Don Waddell Team Quotations

We made a decision back in December. We all wish we could make this decision today on your whole team because maybe some other positions would change also. Ryan has come back from his injury and has performed very well, but we're very comfortable with the three guys we've named and we're going to roll with them.

We are extremely pleased with our team and feel very confident that we've put a solid group together that will best put us in a position to compete for the gold medal. The selection process was an extremely difficult one and that's a terrific statement for hockey in the United States. It means our talent pool in this country continues to grow.

I always say the players pick this team, not us. You can't have a team of 12 first-line NHL players. You need role players, checkers, penalty killers. You can't just take the 12 most skilled forwards.

Marian is arguably one of the top players in the world and is always a scoring threat. He consistently places among the league leaders in all offensive categories and holds several of Ottawa's team records. He also competes hard on every shift and sets the tone for his teammates. We believe he is the type of exciting player you will want to come out to Philips Arena and watch.

We're really pleased to have Peter guiding our Olympic Team. Peter knows what it takes. He played on our 1988 Olympic team and came back as captain of the 1994 Olympic team. He's coached our last two world championship teams. He's passionate about the game and we're confident he'll do an outstanding job as our head coach.

We had a lot of players playing very well. We said all along that we were going to base this team on not so much what was the history of players ... but how guys were actually playing.

We're going to do depth charts by team. Every team is going to have guys we're going to watch, some teams are going to have more guys.

We feel that with Bob's leadership, professionalism and winning track record, he is the coach that will guide this team to success for many years. We are pleased to have him leading our team and look forward to the future of the franchise with him behind the bench.

It was the right thing to do at this time. I'm not nervous about it because I'm around our team so much and I know our team very well. I've seen every game this year and I haven't missed anything, so I feel like short-term I'm best prepared to run the bench.

The orientation camp will be a terrific opportunity for our staff to come together with the candidates for our Olympic team to assess the potential makeup of our squad. It will not be a tryout camp as the evaluation process will continue through the first part of the NHL season, however it will be an important first step in the process.

The nice thing about our team is that our depth is so much better. And our goaltending will be strong.

His fast start has been very important with Dany out. We needed guys to step forward, and Ilya certainly has done that. He's taken this team on his back. He wants to be the go-go guy and he's proven that he's capable of being that. He's got nine goals in seven games and it's been an unbelievable start.

Certainly there are guys who would have to play their way off the team and others who have to play their way on to the team.

It's to everybody's advantage if we could just wait until the playoffs are over or mostly over. That way you don't want to affect any player's ability with their team right now either positively or negatively. If the players could finish the year out and then we could pick the team that would be ideal.