Brad Richards recently sat down with Steve Serby of the New York Post upon arriving in New York this past weekend. They had a great Q and A that I found quite interesting, so here are some of the highlights that I felt were worth sharing...
Q: The pressure being in the New York market.
A: It’s gonna be a different animal, I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s not the same as playing in Tampa or Dallas. But I’ve been through playoff runs. If you’re getting into a Game 7, it’s as much pressure as you can handle no matter where you’re playing, ’cause we all have pride and we want to win. I think the experience of playing on home soil for Team Canada, playing for the Olympics, that’s a lot of pressure that people don’t realize if you’re a Canadian playing on those teams. There’s no option, you have to win. . . . I think that’s something that will make me better, it will drive me, it’ll push me more. Can’t have those nights where you don’t feel like playing hard, you have to play hard in front of these fans, they’ll let you know.
Q: Is this team close?
A: Yeah, I think they’re very close. . . . This team from the outside looking in would be closer than people would have thought about our team in Tampa the year we won. So you don’t know. By Christmas in Tampa that year, we were out of a playoff spot . . . after Christmas, we lost four games, I think, during regulation, so . . . it’s a lot about confidence.
Q: Favorite memory of Coach Tortorella from your Stanley Cup season (with the Lightning) in 2004?
A: In the Finals when we got spanked pretty bad and he took all the attention off us for a few days by going on a rant. . . . There’s lots of days I remember where it was miserable to be around him too. . . . He made us drive around the city on a bus here one year . . . in our equipment for no reason (smile). You’d have to be part of the team to understand why. It was well-deserved. It was a way of teaching us a lesson.
Q: Your friend Sean Avery.
A: I think he has a lot bigger heart than a lot of people think.
Q: Superstitions.
A: It would take forever to get through those. . . . My No. 1 is my stick blade, once it’s taped it can’t touch the ground until it touches the ice. I’ll retape the stick if that happens. And I come out last on the ice . . . unless someone’s older than me that I can’t trump.
Q: What drives you?
A: Just being lucky enough to play. You know it’s gonna come to an end someday. The year I got traded — ’07-08 — probably didn’t have as much fun in the game as I should have, put way too much on myself. The last years I just kinda realized how lucky we are to be playing. No matter what, it’s gonna end some day, so really put it all out there because there’s nothing like getting to perform in front of 20,000 people, I’ll never have that again.
Q: The impact your cousin Jamie has had on your life.
A: He was my best friend, my buddy, we grew up across the street from each other. . . . To see him pass away at an early age, he didn’t really have an impact at that age, you just lost your buddy. . . . Now it’s impacted me a lot more than I ever would have imagined.
Q: Impacted you in what way?
A: How I get involved with charities and why I want to. I started a foundation in his name in PEI (Prince Edward Island) at the Childrens Cancer Wing of the hospital, so it’s gonna be a legacy we can create for the rest of hopefully my life and continue on.
You can read the full interview in its entirety here.
I always love hearing what motivates professional athletes, and for Richards, it appears that the loss of his cousin, Jamie, at a young age really impacted him and pushes him in life. I think it's great that Brad honors his cousin with all of the charity work that he does, because sometimes there are things that are more important than sports, and obviously Richards knows that. Not many athletes use their fortune to better the community, but Brad does and that goes a long way.
Anyway, focusing on hockey, Richards' answer to "is the team close" has changed from Saturday. When asked that question via teleconference on Saturday, Richards responded by saying he hadn't had enough time to get a feel for the squad and analyze the team to jude. Now, a few days later, he is convinced that the Rangers are very close to being contenders.
Richards also continues to say that he will embrace the pressure of playing in New York and use it as motivation. That's great, but we need to see him perform that way in the heat of the season. However, I feel pretty confident about the way he can handle things now knowing he's made the most out of the lows in his life as mentioned above.
Players always ending up hurting themselves when they get too high while playing in New York, but I don't think that will be a problem with Brad Richards. As you can see by reading this interview, he's a very humble guy that has a grounded personality. It seems to me that he accepts criticism and is always looking to improve, which is probably why he gets along so well with head coach John Tortorella.
This was a great interview and again, give the full thing a read over at The Post.
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Man, i got a man crush on this guy already!...Cant wait till the season is underway!...summer is flying by...another 2 months about till training camp!
Posted by: MvpGaborik | Thursday, July 07, 2011 at 06:52 PM
I'm happy he did this interview. Shows the real him.
Posted by: Nick Montemagno | Thursday, July 07, 2011 at 07:15 PM