The 20 Greatest Hockey Quotes of All Time

By: C.G. Morelli

I said it before and I’ll say it again: everybody loves a good sports quote. Ranging from witty insults to deep, sometimes spiritual, insights into life, a legendary line from our favorite athlete can serve as the inspiration that keeps you going, or as something that simply makes you laugh.

No sport has contributed more comedic value to the sports quote spectrum than the game they play up North. Trust me, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to produce laughter when you get a bunch of Canadian ruffians to beat each other with sticks on a frozen pond. It’s pure genius, folks, and its no wonder the sport has provided the inspiration for a plethora of entertaining quotables. Of course, your humble scribe is here to share with you the best of the best.  

So grab a couple of ice cold Molsons, pop a few of those fake teeth out of your mouth, and have a look for yourself. And be quick about it. You don’t want to be a hoser your whole life, do you?

The 20 Greatest Hockey Quotes

20. “Hockey is a fast, body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet.” - Paul Gallico

19. “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” –Wayne Gretzky

18. “Goaltending is a normal job, sure. How would you like it in your job if every time you made a small mistake, a red light went on over your desk and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you?” - Jacques Plante

17. “Hockey is the only job I know where you get paid to have a nap on the day of the game.” - Chico Resch

16. “Hockey's the only place where a guy can go nowadays and watch two white guys fight.” - Frank Deford

15. “If you've only got one day to live, come see the Toronto Maple Leafs. It'll seem like forever. ” – Pat LaFontaine

14. “It's not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it's what you put into the practice.” - Eric Lindros

13. “Last season we couldn't win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure was that I couldn't think of any place else to play.” - Harry Neale

12. “My former wife made me a millionaire. I used to have three million dollars.”- Bobby Hull

11. “Our first priority was staying alive. Our second was stopping the puck.” - Glenn Hall

10. “The three important elements of hockey are: forecheck, backcheck and paycheck.”

-Gil Perreault

9. “We take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humor.” - Bobby Clarke

8. “They say you're not a coach in the league till you've been fired. I must be getting pretty good.” - Terry Simpson

7. “Bob Kelly was so dumb, they shoulda written his name on the Stanley Cup in crayon.” - Gene Hart

6. “Get used to this phrase: how could both referees have missed that?” - Mike Brophy

5. “The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem.” - Harry Sinden

4. “Half the game is mental, the other half is being mental.” - Jim Mckenny

3. “If I play badly I'll pick a fight in the third, just to get into a fight. I'll break a guy's leg to win, I don't care. Afterward I say, 'Yeah all right I played badly, but I won the fight so who gives a damn.” - Derek Sanderson

2. “Goaltenders are 3 sandwiches shy of a picnic. From the moment primitive man lurched erect, he survived on the principle that when something hard and potentially lethal comes toward you at great velocity, get the hell out of its path.” - Jim Taylor

1. “You do dat, you go to da box; you know, uh, two minutes by yourself, and you feel shame, you know, and then you get free.” - Denis from SlapShot

The Ghost of Pelle

By: C.G. Morelli

He was the last piece of the puzzle for a team, and a city, that had their hearts set on hoisting another Stanley Cup.  He was a savage acrobat, a new-age Bernie Parent and, with his signature full-face hockey mask, he was a possible stunt double for Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13^th.  Tragically, it was on a drive home from the Flyers’ practice facility in Voorhees, NJ that ended it all for future star, Pelle Lindbergh.

Pelle was only five years old when he learned how to skate on an iced-over soccer field just south of Stockholm, Sweden.  By the time he was seven, his agility had already been recognized by Swedish National coach Curre Lindstrom, who urged Lindbergh to begin playing organized hockey in the Hammarby Youth League.  It was at this early stage that young Pelle began formulating a plan for himself.  And he wasn’t shy about it.  As a ten year old boy, he had already discovered his talent as a net-minder and vowed to his friends that someday he’d become the greatest goalie in the world.

By the time Pelle was 12 years old, he was playing for Hammarby’s traveling pee wee team, which routinely made trips to Leningrad and Moscow, and even to Canada.  It was on a trip to hockey Mecca in Toronto where Pelle further solidified his living blueprint.  While all his teammates were soaking in the classic confines of Maple Leaf Garden, wearing newly-purchased items all embroidered with the hallowed blue leaf, Pelle took the road less traveled.  He, instead, went to the souvenir shop and purchased a black and orange jersey with a curious insignia sewn to the front.  It was the first time he’d ever wear a Philadelphia Flyers jersey, but certainly not the last.

Pelle never played a game thereafter without the Flyers’ logo stamped somewhere on his helmet.  He wore it throughout the 70’s as he minded net for the Swedish Junior Nationals.  On this team, Pelle developed his characteristic quick glove playing alongside future NHLers Thomas Eriksson, Hakan Sodergren, and Mats Naslund.  In 1975, Pelle was named the best junior goalie in Sweden, and in 1978 he led his team, Smakrongorna, to the Junior League championship.  After the tournament, when asked why he wore a curious black and orange logo on his helmet, he told spectators simply, “I’m going to play for the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Of course, most people scoffed at Pelle’s early prediction.  It would be hard enough just to make it to the NHL, but it would take all kinds of luck to land on one of the league’s elite teams.  But that luck would come.  In the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, the Philadelphia Flyers selected a young, Swedish goaltender named Pelle Lindbergh to the surprise of many.  Pelle, of course, had known this would happen all along.

Before reporting to the Flyers, Pelle was selected to compete for Sweden at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, where he managed to bring home a bronze medal. The Swedes were the only squad who didn’t lose to the Miracle on Ice team.  That summer, Lindbergh reported to the Flyers training camp to begin learning the North American style of goaltending from his long-time idol, Bernie Parent.  With Parent’s tutelage, Pelle developed amazing quickness and led Philadelphia’s AHL affiliate from Portland, Maine, the Mariners, to the Calder Cup.  The team could not bring home the championship, but Lindbergh made a name for himself in a big way by bringing home an armful of hardware.  He had won the Red Garrett Award as rookie of the year, the Hap Holmes Award for the best goaltender, and the Les Cunningham award as the AHL’s most valuable player.

But for the next few years, Pelle was up and down between the big club and his AHL team.  He was inconsistent and struggled in net.  At one point he even asked to be traded from the team he once dreamed of playing for.

In 1985, however, his dream finally took shape.  The Flyers traded goalie Pete Peeters for defenseman Brad McCrimmon, officially paving the way for Lindbergh.  This time he made the most of his opportunity, leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Finals against Edmonton with a sparkling GAA of 3.02 and a record of 40-17-7.  The Flyers weren’t able to overcome the play of the great one, Wayne Gretzky, but the fans of Philadelphia were uplifted by the future promise of their team with Lindbergh at the helm.  At season’s end, Pelle was awarded the prestigious Vezina Trophy to go along with his first-team All-Star designation.  He had become one of the NHL’s biggest stars almost overnight.

In ‘85-’86, the Flyers picked up right where they left off.  They shot out to a 6-2 start.  Lindbergh was doing his best impression of Bernie Parent in goal, and the outlook was good for a team that was generally regarded as one of the tops in the NHL.  The quick start was reason enough for Coach Mike Keenan to reward his players with a rare, early-season night off. 

Pelle and a few others went out for the evening, eventually finishing off the night with a few drinks at a lounge inside the Coliseum, the Flyers’ Voorhees, NJ practice facility.  In the early hours of the morning, Pelle and two passengers set off in his new Porsche.  He never noticed the sharp, winding curve in the road which culminated in a set of concrete school house steps, until it was too late.  The two passengers survived the crash with minor injuries, but Pelle was not so lucky.  He was declared brain-dead a few hours later at John F. Kennedy Hospital in Somerdale, NJ.  Two days later, after seeing no change in their son’s condition, Anna-Lisa and Sigge Lindbergh were faced with the ultimate decision.  They elected to stop the respirator and spare Pelle any suffering.

And with that, the fortunes of a future NHL legend were erased…but not from the minds of his teammates, his favorite hockey club, or the millions of fans from the Philadelphia area who had quickly grown to love their adopted Swedish son.  To them, somewhere in the backs of their minds, there will always be a lightning fast goaltender in a Friday the 13^th mask making heart-stopping glove saves.  To them, the memories of Pelle’s one shining season will never be lost.