When I was 5 and playing against 11-year-olds, who were bigger, stronger, faster, I just had to figure out a way to play with them.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I’m not sure Mario is going to get accolafes he deserves, especially from outside the game. But from within, the players, the people who follow closely, realize exactly what he’s broughtto the table, exactly what he has done. People tend to forget… hockey was dying in Pittsburgh before he got there. I played there. It was almost dead. I’m sorry, but the NHL would not have a franchise in Pittsburgh today had Mario not come along. Think about it, no hockey in Pittsburgh.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn’t make it [achieve something], they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“I can remember hockey. It was my life, my passion. It’s what I love the most.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Hockey is my life. I love every minute of it.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “It really doesn’t matter or concern me what people are saying or who thinks who is the favorite. The bottom line is you have to play.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “When you’re playing an exhibition, you’re kind of letting everyone get an opportunity.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The game is played out of instinct, but everyone on the ice has habits – good and bad. So the key to the game is to exploit the bad habits of your opponent.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “There’s no perfect coach in the world. Coaches are human, too. Mistakes are made. But, fundamentally, if you’re sound, you eliminate as many mistakes as possible.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“Most players go where the puck is. I go where the puck will be.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “It’s just amazing how many companies suddenly want you to hold up their products after you’ve held up the Stanley Cup.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The greatest thing about playing obviously is winning, and you can’t replace that experience with anything.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “A lot of times, I can turn and pass without even looking.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“People in general want to build somebody up and then try to knock them down. They always root for the underdog.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I really wanted to write a book [99: Stories of the Game] on the tradition and history of the league, where kids can pick it up and read it and learn things and say, “Geez, I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool.”” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I think the Americans are ready to play, they want to beat us. I think that players like Chris Chelios and his leadership over there goes a long way.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “By no means could I play at the level of these kids who play in the NHL now but as 50-year-olds go, I feel really good and I feel blessed that I’m still healthy.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The last year I was playing, I asked the stick boy to get me a Diet Coke and he said, “Really?” But I always had one on the bench because that’s what I did in 1979 when there wasn’t Gatorade. If you needed energy you went and got a Snickers or a Kit Kat. Nobody knew any better.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“It’s an honour and a thrill and a privilege just to play in the NHL.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time. There’s nothing like it. It’s the greatest story. In my era, they used to say you couldn’t be a superstar without winning one. I remember thinking when I lifted it: “Now they can’t say that about me.”” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “That’s the hardest part of this whole process. The best part is picking the players and the worst part is telling basically five players they are not going to play tonight.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull and Jean Béliveau probably looked at us in the ’80s and said, “These guys are soft. We used to take the train.”” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “People talk about skating, puck handling and shooting, but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be directed, factoring in all the interruptions. Basically, my whole game is angles.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“I wasn’t naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that’s the way I’ll be as a coach.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I get a lot of parents coming up to me, telling me they are grooming their kids to be professional athletes. I’m really against that. I think it’s a great life, and yeah, you can lead them in that direction. I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn’t make it, they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids.” ~ Wayne Gretzky Quotes
- “I have absolutely no complaints about my life. But people think I got handed everything, all this kind of fell in my lap, that I was just God-gifted with all this talent. I wanted people to realize it’s a lot tougher than just waking up one day and you’re in the NHL.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
-
“He brings something special. I don’t know what it is, but if you ask him, you couldn’t understand his answer.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “When I played in a 21-team league, there were six or seven goalies who were just average, and the equipment and pads were smaller. I came in the right era. I played for the right team. It was all speed, and creativity and imagination.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “When I broke into professional hockey at 17 I was told that I was too small and too slow and I wouldn’t make the NHL. Now it’s kind of flip-flopped and the sense is I can’t be a good coach because I was a great athlete.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “What you want to do with your best players is, it doesn’t matter how many goals and assists they get, but when they get goals and assists. The best players get them at the most important times, and that’s when we need those guys to come through.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “I think the greatest thing about playing obviously is winning, and you can’t replace that experience with anything.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
- “The biggest difference between L.A. and Edmonton was that instead of people looking at me I was looking at them.” ~ Wayne Gretzky
