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You had a group of players that talked about how they wanted to make the playoffs and talked about how sick they were of losing; and then by Game 3, after losing 6-1, they’re straight out to the bar until 3 in the morning lighting up the nightlife scene in Edmonton. Like, come on - give me a break. It was to the point where it was ridiculous. The lifestyle was way more important than playing the game and making the playoffs. But like I said, talk is cheap.
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We had other guys that had been on playoff teams, and they had the same frustrations. They’d come and practice hard and there’s a group of guys there that had ‘Too cool to try hard.’ They had derogatory terms for trying too hard in practice. That’s the culture, right.
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“So your voice doesn’t carry much weight with people that don’t put value on those aspects that I was bringing from Boston, or that Dallas was trying to instill in the team. So it was not only frustrating, but it really pissed me off because it was a waste of years in your NHL career, where it’s just you never get those back.
Intersting interview with Andrew Ference.