Veteran NHL general managers and Bruins part-owners have their say

By Marc Weber  - The Province- January 23, 2008

Global TV's Squire Barnes sat down with Brian Burke and Glen Sather for an hour-long Q&A. Here are a few of the highlights:

Sather starts to compare Burke to Kevin Lowe:

GS: They're both very competitive guys, they both want to win and . .

BB: And one guy hasn't screwed up the business for the other 29 guys.

GS: Look, we all go in the direction we think we should go at some time and . . .

BB: [Loud yawn.]

Burke on the dog days in Vancouver:

BB: We're playing the Islanders [in Long Island] and someone shot a puck into the crowd -- it was before the netting. And it went into a section and the whole section was empty but for one guy, and it hit him right in the head. We were up in the press box crying. What are the odds? One guy. And I remember looking at Dave Nonis saying, that could be our building. We had crowds of 9,000. It was a ghost town.

Burke on whether he ever considered moving the Sedins:

BB: You remember their first year and Neil McRae -- who's a jerk, by the way -- was calling them the Sedin sisters and all that. We knew they'd take that next step. The guy that deserves the most credit for the Sedin twins is Marc Crawford. He brought them along nicely and they wouldn't be the players they are today without him.

Sather on how tough a guy Oilers defenceman Lee Fogolin was:

GS: He had a tooth problem and we're in the dressing room before the game and Lee Fogolin's got a pair of pliers and he's pulling his own tooth out.

Burke on facing Edmonton in the glory days:

BB: We would pray to not get embarrassed. I belong to Our Lady of Perpetual Help here and the only time they'd see me on a Saturday was when we were playing Edmonton. I remember telling our team, "Do not bother Mark Messier." Some nights Mark would go to sleep. "Whatever you do, don't speak to him, don't look at him, and for God's sake don't hit him."

One night Mess comes around the net and Richie Sutter, who could never help himself, launches himself through the air and drills him. Mess turns and spears him right in the mouth, takes out his top four teeth. We had to scrape black tape off the roof of his mouth. I'm down in the room after and I said, "Richie, which part of, 'Do not touch Mark Messier' did you not understand?"

Sather on who the second-best player he ever coached was:

GS: I don't think I can have a second. There's been so many really good players, even Kevin Lowe.

Burke responds to Bruins forward Brandon Campos asking if it's hard to motivate multi-millionaires:

BB: The only way you can motivate guys is with ice time. That's the principal motivation. If you're not going on a particular night, there's that seat between the forwards and the defencemen, we call it the grocery stick. You know, like on the belt, the lady puts the stick down and you've got the celery behind it. You're the forward who's not going to play, and you can sit next to the defenceman who's even dumber than you and isn't going to play, either.

After Burke says Mats Sundin does like Vancouver as a destination:

GS: That's tampering. Now I'm going to get his first pick, I'm going to get him for tampering.

BB: You all heard it. I said it was hypothetical.

To listen to audio click here