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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 16, 2006Marty TurcoDAVID KEON: Welcome everyone. I'm David Keon of the National Hockey League's public relations department and I'd like to welcome you to today's call. With us we have Dallas Stars goaltender, Marty Turco. Thanks to Marty for taking the time today to answer your questions, and thanks to Mark of the Stars public relations department for arranging the call. Earlier today Marty was named as Star of the Week. He has played in each of Dallas's five victories posting a 5-0-0 record, and a .948 save percentage. He opened the season with a key assist on Darryl Sydor's overtime goal in a 3-2 victory, at Colorado October 4, defeated the New Jersey Devils 3-1 in the Dallas home opener October 7, bested the Los Angeles Kings by identical 4-1 scores on October the 12 and 14 and blocked two of three shootout attempts in a 4-3 victory at Anaheim last night. In his six-year career all with Dallas, has posted a record of 142-62-31 and his next shutout will be an NHL milestone 25th of his career. Marty, along with Sydney Crosby is featured in the latest game on with two spots debuting this Wednesday and appearing on Versus TSN and all local affiliates. The spot was shot a couple of weeks ago outside of a middle school in Dallas. The Stars put their five-game winning streak on the line in San Jose against the Sharks tomorrow night and return home to host the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday. Again, thanks to Marty for taking the time today to answer your questions today. Q. The Stars have won the division title eight out of ten years, and after the lockout there was a lot of talk about how it was going to be difficult for the larger markets to maintain superiority, and here we are again, the Stars off to just a great tart, and a great start is absolutely crucial in this time of parity. How do you explain how the Stars have been able to maintain that consistency through the years? You've been there at least half the time, anyway. MARTY TURCO: Well, that's a great question. You never know exactly, but I think there's been some solidarity to this organization and group. There's never really been major overhauls year-to-year. And I think that core group is about to take place, and it starts nowhere else but No. 9. He's been playing in his prime for it seems like a long time but his supporting cast has been huge from Jere Lehtinen and Zubov and Sydor and Modano and Morrow. Growing up in this organization, there's a lot of players that have come and gone, but the ones that have been mainstays have been the big reason for that long-term success. Q. Looks like you and the Ducks and Sharks might have a battle for the division, is there a player you key on; and talking about Modano, was there any awkwardness in the switch of captaincy, and how did that go over with the rest of the team? MARTY TURCO: To go in order, I think with both those other clubs, keying on one guy would be a bad move on my part. They are just so well-rounded and loaded offensively. Guys like Teemu and McDonald, you have to know where guys are on the ice all the time for the Ducks, and certainly you've got to know where Jonathan Cheechoo is, just getting the best position possible. It's all about being prepared and giving myself a chance to make saves, whomever. There are guys, young kids, rookies that are putting pucks in the net, so can't be foolish enough to just worry about one or two anymore. I think with the sticks bigger curves, you've got to watch out for everybody these days. And second part of the question about Mike, you know, there really wasn't any awkwardness. I think that's a tribute to him and his actual leadership that seems to come in question from the outside, but not ever has from within. You know, he's our player, he's our guy and he has been for a long time. And we need him to be to keep pushing forward in this division and this year to be successful. I think just having both those guys be great leaders, great friends, made everything go smooth and the best part about it is it hasn't stopped us one bit. It's made us stronger and it's about our team identity and really as simple as that and we didn't misconstrue how that all went down. Q. You're now 9-1 in shootouts. Can I ask you why you think you're so good in these things and whether you like them. MARTY TURCO: Well, first, yeah, a lot of them for the league and the fans, I do, I really think they are awesome. They are just by far the best thing that's come in years for this game, for our fans. I think they deserve it. Personally, I could never be angry if I never had to play another one rest of my career. Probably two reasons why my personal success that you suggested is more -- two names, Jere Lehtinen and Zubov. Those guys, their records almost mirror our records in shootouts. The Ducks last night had a chance to make three saves; usually it's only two when we go first. It's been fun, competitive and a great challenge. Any time you can put your almost thumbprint on that win and it's right there in front of your nose and your sniffing it, you want to go out there and get it. But those guys have been huge for us among other guys, but it's been a wins-by-committee there. Q. And as a follow-up, you guys are obviously off to a tremendous start, 5-0. A lot of the preseason hype from people in my business was on the Ducks and the Sharks mainly. Did you guys notice that, did that put you off somewhat or did you just go about your business? MARTY TURCO: Well, we had enough to worry about in Dallas, as you know, it's still not going to change, like you said -- you said, "tremendous," but it's only five games into the year. I don't think much things change. There's going to be a great challenge from both those teams within our division, and L.A. is going to get their feet under them also. It's going to be fun, more than likely come down to the wire, which I think is a great thing. But really looking forward to that challenge tomorrow that's presented with the Sharks, especially here at the Shark Tank. Looking forward to playing these guys all year long and keep the measuring stick fully loaded, because they are great teams and I think those expectations certainly are well deserved, but as everybody knows, you have to get out there and compete against expectations and the teams and what everybody else is playing for. Q. Thanks for taking the time. I have two unrelated questions. They mentioned at the beginning of this that your promos are going to start this week. Can you talk about the process of filming, have they been pretty humorous and how you enjoyed that. And talk about how you have to be prepared for the new rule with the curved sticks, how has that changed your view as a goaltender the way people shoot and stuff like that. MARTY TURCO: The first one for the promos originally was not planned for me to be in it. I'm going to take the commercial with great, not great pride, but I'll take it because it kind of fell into my lap. Mike was hurt that day. It's going to actually -- I think it's going to be great. The first couple that we've seen have been really awesome for the League and humorous and all in the same sense. So it will be along the same lines, and this one was a great opportunity for me, and one that I actually really enjoyed working with the cast and crew, with a 10-year-old girl. I'm into reading and promoting reading for kids and we did ours at a school. It was pretty neat. Great for myself, anyway. So, looking forward to see people's reactions for that. But having a helmet off outside in the Texas sun was something that I'll never forget, and it was quite warm that day, but it should turnout pretty good. As far as the curvatures on the sticks is concerned, really not much you can really do and change. You're expecting higher shots and they can control a lot better, but these guys were talented enough, so I don't think much is going to change, I'm pretty sure guys were using bigger curves last year or the last couple of years. The only major change for us is just adding extra protection for our neck and heads in practice and maybe sometimes in games. Other than that it's business as usual. Q. What does Eric Lindros bring to the team and how is he fitting in? And on opening night because you guys were the only game in town, I watched you play against Colorado. How can you go from the first two periods you had against them where nothing seemed to work to being 5-0 ten or 11 days later, just seems unbelievable. MARTY TURCO: Yeah, actually two good questions there. I think the first one as far as the Big E is concerned, he has not had it smooth over the last few years. It's been well documented from injuries and changes of scenery. But I think it's great for him to get down to Dallas, and as you mentioned, we're the only game, a little bit less attention in our market and that's a good thing for the Big E. What he brings and it's been a strong bond from day one is a hungerness that seems to just vibrate through the locker room that he brings to the table and everyone else feels it from him. And you know from the group that's been here, the disappointments of the guys being brought in, it just seems like a common bond that we can all rally around. He's been great. He's committed, he's hungry like I said, and he's really showing it on the ice. He's in great shape and he's dedicated so that's gone a long way for us and ultimately for him and his success and we're looking forward to having a long year with him in the lineup nightly. The other question, those first two periods of our season, to say the least, by far our two worst, but I guess get them out of the way early was good and finding a way to win that game was obviously important to not look back at being 5-0 and who would have known after playing those two, you're right, that things would have turned out so quickly like that. But I think that's just a great sign for our club, not letting anything bother us like bad play or really unproductive play against a team we thought we could really play well against and possibly dominate. That game helped us get our feet underneath us coming into the third, and instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and playing so poorly, going after it and certainly a tribute to the guys and leaders on the team and set us up for our last four and hopefully for many more to come. Q. We had a chance to cover your game out in Los Angeles on Saturday night, two questions. Dave Tippett described you as quote, unquote the most normal goalie that you can find. How are you different from other goalies, and how sour were you that they didn't drop the puck and you had an opportunity to win your first ever faceoff? MARTY TURCO: Well, I'll go backwards year. I don't know, I'm not really disappointed now. I'm sure I would have been -- provided some comic relief more than anything. I could have possibly lost it, too. I wasn't planning on it. I had my move down pat and got kicked out of that one. Yeah, I was in there for the real deal. Wasn't in there to crack people up. But just happened to turn out that way. And as far as the normalcy comments, it's pretty tough for me to relate to others when you're not in the locker room with all of the other goalies at the same time and can really only go on stories or anything else. For me, it's always been about being myself and about being part of the team and now being in Dallas for a while and becoming a veteran and being a leader. I know goalies have a stigma and have always been viewed in certain lights and ways as far as playing and stuff. But you know, for my quest to become a champion here in Dallas with this team, I want to always continue to do things the way I believe and the way I want to do them in order to win. I have great feelings and hungerness in order to do that and am going to continue to be myself and when that breakthrough day comes, it's going to be a good one and a good year and a career to look back on. Q. How long did you have to stand outside when you were filming that commercial in all that gear? MARTY TURCO: You know, it ended up being, I was there for a long time actually, but I ended up doing two spots with that producer from Hollywood. One of them I don't want to get into but they kind of make fun of my name but it will show up sooner or later. And I did some stuff for Dan Moriarti (ph) in NHL. I was in the gear for probably about three-plus hours and had my skates on, too, walking around on cement and doing some stuff. It was pretty interesting. I think it turned out well. I think I hurt a lot of necks when I was walking down the sidewalk; people were driving home from work, fully dressed in my gear, it was pretty funny. I think I was the only one not laughing for the most part. Q. I know you got an assist earlier this week, you've always been a goalie like Martin Brodeur that takes pride in your offense. Is it more fulfilling that such restrictions that have been placed on the puck and it's hard to get points, and do you think goalies will ever score again with the new format? MARTY TURCO: Yeah, of course goalies will score again. There's so many guys that can just shoot the puck, and the majority shoot way better than I do. I think they have got a lot more, not quite confident, but there are guys that are more willing to go for it than I am. I am willing to just take the win. As far as what you said about offense, really, it's not about offense for me. It's more about the transition to offense and get my defensemen extra time taking less blows and giving ourselves as a team just an advantage with the puck, whether it be time or position. And you know, that's my whole philosophy and game plan is doing whatever I can to give our team an advantage. So if offense comes with it, so be it, but it's more about just moving around with the proper efficiency. DAVID KEON: Thanks, Marty for your time today. MARTY TURCO: David, my pleasure. 1 ...when all is said, we're done( Document2 4 FastScripts ( by ASAP Sports t. 631.425.2701 f. 631.425.6116 Visit our archives at asapsports.com |
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