Wayne Coffey > Quotes

“Hockey is a club that holds its members tightly, the bond forged by shared hardship and mutual passion, by every trip to the pond, where your feet hurt and your face is cold and you might get a stick in the ribs or a puck in the mouth, and you still can’t wait to get back out there because you are smitten with the sound of blades scraping against ice and pucks clacking off sticks, and with the game’s speed and ever-changing geometry. It has a way of becoming the center of your life even when you’re not on the ice.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“The most enduring heroes are people who don't try to be.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“The men were famous once. Some of them still are. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and Brooks had brought them together, 24 summers before. He had picked them and provoked them and pushed them, sometimes irritating them and often infuriating them by his hardness and his aloofness, his scathing rebukes and his unrelenting mind games.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“Brooks wanted to abandon the traditional, linear, dump-and-chase style of hockey that had held sway in North America forever. He wanted to attack the vaunted Russians with their own game, skating with them and weaving with them, stride for high-flying stride. He wanted to play physical, un-yielding hockey to be sure, but he also wanted fast, skilled players who would flourish on the Olympic ice sheet (which is 15 feet wider than NHL rinks) and be able to move and keep possession of the puck and be in such phenomenal condition that they would be the fresher team at the end.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“It was Seaver himself who called the Mets’ triumph “the greatest collective victory by any team in sports,” an observation as brilliantly on target as any knee-high curveball on the outside corner that he threw all season.”
― Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History

“There are a million things a coach can’t control. Brooks, an obsessive planner, was going to make sure he was on top of what he could control.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“The ’62 Mets made 3 errors in their first game, 3 in their last game, and 204 more errors in between.”
― Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History

“Brooks punished them in drills on the ice and gave them a 300-question test to assess their psychological makeup off it. He was relentless. If they couldn’t take this small sampling of life under Brooks, they wouldn’t last through one Olympic practice shift.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“The 1962 Mets went 40-120, losing more games than any ball club in the twentieth century and finishing 60½ games out of first place.”
― Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History

“It’s impossible for me to separate the miracle that we achieved as a team with the memories and gratitude I have for all the people who helped me get there, from my mother and father, my sisters and brothers, to 10 years worth of coaches and friends and teammates.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“You don’t make a journey like that alone. You make it with a lot of love and sacrifice. That’s probably why I was searching the stands for my father after we won the gold medal against Finland. It was a moment that was begging to be shared.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“You push on, do your best, and if you are really brave, you dream big, doubts and fears be damned. This is the stuff that miracles are made of, and the proof was there to see, on February 22, 1980.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“There will be two buses to the park from the hotel. The two o’clock bus is for those who need a little extra work, and then there will be an empty bus leaving at five o’clock.”
― Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History

“Warroad (pop. 1,722) is 358 miles from the Twin Cities but only 88 miles from Thief River Falls.”
― Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“The 1962 Mets went 40-120, losing more games than any ball club in the twentieth century and finishing 60½ games out of first place. This is not easy to do.”
― Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History