As a captain, I think it's important that the players really know who you are and what you stand for, what your beliefs are, and to be consistent in those if things are going good or things are going bad.
- Mark Messier Quote

But I just think as a captain, everybody's different.
- Mark Messier Quote

Coaching really is an individual philosophy.
- Mark Messier Quote

I just think overall a lot of it has to do with conditioning and players putting in the time and the effort in the off-season to keep themselves in condition for 12 months a year.
- Mark Messier Quote

I played with a lot of great players before. They're all the same. They take a lot of responsibility for their own play, put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform and to play well.
- Mark Messier Quote

I think now what you're seeing is guys that are in the peaks of their careers anywhere from 27 to 35 years old, seems to be when they play their best hockey.
- Mark Messier Quote

I think the idea of the obstruction through the neutral zone and away from the puck was an excellent rule.
- Mark Messier Quote

I think to compare any time you win a Stanley Cup would be unfair to all the players from all the teams.
- Mark Messier Quote

I was assistant in Edmonton with Wayne as captain, and Kevin Lowe was the other assistant.
- Mark Messier Quote

I would never say one was more important or more gratifying than the next because there's a tremendous amount of work, as you know, that goes into winning a cup.
- Mark Messier Quote

If I had to compare any of the two, I'd compare the first one in Edmonton, the first one here in New York because it had been so long in New York since we had won. Obviously, being the first time to ever win the cup in Edmonton, they were fairly similar in that regard.
- Mark Messier Quote

It's a tough game, and you never want to take that aspect out of the game.
- Mark Messier Quote

Like I said, a 30-year-old hockey player, even when I came to New York when I was 30, I was on the downside of my career, pretty much the end of my career.
- Mark Messier Quote

Obviously every one of them was special to that particular team, all the people that were involved with it.
- Mark Messier Quote

Really the team often will take on the personality of its coach.
- Mark Messier Quote

There was a time there in the mid '80s to the '90s there that we played six finals, three Canada Cups, we were playing hockey almost 10 months a year for a long time there.
- Mark Messier Quote

We had built up a team in Edmonton that really knew who each other was from a personal standpoint and from a professional standpoint. Our nucleus had stayed together for a long time.
- Mark Messier Quote

When Wayne was traded, I became captain. For me it really wasn't anything - I didn't do anything or I didn't feel I had to do anything different than what I had been doing all along.
- Mark Messier Quote

When you play long enough, everybody goes through spells and streaks and slumps of some nature. I think it's just one of the those things where you have to play yourself out of it.
- Mark Messier Quote