NHL ALL-STAR WEEKEND

January 19, 1996

Mike Gartner

Q. Mike, the age thing, Mike, at 36, ten years older than anyone, how do you explain that fact? You seemed to be defying the aging process?

MIKE GARTNER: I don't think I put a lot of weight in the age, really. It is how you feel. I mean, there are probably guys out there that are 25 that may feel 45 and 45 that might feel 25, so I don't think age, as a number, really has a lot to do with it.

MIKE GARTNER: I don't know if I predicted that, but I said that I would try and do my best and I had a pretty good run out there.

MIKE GARTNER: I think the most important thing in skating is technique. Strong legs have a lot to do with it. Your conditioning has a lot to do with it. But I think technique is the most important thing. If you see all the great skaters in the League, they all have a very strong technique.

MIKE GARTNER: It doesn't get quite that bad but you can tell whenever there is any type of a competition, the guys want to win and you are going out there, I think for the skating competition, it is a little different. You want to make sure you win, but you also want to make sure you don't pull a muscle because we basically have not been skating for two days and then all of a sudden go out and try and go as hard as you can without any warmup, so I think you want to make sure you are well stretched and ready so you don't pull anything.

MIKE GARTNER: He was doing the same as I was before the competition and that was just getting a leg rub and doing a lot of stretching; just making sure that you are physically ready to go out there and most importantly you are not going to pull any muscles.

MIKE GARTNER: There is not a trick to it, but it is really the key to a race. I think that it is probably -- most of the races would be won by the time you go around the first net, because once you -- after that you are going full speed anyway and everybody is very much the same at full speed, but I think that the start is probably the key.

MIKE GARTNER: I think a fair amount of it is natural but taking natural ability and building a strong technique on that and in order to do that you have to have good teaching when you are young so that you don't build any bad habits and make sure that you skate properly.

MIKE GARTNER: John, actually my kids were at the All-Star game in Montreal where I won the fastest skater there too and I was M.V.P. at the All-Star game, so they were able to watch that and that was a lot of fun for them. I know that they were really rooting for me tonight to go out there and have a good run, so it is a lot of fun sharing it with them.

MIKE GARTNER: I don't know. It is hard to say because we didn't do this competition ten years ago, whether I would have been faster at that time or not, I really don't know. But I probably work out harder now in the summer than I did ten years ago, and that probably has a lot to do with it. Whether that has actually made me faster or not, I couldn't tell you.

MIKE GARTNER: Well, I was and that was the one thing that I could do. I couldn't play hockey too well when I was young but I could always skate faster than anybody else, and I guess that is what eventually got me to where I am. I think that I came into the League just pretty much as up and down winger who could skate and developed into a player and into a goal scorer. So the skating came first and everything else caught up.

MIKE GARTNER: I don't mind it. It is something that -- it is kind of fun. I have always wanted to have a competition where you would have a fastest skater because for a number of years when I was playing, during the '80s, I always thought that I might have been the fastest skater, but there was no way to ever prove it. Now with the competition like this, it is a lot more fun, I think, for the fans and for the players, you get to know if you have a good return, who the fastest skater is.