NHL ENTRY DRAFT

June 23, 2001

William Torrey

WILLIAM TORREY: My thinking was that it was a deal that would work very well for us for a number of reasons. And obviously when you've had a player like Robbie as long as we've had, that was a good deal for him. I just said to Brian Scrudland, "You're getting your son back. " So I think it's a deal that will help Calgary which is my job. But Robbie meant a lot to us. He's an outstanding young man, had some ups and downs here, but he's an outstanding individual and when you can work a deal that gets done for you what you need to get done and works also for him like I think this will, it's a good deal. So we know both players that we're getting. They bring some things here that we think will be of good use to us. And Valeri obviously is an outstanding offensive player, plays very high level, high-speed game. The obvious reference to his brother is to ignore it and say it's not a factor would be foolish. If they can play every game for us like they played in the All-Star Game a couple years ago, this will be a pretty good deal. But obviously he's an exciting player, brings a lot in that regard. I think it will be exciting for our fans to come here. And in Jason's case, I just got off the phone with him. He is one tough kid, comes to play hard and takes no prisoners. And on top of that, we think he's going to score some goals. And so just talking to his former coach, Brian Sutter, he's a little upset because I guess maybe he had some thoughts along some lines himself. So we're very positive about it. Second round pick that we got was for Dopita, who seemed to have an aversion to sun, beaches and sand, so we moved him on.

WILLIAM TORREY: No. I haven't talked to Pavel other than obviously at various times over the years when the media would bring it up, he'd ask me if something was going on and so on, and I honestly told him that over the year I had had some conversations with Craig Button, but no, this is a deal that Duane Sutter, our scouting staff, myself really did our own work, and we just felt that it was the right time and the right move for this franchise.

WILLIAM TORREY: I wouldn't say it was real, real close, David. You know, you never know. I always use this expression, you never know when you have the deal until you see the guy reach for a pen, and I don't think we ever got to that point. But we talked in particularly when I came back as general manager, I talked to Craig a couple of times, saw him at the prospects game and we talked about it then. But really it's come on more of late, and as we made some plans on some other things that we're doing, this, more and more, became a good fit.

WILLIAM TORREY: I think with his big brother buying in to the system by the end of the season, that Duane put out and since he took over as coach, and I don't anticipate any problem here. As I said, I also talked to Duane's older brother, Brian, and not to get all these brothers confused, but he couldn't given this young man a better recommendation, and he said with his brother here he considered his work better. So I'm very comfortable that Valeri will buy in to what we're going to do here.

WILLIAM TORREY: Well, they're both outstanding young men and they're both, in my opinion, going to have outstanding careers in this League. I think the position probably was what tipped the scales more than anything else. With all the things that we are planning on doing, it fit better. Mike is going to be, as you can see by watching him walk up on that stage, he is a man already and he's only going to get bigger and stronger. He's going to be a great player. It was not an easy decision. Steve had a great interview. He's a very impressive young man. On the ice he is smart, and the things he does with a puck, considering his relative youth and experience, is very, very impressive. I saw him in the prospects game, and he played against the best on the other side, and his playoffs were great and he seems to rise to the occasion. So it wasn't easy, but I think we made the right choice and I think Montreal made a good choice.

WILLIAM TORREY: Well, as I say, we think there's things that Wiemer can do. We just had a great conversation with him on the phone. Both Duane and I, and he's really excited about it. We just feel that he can fill a void. Like I said, he comes to play and he can be tough and you know, I made this comment some time ago. The biggest change in this franchise from the early days at the Miami Arena where teams really didn't like playing us in the last year or so here, it's I think teams have enjoyed South Florida just a little too much, and we're going to change that.

WILLIAM TORREY: Well, David, it's an opportunity, this draft and this time of year for us to change our team and, we think, improve it. The fact that it's here, I would have tried to do the same things if it had been in San Jose or Toronto or anywhere else. The fact that we did it here -- and I hope that this has helped to create more interest in our game and make people realize that this is really a great game and worthy of support, and we have new ownership and they're very excited. They're committed to sell this game and put hockey on the map down here, and so it all fits. But the venue didn't have anything to do at 3 or 4:00 this morning when I was trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do today.