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